Tuesday, Apr. 30, 2013, Jenner, CA.

I almost didn’t go kayaking today, but I’m glad I did

When I awoke this morning, I was somewhat motivated to finish fixing the carburetor on my little four wheeler.

Let’s get that carburetor done.

A cup of coffee and I was out front taking the carburetor off the machine, which was fairly easy since I had done most of the work in getting to it the day before. I disassembled the thing and looked for the standard problems. There was only a little dirt in it, which I didn’t think would cause the type of problem it had. I blew it all out and carefully put it back together. While installing it in the machine I was putting an air vent hose in place when on a whim, I decided to blow though it to check to see it it was clogged. To my surprise, it was and maybe that would fix the problem and I almost missed it. It wasn’t really too hard to put back together, you just have to be patient and put all the parts back on in order, of course.

And the new battery installed.

Now that I had the carb back on, I filled the new battery with acid and installed that. Now for the test. Crank, crank, it has an electric start, but it still took a long time and finally fired up and ran like a top, or better. :O)

A test ride is always fun.

A little nap rest and then it was time for a test ride, but first I had to put some green slime in one of the tires that was low and had a slow leak. That accomplished and I headed across the road to our family property and took a ride up in the redwoods for about an hour

I had a nice ride and the machine ran very nicely, so I pronounced it fixed. :O)

Now what, Jenner, or what?

The afternoon was wearing on. I looked at the weather at Jenner and it said it was a little on the windy side, but warm. Hummmmmmmmmmmmm. Do I want to go? Maybe an evening paddle would be good as the tide was high enough so I wouldn’t have to deal with any low tide mud. That darn wind report though?

Well, I got something to eat and napped a little and couldn’t decide to go or not? Oh well, let’s go, I can deal with any wind.

I think I was on the water around six pm, or so. Wind, what wind. The weather guy was wrong again. Good. :O) Just a little warm breeze and the sun was out too. And, of course, no one else was on the water at this time.

I paddled across to Penny Island and headed slowly down toward the river’s mouth.

The river was almost flat, but the ocean was real rough and making a lot of noise as the waves beat on the beaches.

Below, is the view I had of the river’s mouth as I passed by in my yak.

While paddling, I saw this sun reflection in the water so took a shot of it.

Below is a view of the suns reflection in the water.

I paddled down past the river’s mouth into the little cove at the end of the river where I stayed for an hour or so, just watching what’s going on.

Always lots of harbor seals around.

Below are some of the harbor seals beached in front of me.

Do harbor seals smile?

These harbor seals are fat and lazy looking. Ever notice how these harbor seals seem to have a big smile on their faces?

Below are the seals with the big smiles.

The sun was getting fairly low in the sky, so I headed back to just under the River’s End Restaurant for awhile.

Below the sun is getting low in the sky.

I spied a Great Blue Heron perched on a rock, below.

And there was this little shed with a lot of flowers around it, below.

I sat around and waited for the sun to go down.

I sat around waiting for the sun to go further down in the sky and it did.

Below is a sunset picture looking west over the river toward the ocean which is on the other side of the sandy beach you can see in the background.

Just another sunset picture, looking out over the river toward the west, as the sun is setting, below.

I headed back toward the Jenner visitor’s center take out and took this last sunset shot,  below. Nice and calm and flat river water, eh? :O)

It was starting to get a little on the dark side as I approached the take out area, below.

That’s the Jenner visitor’s center and the boat ramp on the left.

I put the boat on the car and moseyed on home, stopping at the grocery store to do some shopping.

I’m glad I made up my mind to go down to Jenner to kayak today, it was real nice.

Had a nice day.