Wednesday March 12, 2014 Monte Rio, CA.
Plans change constantly
I’d planned to work on my kayak loader project this morning, then go down to Jenner and kayak for the rest of the day.
Only thing was, the wind blew strong early this morning and knocked the power out, so I couldn’t work on my kayak loader project without electricity.
That meant I might as well go kayaking, but since it was real windy, Monte Rio seemed like the place to go as there is less wind in that area.
Cleaning the mud off the ramp
When I got to the Monte Rio boat ramp, there was a a bit of mud on it from the river being up while I was gone. I got my flat shovel out of the car and shoveled off the mud on the one side so I could put my boat in the water without getting full of mud. I’ve learned to keep my flat shovel in the car in the winter time for just this purpose.
This is the boat ramp that I cleaned off the mud on the left side before putting my boat in the water today.
The river water was a bit muddy from the recent rain, but the sun was out and it was a real nice day.
This is my river view as I approached the Villa Grande hole. Andrew, his wife and dog are on the beach to the left. I stopped to talk with them for quite awhile before continuing down the river.
Continuing down the river at a leisurely pace.
I made it down to Sheridan beach where I stopped for awhile before turning around and starting back up the river.
This is Sheridan Beach, where I turned around for the day.
As I paddled back up the river I passed these Merganser ducks sleeping peacefully on the warm gravel.
Poor old steelhead fish
I was siting around in the Villa Grande hole when something caught my eye. Looked like one of the steelhead fish that was in poor shape returning to the ocean.
Unlike salmon, steelhead spawn and then return to the ocean and most of them don’t die. Of course, some of them are getting a wee bit old and the mating thing may be the last thing they can do before dying of old age after mating.
This one was in poor shape. It’s fins where falling apart and it’s skin looked like it was real old. I just sat there as it swim around my kayak. Even though these fish may look half dead, they can still go like hell if frightened.
The poor old guy is really beat up and just not the fish it once was. That mating is hard work. :O)
I watched the fish for a bit, then headed on up the river and this is one of the up river views, just below Monte Rio.
Since I had cleaned off the boat ramp, I was able to get my boat out without getting full of mud and I went on home for the rest of the day. The power was back on by now, so I tackled my sliding extended arm boat loader.
The sliding extended boat loader arm
These are the parts I welded together for the sliding arm. It got one more coat of black paint after this. I used a spring button out of a paddle I found on the river to hold the slider in place when not in use.
This is the new boat loader arm installed and extended. It slides in and out to get it out of the way when not in use and hopefully not bang my head on it.
This is the arm pushed back in for traveling.
The purpose of the arm is to give a place to lift the front of the boat onto and then going to the back of the boat and lifting it up. This gets the boat up on the car top without having to lift the whole weight of the boat up and breaking my already broken back. I’ll see how it works on my next kayak trip.
What’s going on in my yard
After getting that project done, I looked around my yard to see how things were doing and what needed to be done as far as yard work soon.
I noticed my blue berry bushes where blooming and had a nice bloom. The lower green plants are potato plants which seem to do well growing with the blue berry plants.
I also noticed that my California Dutchmen’s pipe plants were flowering. This a a native plant of California that has two inch flowers that are shaped like little Dutch type pipes.
The plant has some other interesting properties which I will tell you about someday. I need pictures to tell the story, so have to wait until the plant matures through it’s cycles.
That was about all I could handle for the day, nap time.
Nice day.