Tuesday January 27, 2015 Jenner CA.
It was overcast and cool when I got up this morning and drove down to Jenner to kayak for the day. And that’s the way it was at Jenner when I got there too.
I put my boat in the water and paddled across to Penny Island where I sat and tried to make up my mind which way to go today. The water level in the estuary is rather high indicating the river’s mouth might be closed, so I was thinking of going down that way, but instead paddled up to the little channel on the upper end of Penny island to think on it some more.
While sitting there thinking, I could see some guys working on an older house that a guy died in a few months or so ago. It’s one of the older houses in the area, so needs a lot of work. I was pleased to see the guy in the white shirt hauling debrie up the hill instead of throwing it in the river. There’s enough of it in the water already.
We’ll keep an eye on the place to see how it progresses. It has a lot of potential.
I finally made up my mind to go down to the river’s mouth to see what was going on and headed down along the island in this view.
As I approached the down river end of the island a seal popped up rather close to me and which scared the seal and me for a bit. It was hunting fish along the shore. It turned out to be one of my buddies and came over to rest near me as I sat in my boat.
Here it is resting in the water.
I continued on down the river and saw John, the trash picker upper guy outside by his house, so I pulled in to shoot the bull with him for a bit. Since he lives down there, he knows most of the goings on in the area.
As we were talking that same hawk I saw the other day in this tree flew in again and landed. I think it might be a red tailed hawk, ,but still can’t quite make it out.
John was talking my ear off today, but I finally moved on and went past these seagulls taking it easy on the sandy beach.
Down near the mouth, I saw these turkey vultures eating some kind of bird as I passed by.
I stopped just inside the mouth to access what was going on. There wasn’t any current just in front of me today, so maybe the mouth was closed just up ahead, but I couldn’t see that far, so I continued on cautiously.
The river’s mouth is sorta closed type situation
As I approached the area where the river was supposed to run into the ocean, I found the river blocked with this sand dam, so the river is sorta closed. It is low tide right now, so when the high tide comes in, it might go over the sand, but it’s very close. This isn’t a real permanent block, so it could all wash out real soon too. So, it’s a sorta closed situation.
Here, I’m sitting just in front of the sand dam closing the river’s mouth. The sand dam is just barely higher than the river water and it’s low tide.
I checked out that area then headed back up the river passing these harbor seals and seagulls resting on the sandy beach.
There were also some seagulls bathing and preening in the water.
I paddled back up to Penny Island and pulled into this little slot across from the town of Jenner where I took a break for awhile.
With the overcast, it was one of those days where one’s energy is low, so I didn’t have much of a desire to do much.
I did finally paddle up the back island channel and sat in front of this muskrat nest for a bit. This muskrat nest is located the furthest down river, which is just across from the up river end of Penny Island. It’s the pile of sticks back in the trees.
I sat here for a bit with the muskrat nest behind me and that’s the upper end of Penny island with the town of Jenner behind it. The main body of the river is between the island and the town which is hard to make out in this picture.
Eventually, I paddled on across and through the little channel to the other side.
As I headed in for the day, I could see John the trash picker upper doing his thing. I could call John the town beautification engineer, but then you wouldn’t know what I was talking about. He’s one of the main people keeping this area neat and clean.
He says he does it because he has pride in the place he lives. Whatever, thanks John.
I pulled in to the boat ramp and John came down and we shot the bull some more before I was able to get my boat out for the day.
I went on home and it was still overcast, so there wasn’t any energy to do anything but hit the couch for a nap and that’s what I did for another day on the river.
