So, I’m been trying to learn more about how to run this blog. Of course, during the process, I was trying out different themes, looking for that better look that would better serve my purposes, when I got locked out, it wouldn’t authorize for a couple days, until I figured out how to put a backup back in place.
One thing I’d like to have is a larger area for the main pic on the page. Right now, the style I’m using crops a picture smaller size than I’d like. I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet. It’s interesting that the Bobcat picture I used, mostly just as a sample fits this blog real good, since it’s bobcat eyes, and this is Bob’s eyes blog, it sorta works, somehow. Too bad the pic is from an older camera so things are a bit washed out, but that fits too. So, for now, I’ll leave it, but I’d still like to make it bigger.
Deciding to blog or not?
After a number of years debating to do this or not, I decided to give it a go as it has some advantages to my purposes. I figured, why not? I can stop if I don’t like it. But I do have a bit to learn, as far as putting my pics up where I want them and how and just how to run my blogging software, Windows Live Writer, which seems to be a very good writer. I hassled myself for a long time thinking I need to blog everyday, but maybe I can’t and finally decided I’ll do what I can do, when I can do it and not worry about everyday too much. Like for instance, this one is the second one in the same day, so what? I’ll do them as I get time and as I have something to say or show.
One of the things that slows me down is getting the pics into the blog. I’m lazy and I don’t seem to like transferring the pics to the computer from the camera, I need to work on simplifying that method, somehow. A lot of the pics are already in the computer, but finding what I want can be a real pain too. Guess I need to organize my pics more. :O)
So, right now, I’m trying to setup some kind of method for how I’d like this format laid out and how to make the writer do it as I want. Text size, this seems a bit small as I write it, but gets bigger in the reader, but maybe I need it bigger? Time will tell and I’ll try to make adjustments to improve these things as I learn how this all works.
Today, I went Kayaking at Jenner, Ca.
Today, I left for Jenner around eleven in the morning. The wind was blowing fairly strong, but that’s ok, just makes it more interesting.
Yesterday, I was down there also, and I ran into some of the biologists that are working on learning how the river works. I had a question about the water elevation gages at the Jenner visitors center. There are three of them down there. Two old tape measurers on posts that you read the water level from and one electronic one inside the center. I’ve been trying to make heads or tails out of these things for a long time as they are used for a reference for the water level of the river, for tides and just winter high water. But something just hasn’t been right and they don’t seem to really relate to anything, especially the tides, as they go in and out of the river. I thought they would have been aligned with the tides, as in elevation, but no. I asked and was told no one knows what they are aligned to, they are just used as a reference which just about all the planning of the lower river is referenced to.
What I have noted is they are about 2.4 feet off. A 5.5 foot tide would read about 2.1 feet. There is another problem in that these measuring devices all only read in the positive and won’t measure water that is less than zero, which because they are off, means they won’t measure the tides below about plus two point four feet. This all seems pretty useless, especially since the biologists are recording the electronic one.
In my opinion, having a gage that tells one what the river level really is, especially in the lower tides would be really helpful in understanding the complex nature in how the rivers mouth is actually letting water in and out of he river. The river mouth moves around on the sand bar, causing it to be wider or narrower and shallower and deeper, causing different things to happen as far as how fast the tides go in and out and how high the level actually is and also, how deep the heavy salt layer is under the fresh water.
One of the things I learned from the biologists is the denser salt water sinks below the fresh water and slides up the river under the fresh waster. This salt water layer goes a ways up the river, depending on how high the tide level is.Some of the salt waster goes in and out with the tides, but some of this water stays in the river, creating an ocean type habitat for salt loving organisms, including fish.
One of the things that bothers me is I know that higher temperature water goes to the top of lower temperature water. I have seen the ocean water which is around fifty one degrees F. dive under the fresh river water which is warmer than the ocean water, we’ll say some where’s in the seventy degree range for the river water. Now what bothers me is I know this temperature stuff, but the biologists say the salt is heavy and makes the ocean water more dense than the fresh river water and also causes the salt ocean water to be under the fresh river water, so we have two things causing the fresh water to be on top of the ocean water. I sorta understnd how both the temp thing and the dense thing work, but I don’t understand how they work together?
The level of the dense salt layer is set by the height of the sand.
One of he things that seems to be less understood is what sets the level of the salt water in the river. Of course the high and low tides have a lot to do with it, but. The sand in the bottom of the river in the mouth where it goes into the ocean seems to have a lot to do with it. When the sand has a deep channel cut into it, more salt water runs out during low tide and the river salt water level will be a lot lower also. But when the sand is high, creating a partial dam to the salt water returning to the ocean, the salt water layer is higher and the salt concentration builds up because high tides continue to dump more salt water into the system. This seems like an important thing as the high tides of the ocean also bring new nutrients into the river system as fresh sea water enters the salt water lake in the river, remember, more can come in, than would go back out because of the partial sand dam in the bottom of the river.
As long as I’m talking about this effect, I guess I should state that high tide ocean water raises over the partial river bed dam bringing in fresh salt water and nutrients and fish and who know what all? When the tide changes, the fresh water returns on the surface and spills into the ocean, but after draining the river down a ways, only the fresh water that floats on top of the salt water goes out, leaving the fresh salt water still in the river, mixing with the salt water that was already in the river. So, we have a system that brings more ocean stuff into the river system than can get back out. This should make for a fairly rich ocean type system inside the river estuary.
If this is indeed how it all works, it seems that closing the mouth of the river for any length of time would not be beneficial to critters and fish living in the estuary, as it would restrict fresh ocean waters entering the river with it’s vest amounts of nutrient type things that work their way into the river from the ocean, which should benefit most everything that feeds in this system.
I have more to say about what I think is going on at the mouth of the Russian River, but I’m getting tired and need to sign out for now.
Sorry to some readers that will find this not so interesting, but I need to put some of this stuff down for scientific reasons. :O)