Saturday January 11, 2014 Jenner CA.
The Russian River mouth is closed again
I woke up to rain drops a fallen on my sky light which was nice as we haven’t had much rain so far this year. It was just a light rain and as I got up it continued.
I checked with the weather guy and he said it should clear off by evening, so I took a chance and headed for Jenner, hoping there might not be showers down there.
The rain showers were just a light rain as I approached Jenner, just a little more than a mist. I decided to go down and check the river’s mouth as yesterday, I thought it might be closed, but it was so foggy I couldn’t tell. I guessed it was open yesterday, but I think I might have been wrong as today it is closed for sure.
So, I drove down to the highway one overlook of the mouth area.
This is a picture of the closed river mouth. Note the river in the foreground is nice and clam where I stay and the ocean in the back is not so nice and calm, where I stay out of. :O)
The river mouth was closed by a rough ocean pilling the sand up as it swept in with big waves. And with water conservation in place there is only about 106 cubic feet per second coming down the river right now, not much water.
Get the boat in the water
I had my rain gear on, so I put my boat in the water. No one else seemed to be in the water today for some reason?
I paddled across to the east end of Penny Island in a real light rain. At least the wind was down and it wasn’t too cold either.
This is what it looked like looking back to the town of Jenner.
I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go today, but finally decided to work my way on down to the river’s mouth, so I paddled down the north side of Penny Island to the west end, where I shot this picture, looking down towards the river mouth area. Penny island grasses on the left, that’s the most western end of the island.
Rains letting up, nice
The rain was letting up just as I approached the west end of Penny island which was nice.
There were a lot of harbor seals in the water as I left the end of the island. Most of them seemed to be sleeping. They can sleep under water. They come up for air every once in awhile with their eyes closed, get air and sink back down and sleep. That’s what some of them where doing in this area. They didn’t seem to be fishing.
Ducks, in the water and out
As I was heading down to the mouth, I passed this bunch of ducks. They seemed to be male mallards and male mergansers together for some reason?
And I was thinking that these people were also a bunch of ducks for being down here in the rain.
Yes, the rivers mouth is closed up
As I pulled into the river’s mouth area, this was my view. Lot’s of seagulls and the ocean was rough.
Most of the seagulls just in front of the mouth area that were in the water seemed to be bathing in the fresh water.
Over on the right side there were a bunch of harbor seals beached and a whole lot of seagulls too.
Noisy sea lions, always barking
There were at least several of these sea lions swimming around, barking a lot too. They seemed to like to go by the seals on the beach barking right up close to them, trying to intimidate them, it seemed.
Eventually, I started working my way back up the river. I went up the back side channel of Penny Island to the east end and this was my view of Jenner from there as I sat for a bit.
I sat right here in my boat, just in front of the Penny Island milk barn.
And then headed on in for the day. I needed a nap and went on home where I got one.
A bit of rain, but a nice day, just the same.