Tuesday, May 7, 2013, Jenner, CA.
Looks like I have some work to do today
I heard my brother come in my yard with his truck, so it meant I better get up and get going, since it was almost ten AM anyway.
He wanted me to help him put his upper deck on his truck kayak carrier. It required some metal cutting and arc welding.
Here is a picture of the finished product before it has any paint. We added the upper level this morning. The lower level was purchased from Harbor Freight and modified a bit to mount on the truck.
That job took a an hour or so, then he had some boards he needed cut with the table saw. We got that all done and headed for Jenner and were down there around 1 PM. The wind was down, but there was a bit of fog with some mist in the air. We seemed to be the only ones on the water. We crossed over to Penny Island and headed up river to Eagles landing about a half mile or so.
The view below is what the river looked like, with my brother in the lead.
We spent some time up the river and then headed back down the river with intentions of stopping at a spot on the shore to check some stuff out. But the tide was low, and there was a bunch of mud exposed along the shoreline, so we just kept heading down the back side of Penny Island, taking it easy.
There didn’t seem to be too many birds out today, or much of anything else. It is the time for most birds to do their thing, nest and reproduce, so that might account for some of the missing birds.
We continued down toward the river’s mouth, stopping at the west end of the island for a bit, before proceeding to the mouth. Most of the seals were up on the beach, at the river’s mouth. I didn’t see any of them in the water. It was low tide, so likely not much to eat in the water or they were just full. Usually, the seals are out in the water at or near high tide, I think this is because a lot of sea life that they eat, comes into the river estuary during the high tide salt water inflow, which doesn’t happen on the low tide.
We didn’t stay out too long as I had gotten something in my eye earlier, while working on the metal stuff and it was hurting a bit. I think I just bruised the eye when something got in it and it was hurting a bit. It usually takes a day or so for this condition to stop hurting.
So, we cut it short and headed back toward the launch area. On the way, I noticed something moving on the shore line ahead.
The picture below is looking back toward Jenner and if you look carefully, there is a deer on the shore line to the left.
As we got a bit closer, it turned out to be what we call a spike, or a one year old male deer.
Here he is in the picture below. He didn’t seem concerned much with my presence.
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Here he is again in some of those big ol blue/purple flower plants. Note his left hind leg has a rather nasty abscess or something on it. Not good.
There are quite a few of these blue/purple flowers growing down in the area. This picture shows what they look like in full bloom.
We continued on to the take out at the visitor’s center and headed for home. I was tired, not sure from what. The metal work, or just because we were at the ocean,………. or older age? :O)
Had a nice day kayaking Jenner.