I Watched the River Mouth Close Today

Friday, June 7, 2013, Jenner, CA.

The ocean was real rough and pushing sand into the river’s mouth

I was going to yak at Monte Rio today, but I got a call from Steve just before I left and he said he was going to Jenner to yak, so I changed my plans to Jenner. Shortly after I arrived at Jenner, Raymond showed up, so we had a gang of us.

There was a little fog, but it was warm with just a light breeze when we put our boats in the water.

We paddled across to the island where we sat for a bit. I asked, which way, up or down. Raymond said down to the river’s mouth, before any wind has a chance to come up. I said, OK, let’s go.

You could hear the ocean beating against the beach as the waves came in. The ocean was real rough, but the river was real calm.

Rough ocean with big waves is what picks up the sand and brings it into the river’s mouth to damn it up.

It was high tide when we got to the river’s mouth and the waves where bringing in huge amounts of sand. As we watched it built the damn up in the mouth and blocked the rivers flow, so now the river’s mouth is closed for awhile.

Since it  was high tide, quite a bit of sea water was being washed over the sand damn and bringing in a lot of foam off the ocean. The foam is a good place to sit as it pretty much stays where it is so one doesn’t get blown around a lot.

Below is were we sat for awhile just inside the river’s mouth, watching the mouth close with sand.

foam

 

The ocean was real rough. As it hits the jetty, the spay flies.

rough

 

I’m not sure you can see it, but from the right, the sand damn has built up from the sand deposited from the waves and is now completely closing the river’s mouth. Only the high part of high tide can get in now and can’t get back out.

mouthclosed

 

While we were there a lot of the harbor seals where trying to get back out to the ocean over the new sand damn.  They don’t travel real fast on sand and the waves were big enough, so they would go a ways and then the big waves washed them back again, but they all finally made it.

sealsmouth

 

We stayed down there an hour or so just enjoying the day. Later we headed back up the river. Ray and I took the back side of Penny Island and Steve took the other side and went back to the car and got his umbrella He said he’d meet us at the east end of the island. Below he is using his umbrella to sail in the wind.

steve

 

We met up on the east end of Penny Island and went ashore for awhile. Of course I had to go hunt up some black berries to eat while there. Below is where we all pulled ashore on the island looking back up the river.

shoreboats

 

From the island we headed up the river. Ray departed and went on home and Steve and I took our time paddling up to the highway one bridge, were we sat for awhile before heading back down the river. Around 5:30 PM, I decided to head on home to get something to eat. I left Steve heading back down the back side of the island, while I headed on home for the day.

Another nice day.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.