Broke Down Biologists, a Paddle with Friends and Some Shopping

Monday October 19, 2015 Jenner CA.

Biologists

I put my boat in the water at Jenner this morning and paddled across to Penny Island where I was sitting in my boat when I saw some biologists from the Sonoma County Water Agency towing their boat towards the boat ramp. They had been out collecting samples of what lives in the bottom of the estuary and on the shorelines when their boat motor died.

Spiny Dogfish Sharks

I wanted to chat with them so I paddled back over to the boat ramp. I was wondering if they’d heard about the spiny dogfish sharks that had been recently found dead in the estuary. They had and were looking for some pictures of them so I directed them to my blog as I have pictures of two of them. I told them what I knew about the sharks as it is the first time any sharks have been seen in the estuary as far as I know.

dogfish shark 1          dogfish shark 2

A third shark was found by the lady that runs Watertreks kayak rentals.

As far as I know, no one has ever seen any sharks in the estuary before.

Friends show up

As I was talking with them and they were trying to get their boat going Ray and his wife Elaine and their daughter Anna backed down the ramp with their kayaks, so I joined them and we headed up the river along the south shoreline.

We paddled along shooting the bull and went under the bridge at highway one, now headed for Willow Creek just up ahead. The wind was starting to pick up a bit.

Willow Creek

We entered the mouth of Willow creek here and paddled on in as far as we could go, about a quarter mile.

Here’s the gang paddling along just about into the creek as far as we could paddle. We sat around taking a break and doing some eating for a bit.

The creek is small, but big huge salmon come into this creek to spawn further up.

As we left the creek the wind had picked up even more. Here we are almost back out to the river.

We crossed over the river to the north shoreline and continued on down the river. Some mallard ducks are up ahead of us and just keeping ahead of us as we went.

We followed these three pairs of mallards quite a ways before they finally veered off to the center of the river.

Turkey vultures

I could see some turkey vultures up ahead just in from the shoreline in the field. Knowing that usually they might be eating something, I checked them out as best I could  but didn’t see what they might be eating. They watched us paddle by.

Across the river from us, the biologists came by headed up the river to take samples. They obviously got their boat going.

Geese

As we continued on down the shoreline, I was watching for birds and ran into these geese and ducks. More geese seem to be coming into the estuary right now. They like the grassy field.

It was fairly windy by now and most boats where off the water. We pulled into this little channel on the upper end of Penny Island where we could get out of the wind and had a bit of a break.

Here’s the gang just before we started on over to the boat ramp and pulled out for the day.

Shopping and talking with ED

My next task for the day was to head to Santa Rosa to get some pipe supplies for the work I was doing at home. On the way, I stopped at Fisch Brothers Drilling to chat with Ed about drilling another well as the first one we drilled last year ran out of water.

I caught Ed in his office and set things in motion for another well. Ed and I are about the same age and are both originally from this area so we have a lot in common. We talked for quite a spell before I continued on to Santa Rosa where I did my shopping for PVC pipe and parts to do my main water line repairs.

I had some more shopping to do, but shopping isn’t my favorite thing, so I just went on home and that was my day.