Friday April 4, 2014 Jenner CA.
The sun shined a bit too
Just as the weather man said, it was raining when I got up this morning. But it was supposed to taper off around noon, so I headed on down to Jenner. It rained heavy all the way down there and was raining in Jenner when I got there.
Overlook at the end of the river
So, it seemed like a good time to drive to the overlook on highway one, just past Jenner on the way north.
The rain let up for a bit and I took this photo of the river entering the ocean at it’s mouth. Goat rock on the left. It’s low tide and the river water is fairly muddy from the recent rains. And no, muddy water is not bad, but good for the fish as it’s hard for things to catch them and eat them. When the water is muddy, that’s good for the fish.
Just to the right of the above picture is the end of the river and it looks like this right now. Note, all that sand you see has washed over the sandy beach by the ocean in the form of big waves that carry the sand with them and wash it back into the river. I’ve seen it fill this whole area up with sand. It will eventually wash it all out again, but not until the river water flows hard enough, which will likely not happen again until next winter. The sand moves mostly when the ocean gets real rough, which it does a lot around here.
Looks like it’s ok to kayak
Ok the rain had stopped by now so I went on back to the visitor center and put my boat in the water. Should I put my rain pants on or not. If not, it will likely rain a lot, so I opted to put them on and then the sun should shine,……………….. right?
I paddled across the river and on up past the east end of Penny Island where the sun was shining a bit, but, then a rain shower came in and it kept at it all the way up the river.
Here, it’s raining lightly although hard to see as I head on up the river at a leisurely pace.
No over hanging trees today
I usually look for a tree overhanging the river to wait out a shower, but it was low tide, so the water was down and had pulled away from all the trees, so no luck with that. I kept looking anyway.
Here I am just going by the eagle’s landing area, see how far the water is down from the shoreline? I kept moving on past this and on up the river.
Is that goose still on the rock
I looked over across the river as I headed up to see if the goose was still on Paddy’s rock, but couldn’t see it.
I continued on up the river to dead deer gulch before turning around and heading back down the river. The rain finally stopped for awhile and the sun came out a bit.
I paddled over to Paddy’s rock to check for sure if the goose was on the rock or not.
Can you see it on the Paddy’s rock? It’s not easy to see.
I think it must be sitting on some eggs as it’s been there for almost a week now?
There was another goose on the shore near the one on the rock and it was making a bunch of noise honking, maybe the mate?
Where is that pack rat nest
From there I paddled back across the river and was looking for the new pack rat nest I spotter the other day, as I’m not so sure it’s a pack rat nest now, as it’s built almost on the water, where I’ve never seen a pack rat nest built before. So, I’m thinking it might be something else, like, maybe a muskrat?
However, I couldn’t quite remember where it was and backed up to look for it, then, something must have distracted me, as I forgot about it. :O) I’ll find it eventually.
I found myself headed down the river, where I passed by this mallard pair on otter’s log. They both have an eye on me.
The sun was still out, interesting enough, just over the river and cloudy everywhere else, so I headed on down the back channel of Penny Island and headed for the river’s mouth. The wind was down too, which made it even nicer.
Near the west end of Penny Island I saw a couple killdeer feeding along the water’s edge.
The river’s mouth is open wide and deep
I continued on down to the river’s mouth. It was open wide and waves where coming into the river, making the water go up and down a lot. After looking through my camera for a while, I start to get motion sick, so I took some pics and had to get out of there. I didn’t last long.
Looking out the river’s mouth today, into the Pacific ocean. Some cormorants, seals and seagulls on the beach on the right. The ocean is real rough right now too.
These were the harbor seals that were on the left sandy beach. They should start pupping soon, if they aren’t already.
Like I said, I had to get out of there fairly soon as I was getting not to feel so good, so I headed back. As I did, the showers started again. Big huge cold drops of rain.
It stopped as I approached the take out area and John was picking up trash in the parking lot. He came down and started talking with me while I was getting my boat out, and the big rain drops started again. I said, bye John and went on home.
Even with the showers, I was dressed right and stayed warm and dry for a real nice day.