Wednesday July 10, 2013 Jenner, CA.
We paddled a few miles or so up the river today
Steve wanted to kayak to the great blue heron rookery tree today, so we met at Jenner at eleven this morning and put our boats in the water. There was a light fog coming off the river water, with a low breeze, cool, but not cold, which looked like it was going to be a nice day.
As I was putting in, a couple from Reno asked if they could pick my mind and I gave them permission. Seems they wanted to put their kayak in the water and wanted to know where to go and how, so I told them all I knew in five minutes, well, maybe ten minutes:O) It does help to talk with someone about an area when it’s the first time in that area as you are likely to have a better experience and see more of the good stuff.
Anyway, Steve and I paddled across to Penny Island and on up the river, stopping here and there on the way, working our way along the south shoreline until we got up to the highway 1 bridge where we switched over to the north shoreline and continued on up the river.
There were several mallard female ducks with little duckies along the way, such as this momma with her young.
We continued on up past Seal Haven and up to the little island just above, which I will call Goose nest island.
These shore birds were feeding on the down river side of the island as we approached.
We put ashore on Goose nest island for a bit and walked around for a break.
The gravel had moved around a bit and uncovered this old stuff, which I hadn’t noticed before, maybe because it was buried under the gravel. Inspecting it closer, it looks like a big log sticking out of the ground, with a big rusted chain tied around it. At first I thought it must be some kind of tie up or something, but looking closer, it might be an old boat of some type with rocks for ballast. The rocks at first looked like they where part of the river bottom, but looking closer, I wasn’t sure any more. And the timbers had a couple big steel bolts in them. It’s fun to try and guess what things in the past were.
Here is a closer look at the rusted big chain which is tied around that log sticking out of the water.
We continued on up the river past Markum hole and beyond. The below picture is where I pulled in for a short break, just below the state boat-in or walk-in camp sites, looking up the river where we were headed.
Steve was taking off with his umbrella sail, so I crossed over to the south side of the river, just in front of the camp area. Lots of this weed in the river right now. You can paddle though it, but you have to work a bit harder.
We made it to our destination, the great blue heron rookery tree, which is also in an osprey nesting area. The nesting tree is the fir tree below, which you can see a few nests in if you look close enough. I think there are from ten to twenty nests in this tree. All the birds seem to be gone, likely the young are big enough to go out and feed somewhere. I haven’t seen any young feeding in the Jenner area and don’t know where the young go to feed when they are real young.
We only spent a short time at the tree and started heading on back down the river.
This is the view as we started heading back down the river.
We didn’t go far, before we pulled into the hilly mountain area and put ashore to check out another camping area I knew about.
This is where we put ashore.
It’s a real lush area with no poison oak.
We looked around there for awhile before getting back on the water and heading down the river some more, until we got back down to seal haven, which is what is shown below. They like to lay on these old redwood logs.
Here is one of the ones that greeted us.
And a couple more harbor seals lazily laying on the old redwood logs in the water.
We continued on down the river. The fog was moving in again as we approached the highway 1 bridge, at Bridge Haven.
We paddled down the back side of the island to it’s west end where there where some birds sitting and taking it easy.
Some brown pelicans and some gulls, with some Jenner houses in the background.
I took a short spin down to the mouth. It’s open with lots of seals laying around on the beach.
After that, I headed on in and we took our boats out and I was home about eight PM. Nine hours and a very nice day.