Wednesday November 18, 2015 Jenner CA.
Waffling fog
There was some fog waffling around Jenner as I pulled my car onto the Jenner boat ramp this morning. The wind was down as I put my boat in the water and paddled across the river to Penny Island where I sat and decided which way to go today.
I decided to go down to the closed river’s mouth to see what was going on, so I headed down along the Island’s north shore. The fog mostly cleared out while I was paddling along.
I stopped at this spot just in front of me on the lower end of Penny Island and sat for awhile, just looking.
Feeding buffleheads
I could see this flock of bufflehead ducks fishing away in front of me. They would swim along in this line and dive for whatever they were eating. I couldn’t tell what it was they were eating, but they would dive down for maybe thirty seconds and then reappear on the surface again.
Lots of birds
From that spot I could see a lot of bird action down by the closed river’s mouth area and some fog waffling around still.
I headed down to the closed river’s mouth area and sat here for a bit watching things. Some big waves would occasionally break on the jetty rocks. There were mostly seagulls with a few brown pelicans resting on the beach and some in the water too.
The birds were thick as you can see. The brown pelicans were bathing and preening.
Headed to the end of the river
I was headed down to the end of the river when I went by this resting great blue heron.
I continued to the end of the river and sat in this spot for a bit watching the fog waffle in and out, mostly out.
Resting seals
With the river’s mouth closed, most of the harbor seals were out in the ocean and only a few of them were in the estuary resting across from were I was sitting.
Undecided where to go
Eventually, I paddled up the island back channel. The wind was picking up some. It was a cool wind blowing in off the ocean. I paddled into the little channel on the upper end of Penny Island where I sat for awhile deciding where to go next. I started off up the river about a hundred yards when I decided it was too cool, so I returned to this spot in the little channel where I just sat and watched and did some day dreaming too.
There was a coot feeding in the bunch of grass to the right and a couple seagulls feeding on dead little crabs they were finding in the grasses.
Here’s the two seagulls that were feeding right in front of me on little dead crabs.
What scared the coot
I was sorta day dreaming when I heard the seagulls fly off. Not long after that, the coot took off in a hurry, so something was up, so I opened my eyes and scanned the area where the coot had been.
Otters
The coot left in a hurry to avoid being eaten by the otters who had surfaced by where the coot had been. The otters saw me and headed out into the center of the river diving for fish as they went.
With the wind up, I decided not to try to follow the otters and watched as they disappeared on up the river.
New roof
Eventually, I headed on in for the day. The state park maintenance guys were working on the new roof for the Jenner visitor center. They are getting there, not too much more to do on the roof.
Biologists
I saw these biologist types taking their boat out on the boat ramp, so I held back a bit as I could see they were going to be on the boat ramp for awhile. One of them put his air tank on and did a short dive for some reason off the boat ramp as I watched.
I stayed out in the water to give them some more time to get it going off the ramp, but they seemed to have a lot to do, so eventually, I pulled onto the boat ramp too, as I could see they were almost ready to leave.
Pulling out for the year
It turned out to be David from the Bodega Marine labs. He introduced me to Greg also from the marine lab. They were pulling all their data gathering equipment out for the year. David showed me all the data collecting stuff they had pulled out of the river and explained each devices purpose.
They cleared the ramp and I backed my car in and loaded my boat and went on home for he day.
Cool at home
It was cool and getting close to dark when I got home, so I stayed in the house and didn’t get much of anything done for the rest of the day.
That was my day.