Sunday February 16, 2014 Jenner CA.
Something I wasn’t expecting
As I approached Jenner this morning it was looking real nice. The sun was out with a light wind, so I put my kayak in the water and headed across the river towards Penny Island.
I heard a big splash behind me, so I turned around and looked to see what was making all the noise. Some Sea Lions where hunting along the shore line.
Picture of hunting Sea Lions. I didn’t see them catch anything, but they were on the hunt, that’s why they are in the river estuary.
Harbor seals
I crossed over to Penny Island and started to head up river. This was my view as I went. See those harbor seals on the log? Some times they are hard to see as they imitate the log as they lay on it.
See, three harbor seals laying on that log.
I slowly made my way up to Eagle’s Landing where I sat for a bit watching. Eventually I paddled across the river to Paddy’s rock where I sat for awhile.
Cormorants
These cormorants were sitting on the gravel next to the rock. Lots of Merganser and Mallard ducks where mixed in with them. I counted only about thirty cormorants in this bunch today, but there were a lot of cormorants swimming in the water in this area and likely even more up the river?
Cormorants taking it easy on some gravel. A lot of birds feed in the morning and then roost the rest of the day digesting things.
The wind was picking up as I headed back down the river. I passed these two harbor seals just to the east of Penny Island. The one with the open mouth seems to be signaling a seal that is just out of the picture.
And a ruffled hawk
As I was approaching the east end of Penny Island I saw something move in a pile of dead trees. A hawk was eating something and then it jumped up onto another branch and I got this picture of it. For some reason it was real raffled up? So, I guess it must be a ruffled hawk? :O)
It moved to a higher perch before taking off.
The ocean was rough and the wind picked up
I continued on my way down toward the river’s mouth, where the wind had picked up quite a bit and since the river’s mouth was so wide open and deep, waves were blowing in from the ocean. The ocean was at high tide and real rough, making the river inside the mouth very much like the ocean, but not quite or I wouldn’t have gone down there.
View looking down towards the river’s mouth, with lots of seagulls in the area.
I spotted Ken riding the waves just inside the river’s mouth. He’s dressed for it and knows what he is doing, so I sat back and watched him for a bit.
He eventually saw me sitting a ways behind him and came over and we talked for a bit. Then he went back out there and I took a couple more photos.
I was losing it looking though my camera, starting to get seasick fast, so I headed back in as fast as I could go, but only ran into some bigger cross waves and I thought I was really going to lose it and I was starting to feel real bad. I fought it off as best I could and really poured on the paddling hoping to distract myself for a bit and finally made it to some water that was a little less chopped up. The damage was done though as now I felt like hell.
I worked my way slowly back to the launch area along the shore line trying to stay in as calm of water as I could.
I passed close by these cormorants, with a couple seagulls taking it easy on a rock.
Needless to say, I was glad to get to the boat ramp and get out of the water, so I might start to feel better. I felt a little better, but still don’t really feel too good even now.
When I got home, I knew I needed to transplant one more apricot tree so I didn’t waste any time getting that done.
Then I loaded a few more things into my van for my upcoming trip which ate up all my day light so that was it for the day.
I had a nice time kayaking until the motion sickness overtook me, then yuck. :O)