Friday December 6, 2013 Jenner CA.
Showers, but I have my rain gear on
The weather guy said there would be some showers and rain coming in late this afternoon, so I put my rain gear on and was down at Jenner around eleven AM. Hummmm, no one else here. Great.
I paddled across the river to Penny Island and went ashore on the east end for a bit. Just walked around a bit and then got back in my boat and headed up the river.
This is where I went to shore on Penny Island.
There have been some harbor seals hanging around on the stumps near the east end of Penny Island for the last couple of weeks.
I passed by this one as I was heading for the south shore of the river from Penny Island.
I was slowly working my way up the south side of the river, watching for seals hunting big fish. They seem to be hunting rather casually, about six of them in the water around where I was, but didn’t see them catch anything big.
When I got up to the Otter’s log area, I was thinking it would be a good idea to find an access point down here to the Poison Oak Alley Trail I was checking out a few days ago. Most of the river banks are steep in this area so there were only a couple of spots I could get to shore without getting wet.
This is the spot I found to get to the shore. Poison Oak Alley trail is just in the bushes about ten feet from here. A bit muddy here also, but not much else to choose from.
Interesting, there is an old fence post right at this spot. The kayak is just in back of this post and I’m on Poison Oak Alley trail taking the picture.
Ok, good access point, I got back in my boat and headed up the river to Eagle’s landing where I sat for a bit watching for seals catching big fish. There were some seals in the water, but no action.
Rained on
I slowly drifted up river a bit further and it started to sprinkle on me.
That was the signal to find some tree cover and wait it out, if I could, so I headed to the edge of the river and pulled in under a small fir tree. I figured I had about a half hour under it until big cold rain drops started to full from the tree and I would want to leave. It was nice and dry under there and the showers picked up a bit and I thought they might not stop.
No real problem though as I had my rain gear on anyway, I was just trying to stay more comfortable by staying dry.
This is the spot I got under to watch the rain showers and Paddy’s rock is just across the river and in front of me, if you can see it?
After about twenty minutes or so, the showers slowed down to real light showery mist.
A big seal wake caught my eye across the river by Paddy’s rock. A big fish will go into the shallows to try to lose a seal that is chasing it. The big fish can kick up quite a bit of water doing this and when the seal tries to close on the fish in the real shallow water, it kicks up even more water.
I watched this action across the river twice and started to head over that way. By the time I got over there, the action had stopped. I think the fish got away this time.
Now, I was out in the open in a very light shower, so I started on my way down the river, headed for the river’s mouth area.
The showers stopped
About the time I was approaching the east end of Penny Island the showers stopped and the water was almost flat.
This is the view I had as the showers stopped, looking towards Jenner.
This is the view looking down towards the river’s mouth area from near the west end of Penny Island. 
There were a lot of seagulls sitting on the water as I approached the river’s mouth area.
‘The river’s mouth blew wide open last night
The river’s mouth blew out sometime last night after they breached it yesterday and is now wide open.
This is my view out from the river to the ocean looking out the river’s mouth. There were some seals hunting in the area, but I didn’t see them get anything while I was there.
Most of the harbor seals were beached on the sand, near the mouth area.
When it started to shower earlier, it warmed up and bit, but when the showers stopped, a cold chill moved into the area, so I didn’t stay down at the mouth area too long before I headed back in for the day, around 3:30PM.
I went on home and got the heat going and it was nap time.
Had a good day kayaking Jenner.
