Winter Rains Have Opened Up the Russian River’s Mouth Wide

Tuesday March 15, 2016 Jenner CA.

You can’t always do what you want

Today I wanted to go kayaking. I checked the weather, no rain, but there would be about ten miles an hour wind. Doable.

I checked the Russian River flow. 28 feet high and  22,000 cubic feet per second. Lots of water.

I checked the tides. Darn, No high tides in the day which meant the water would be flowing very fast in the estuary as with low tide there was nothing to slow it down.

Chicken soup

So I took a nap until I heard a knock at the door. It was Dominique with  some chicken soup with fresh vegetables from the garden. We chatted, then I ate the soup which was very good and hit the spot, then I decided to go on down to Jenner and have a look and maybe put in my boat.

Headed for the overlook

As I pulled into Jenner I noticed two things right away. The wind was up some and the river’s current was fairly fast as it was still low tide, so it didn’t really look too inviting and I was feeling a bit tired like I needed a nap, so I drove on through the town of Jenner to the overlook at the river’s mouth to have a look.

The river’s mouth was wide open and has moved to the north some. The water is muddy from the recent rains and it’s pushed all that sand into the river’s end, which is the section to the right.

The river’s moved all that sand into this spot at the end of the river. If the river was to rise even higher, it might wash all this sand out into the ocean.

This is looking up the river to the lower end of Penny Island from the overlook.

I could see the harbor seals resting on the beach across the river. That’s Goat Rock there to the right.

No fishing going on in the muddy river

Lots of harbor seals. Not much fishing going on in the Russian River as the water is too muddy right now. Also, notice the current in the water. There’s some seagulls there doing something too.

You just can’t nap anywhere

While I was standing there watching and taking some pictures, I was thinking I could sure use a nap. I was wishing I had my sleeping pad and pillow in the back of my station wagon as it would be real comfy right now.

All this made me think about napping. If I was out in the woods or in the desert by myself, I could just lay down anywhere and have a peaceful nap. But if I tried that here with people around, it wouldn’t be long until someone would ask if I was ok or needed help.

With the river’s fast current and the wind I decided to head on home for a nap and later that day I put the sleeping pad and pillow in my wagon as I couldn’t see any reason not too. :O)

Tom and I consult on the golf cart problem

Later in the day I talked with Tom about his golf cart problem to get some more facts about how it fails. It sounds like a problem the machine had before the last problem we fixed showed up. And right now, it sounds like it might be an intermittent forward reverse switch, which is intermittent in forward. We left it at that for now as he can try cycling the forward reverse switch next time the cart fails to see what effect if might have on the problem.

By this time the day was cooling down as Tom left to close up his chickens and I went in the house for the day and that was about it.