Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, Jenner, CA.
Muddy and calm river today, after the storm.
Since yesterday, I had to go to Santa Rosa and help a lady friend with some repairs and shop some for my van injection conversion, and having not yakked in a couple days, I was egger to get yakking. One of the perks of kayaking just after the river was up is looking for kayaks and boats to salvage. People leave their boats tied up at the dock, instead of bringing them in for the winter and some of these break loose and go down the river and out to the ocean. It’s always fun to look around before anyone else and see what you can find. I saw a boat across the river just above Penny Island from my car window as I was entering Jenner.
I wanted to drive down to the river mouth with my car first to see what it looked like from the road, before I put my kayak in the water. Below is what it looked like, low tide and muddy.
After checking the mouth out with my car from the road, I went back to the visitor’s center and put my boat in the water. Larry, from the gas station store came by and I chatted with him for awhile and told him, if that was a kayak over there, I would get it and tell someone at the store, so he could have it.
I headed over to were I saw the boat, but too late, some people where already getting the boat, which was fine with me, because it was a canoe which I’m not interested in. Boats that come down the river are salvageable by whoever gets them. There are more than a hundred and twenty miles of up river and one doesn’t know where they might come from and rarely does anyone come down looking for them, so they are usually up for grabs.
I chatted with those people for a bit and headed up river aways to one of my favorite sitting spots.I was glad they got the boat, as now I wouldn’t need to deal with it. It was real peaceful today on the river, just sitting around.
Below, I’m sitting in one of my favorite spots, just enjoying the peacefulness of the river.
Right across from where I was sitting were a bunch of seals taking it easy. I spotted them because they were making a bunch of grunting noises. I don’t see them out on the shore much this far up the river. See them resting below.
After awhile, I slowly worked my way up the river to the highway one bridge. The fog was starting to come in. A great blue heron was catching fish, just below the bridge and not paying too much attention to me.
See, it has a fish in it’s beak. It was catching a lot of little fish. The water was real muddy, so most critters weren’t dong any fishing, but this bird was fishing in the little bit of clear water along the shoreline and was being very successful
I watched it fish for about a half hour, as the fog moved in more.
I than headed back down the river with intentions of going down to the mouth of the river to see what was going on. The fog continued to thicken, but since I know the place well, that didn’t bother me and it was actually very nice and peaceful.
Below is another spot I like to sit at, Otter’s log.
As I approached Penny Island on the west end, I ran into twenty or more seals in the water. I’m not sure what they were doing here, they weren’t catching any big fish, but might have been eating smaller ones under water, which I can’t see.
Seals in the water, below, on the west end of Penny Island. Foggy.
By this time the fog had turned to light drizzle and it was getting my camera wet, so I was reluctant to take anymore pics, but on the way back to the take out, I spotted this vulture eating some kind of big bird on the shore.
Below, you can see this vulture, not sure what kind this is, but it’s head and neck aren’t all red like most of them around here, maybe it is just a young one?
I got my boat out of the water and headed home with intentions of doing a few little projects, but I was too tired and landed on the coach for the rest of the day.
Another great day on the river.