The Coldest Day Ever Kayaking Around Jenner Today

Thursday December 2, 2016 Jenner CA.

I was surprised how cold it was today

I arrived at Jenner this morning around 11 AM. I saw Steve out there by Penny Island as I was putting my boat in the water.

It appeared like it was going to be a nice day, but I was wrong.

I joined Steve by Penny Island and we started paddling on up the river.

Cold, cold, cold

There was a slight wind coming off the ocean, about five miles an hour and it was cold. The coldest I think I’ve ever been down here at Jenner. Not freezing, but just penetrating cold.

We worked our way up the river looking for a place to get a bit warmer, but there was none.

We stopped here at the old redwood log graveyard which had some sun, but it was still cold. Some fog was trying to come in.

We paddled a little further up the river along it’s edge and I said to Steve, let’s cross over to Paddy’s rock and see if we can get behind it and out of the wind. It was just a tiny bit better, but still cold and the fog was trying to push in or maybe out?

We could see these ducks and the egret by the shoreline behind the rock. And there was also this white thing on the shore behind them in the grass which I thought we should check out as I’ve seen it before and thought it  might be a good five gallon propane tank of the newer type.

We pulled ashore and Steve put on another shirt he had. I had all my stuff on already.

Gas bottle is no good

We walked on over to check the gas bottle out. It was a newer type, but was left open, so wasn’t much good for anything. Steve’s all bundled up and we were still cold.

We left the bottle there for the trash picker uppers to retrieve as it wasn’t an easy thing to carry on our kayaks. As we were walking back to our boats, it seemed like it was a little warmer.

I’m leaving if it stays this cold

I told Steve that if it was this cold as we passed the boat ramp, I was going to pull out and he agreed he would too.

But things changed a bit

And as we put our boats in the water the wind died down which made things a lot better.

See, no wind as we headed on down the river and most of the fog had moved out too.

We took the island back channel and went past this egret fishing and getting some tiny fish a couple inches long.

These two birds were fishing on the bottom end of Penny Island and also doing fairly well catching whatever the tiny fish were. You can see the fog out on the ocean.

We head down to the river’s mouth area

We were headed down to the river’s mouth area paddling along here.

We could see the river’s mouth was open real wide and deep. There were a bunch of birds and harbor seals resting on the beach, mostly on the left side of the open mouth.

We crept as close as we could get to the open mouth without spooking the seals. It was low tide, but there wasn’t’ much outgoing current as the ocean was too rough and was pushing water back into the river from the ocean.

Some big waves were coming in and making a lot of noise as they crashed into the beaches and rocks.

We did see one sea lion fishing, but it must have been full of fish as it wasn’t fishing in it’s normal fast mode.

A slight breeze picked up and it was a bit on the cooler side as we headed back to the boat ramp.

There were a bunch of ducks in front of the boat ramp as we paddled on in. Mostly buffle heads and coots and maybe some golden eyes mixed in there too.

We pulled our boats out and went on home.

Warmed up at home

At home, I got some more firewood in and stoked up the fire and made a cup of coffee to warm up a bit.

I think that was the coolest day I’ve ever spent kayaking down at Jenner. It usually just doesn’t get that cold down there.

That was my day.