Tuesday November 27, 2013 Jenner CA.
It seems the river’s mouth closed last night or yesterday
As I approached Jenner this morning, I could see the water level of the river was a bit higher. It looked like the river’s mouth might have closed again.
I drove on past Jenner to the highway one river’s mouth overlook and took this picture of the closed river mouth.
That confirmed, I drove back to the Jenner visitor center and put my boat in the water and headed across to Penny Island and into the little channel on the east end were I took my first break of the day.
After awhile I headed on over to the south side of the river and started up, headed for Eagle’s landing.
These three seals watched me go by.
I continued on up the river and stopped at Otter’s log for a bit then continued on to Eagle’s landing and on past that, almost to the highway one bridge. I sat around at several spots on the way.
Eventually I turned back down the river, crossing over to Paddy’s rock and down the north shore for a ways before crossing back over to the south shore and started to go down the back channel of the island.
I spotted these Turkey Vultures eating something on the east end of the island where the little channel crosses over.
Looking closer, the vultures seemed to be eating one of the many coots that were now in the area.
Instead of going down the back channel, I crossed over in the little channel on the east end of the island and was going down the north side of Penny Island when I decided to pull into shore and go for a little walk on the island about midway.
A walk on Penny Island
This is where I pulled my boat to shore on Penny Island to go for a little hike.
Penny Island has some secret trails
The trails aren’t really secret, but if you don’t know where they are, they might as well be as they are mostly over grown with brush and bushes and not very easy to follow. I’d say the trails are more of a maze. None of the trails are continuous. They start and stop and split and are mostly hidden, so it is slow going no matter what. I know where some of them are, but am still in the process of discovering more of them.
This is a little piece of one of the trails on Penny Island going though some trees.
I had a good walk and got some berry thorns in my hand for the effort. I didn’t see any animals on the island, but there are deer, bobcats, coyote and gofers and mice and likely some more critters that I haven’t seen yet.
After that, I got back in my boat and headed down to the west end of island were I watched for awhile before continuing on down the the closed river’s mouth area.
There were a lot of seagulls in the water today. I went past some of them. They appeared to be resting and taking fresh water baths.
Continuing on down to the river’s mouth, I paddled right up to the closed mouth.
Looks like rough seas have pushed sand up into the mouth and closed it with sand.
Here is the sand dam, with some seals on it. The one seal on the right is looking out to the waves from the Pacific ocean that were beating up on the beach. Nice and calm in the river.
I like to sit around the mouth area and watch for critters. I watched these two ladies fabricating some kind of art project. They were intense, working away. Amazing the things people can move when they put their mind to it. I left them to it and headed back up the river.
I spied some more turkey vultures along the shore. What were they doing?
Here is one of them.
Oh, just getting a little drink of water. I guess flying around way up in the sky might make one a bit on the thirsty side.
I leisurely made my way on back to the launch ramp, taking my time and thinking maybe I’ll stick around for sunset, but in the end, I took this last picture and went on home and didn’t wait for the sun to set.
I was off the water around four PM and went on home were a nap was in order.
Another nice day kayaking Jenner.
