Kayaking and Walking Around the Russian River Estuary

Tuesday January 21, 2014 Jenner CA.

A little walk on Penny Island

I woke up this morning thinking I should put the new part in my car, but as I got going, I didn’t feel like doing it. I only have a bad missing problem when the engine is cold so I went out and started the car and warmed it up good before I took off and didn’t’ have any problems. Maybe I would put the part in tonight when I got home?

I met Ray down at Jenner around 11 AM and we put our boats in the water and paddled over to Penny Island and sat for a bit deciding to go up or down the river?

The mouth is still closed

The water level was up so the mouth was still closed.The sun was out with a light breeze and you could hear and see the ocean pounding on the sand and rocks down at the river’s mouth area as it was so rough.

As we were sitting there we saw the biologists pull in with their boat to retrieve the data on the stations in this part of the river. I paddled on over to them before they took off at the ramp as I usually can’t catch them and shot the bull with them just a bit. Then, I paddled back over to where Ray was and we decided to head on down the the closed river’s mouth.

Just as we got there, the biologists pulled up at the buoy down there and this is what they looked like.biologists

 

A rough ocean

The ocean appeared to be rougher today, than when I was down here yesterday. More ocean waves were breaking over the sand, but none flowed good enough for any big fish to come in while we were there. We were approaching high tide, but it was only a 4.1 foot one. There is another high tide at night that is about 5.1 feet that had a better chance of really spelling into the river with big fish, but I’m not there at that time, so I have no idea?

Lots of seagulls were on the sand and quite a few harbor seals also . I saw about three sea lions in the estuary also swimming around.

This is my view of the mouth area with a big wave breaking over it from the ocean.mouth

 

You can see the ocean wave breaking over, but it takes more water than this to bring the big fish in. I never saw a real big super wave while we were down there today. There were a lot of big waves, but with the high tide not being so high, most of the waves just didn’t make it over the sand bar.waves

 

We sat around there for over an hour just watching things, then headed over to Penny Island were we checked out the water starting to flood the west end of the Island, but couldn’t get in very far just yet, as the water wasn’t high enough.

This was our view as we headed over to the west end of Penny island.riverview

 

Ray wanted to get out for a walk, so we pulled our boats in on the east end of Penny island and got out and took a little walk on the island.

Here’s Ray as we are going down one of the over grown trails on the island.pennyisland

 

The trail went though some wind blown trees that we had to climb over. Ray is maneuvering over the tree. The trail does give one good exercise as you have to work at it a bit to get around.trail

 

Ray, just as we came back to the west end of the island which I call the tourist end as that is where most of them go.ray

 

Eventually we put our boats back in the water and sat around in the sun in the east end channel until Ray went on home and I stayed there as it was so nice.

Eventually, I was thinking I should get on home so I could put the part in my car so it might run better, so I headed on in for the day.

As I left the channel and headed for the Jenner launch pad, this was my view of Jenner.jenner

 

I checked the water level gauge at he visitor center and it was just under six and a half feet, so it will likely be a few more days before they take the river’s mouth out, maybe Friday?gauge

 

I turned around and took this last shot of the day and pulled my boat out of the water and went on home.sun

 

When I got home I had to wait for my car to cool down before I could work on it, so I had something to eat and a little nap before going out and replacing that car part.

When I take off in the morning tomorrow, when it is real cold, we’ll see if I picked the right part to replace or not?

Nice day at Jenner and I replace that car part too.

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