Sleeping Sea Lions Kayaking Jenner

Friday January 17, 2014 Jenner CA.

And the wind died down

I decided to kayak Jenner today. My back is doing pretty good after that hike down the slide. It must of needed some real exercise and it sure got it. But my legs are real sore from all that sliding down the hill the other day.

I arrived at Jenner just about eleven AM and put my boat in the water. The sun was out, but there was about a fifteen or twenty mile an hour wind blowing down river. And the water level indicated the mouth was still closed.

I paddled over to Penny Island and spent a little time in the channel on the east end which is out of the wind, while I decided which way to go today.

Up river won out so I headed on up in the direction of Eagle’s landing.

This is what the river looked like as I left the Penny Island area. The wind is up a bit at this time, but it’s not too cold.

I got to eagle’s landing and continued on up the river half way to the bridge on highway one.

The wind died down.

This is where I spent some time sitting in my yak below the bridge. The water calmed down and it got real nice.

Landed on Penny Island

I got bored hanging around there after awhile, so I headed back down the river and landed on the east end of Penny Island. Note the nice flat water. I had to take a sweater off here.

I walked around the touristy part of the island a bit. Here is what I think was an old animal barn and work shop on Penny Island. Not much left of it.

After the walk on the island I returned to my boat. There is a nice little grassy place there were I laid down for a bit and before I knew it, I had been there for over an hour, sorta napping. :O)

From there I paddled down the back island channel to the west end of he island.

I’m just coming out of the channel in the picture below, headed toward the river’s mouth.

I saw John, who lives near the mouth sweeping off his poach, so I headed over to his house and shot the bull with him for quite awhile, then headed over to the river’s mouth area.

Snoring sea lions

There were some seals in the water and some sea lions too.The sea lions seemed to be sleeping in the water. They presented an interesting picture today, with their flippers high in the air. Here’s a couple of them.

The Loc Ness Monster

Ha, this was interesting. Now I know what scared the heck out of me several years ago while I was sitting in my boat in about three feet of water on the west end of Penny Island.

It was real foggy and I didn’t know at the time that fog can magnify things on the water a great deal.

While sitting there half asleep, all of a sudden I saw a huge fin looking thing in the water six or eight feet high not too far in front of me. I did some back paddling to put me into more shallower water just in case. The Loc Ness Monster is what I was thinking. The mouth was closed at the time and I didn’t think anything that large could of gotten into the river. It disappeared and I’ve never seen it again. But I did learn about the fog magnifying things later and decided that had to be it, but what was it?

Now, after seeing this, I think what I saw was either the flipper of a seal or a sea lion.

After hanging around the mouth area for a good bit I started back in for the day.

This is my view of Jenner as I headed back to the Jenner take out.

The water level is rising

I checked the water level gauge at the visitor center. Almost 5.5 feet. Monday it was about four feet, so it’s coming up around four or five inches a day. That may or may not continue at that level as the water level rises, more of it can go out though the sandy beach at the mouth. I’ve seen it stop rising at seven feet before, just because the river got high enough to past all the water coming down river though the sand.