Sunday September 1 2013 Jenner CA.
I needed to wait until evening to go down to Kayak Jenner today, as I wanted to check out the lumens again. I hung around the house all day. A friend, Marty came by for a visit just before noon and then I just puttered around the yard for the rest of the day.
Around Five PM I headed down to Jenner, where I met Steve to go yakking. I wasn’t sure he’d go again tonight, but the getting disorientated in the fog didn’t bother him too much from last night. Beating things like that is just a matter of going enough so you get used to it.
On the way down as I approached Monte Rio, the fog was blowing in big time. But to my surprise as I approached the Jenner area, there was no fog and the sun was out and shinning away. Great.
Steve was already in the water when I got there, out shooting the bull with another guy in a kayak, just in front of the visitor center put in. I paddled on across to the island and backed in and watched for a bit until he joined me with the guy he was talking to. The guy had a place in Jenner. We shot the bull for a bit then Steve and I headed on up the river toward Eagle’s landing.
A seagull and a cormorant were sitting on an old redwood stump as we passed the east end of Penny Island.
There are a couple of horses on the hill across from Eagle’s landing. They were out in the sun feeding.
We spent a lot of time just taking it easy, waiting for the sun to start it’s final descent for the day. This is our view looking back at Jenner just as the sun was starting down.
We paddled down the back channel of Penny Island, stopping in the slot near the west end.
Our view from there as the suns going down.
Another one of the sun descending.
I turned and looked up river and was surprised to see the clouds all red as the sun went on down.
From there we worked our way on down to the river’s mouth, were we waited some more for the dark.
This is the view west toward the ocean, with lots of sea birds on the sandy beach.
One more of the birds flying around over the mouth of the river.
I find it hard to wait until it gets dark, but it finally did as we headed over to the backside channel of Penny Island.
High tide was at 8:45 PM at 5.5 feet. The river’s mouth was wide open and deep, so the ocean water came in fast pushing the river’s fresh water back up the river, instead of diving under it as it does when the mouth isn’t open so wide and deep. No moon and clear, stars were showing.
We ran into some lumens just as we went up the back side, but not too much as there was a lot of fresh water trapped on the surface. We paddled on up the back channel and on up the south side of the river past the east end of Penny Island. I was surprised at all the fresh river water in the area, we didn’t see many lumen’s until we got almost up to Eagle’s landing. And there were almost no fish seen in the lumen’s either.
We then crossed over the river to the north side and headed on down that side. There were thick lumens in that area as there was lots of salt water and we began to pick up lots of fish darting away from us glowing as they did.
We worked our way on down the river to the Visitor’s center. There were lots of lumens and lots of fish all the way down. There seems to be more fish present at later high tides than earlier high tides that happen in the light of day. Maybe they just come out more in the dark like a lot of the shore animals do?
We were off the river around ten PM.
Great night to watch for lumen’s.