Sunday January 24, 2016 Jenner CA.
I was late getting it going this morning, so I got down at Jenner around noon. Dan and his wife were putting their boats in the water as I put mine in. They took off down river and I headed that way too after parking my car.
This is what it looked like as I put my boat in the water, looking down river. See the guy on the right with the weird boat?
Dock boat
The only guy with a boat like that down here, I knew to be Ken. He does have some other modern type boats too. This is his dock, but he also uses it to pick up some of the bigger trash pieces that float down the river. He has a gas motor driving it.
Patrick, another guy who lives in Jenner showed up so I shot the bull with those two for a half hour or so.
Eventually I left them yakking away and headed down river going down along Penny island’s north shoreline and stopped here for a bit, still looking down the river.
Headed to the open mouth
I headed on over to the open mouth area.
On the way, I saw John who lives down there working in his yard, so I veered over to chat with him for a bit.
From there, I started crossing over the river towards the open mouth going past some golden eye ducks. Even with the muddy river water, these ducks seem to do well feeding. They dive down and feed on the bottom, I think.
Swells
I paddled on over near the open mouth, but didn’t get too close, mostly because there were swells coming into the river through the open mouth and it can make me motion sick, especially when looking through my camera. The swells seem to add just one too many dimensions for me to deal with. The river’s mouth is open real wide right now, so the ocean can come and go through it easily, so the waves and swells can really come into the river.
This is looking out the open river’s mouth into the Pacific ocean.
Up the back channel
I didn’t stay down by the mouth very long. I left and headed for the Penny Island back channel and started paddling up it.
I went past these resting merganser ducks on the island.
Just past the ducks, I pulled into what I call the slot, here,and sat in the sun warming up for quite a while.
After a good rest in the sun, I continued on up the island back channel and spied this harbor seal sitting on a redwood log near the upper end of Penny island. It moved into the water as I paddled by.
I continued on up the south side of the river taking my time, moving along the river’s edge as there was quite a bit of current coming down the river in the middle.
Here I’m paddling by Eagle’s landing.
Turned around here
I paddled up to this spot which I call the Muskrat area as there’s lot’s of muskrat nests in this area.
I could see Dan and his wife having lunch on the gravel over by Paddy’s rock as I crossed over to that side and put my boat in a drift down river. They pulled out just before I got down that way.
I drifted on down the river watching for birds along the shoreline. There were several pairs of geese along the way.
I went past this pair. There’s also a cow and a kingfisher in this picture. The geese where making quite a racket giving their alarm honks. They sure can make a lot of noise.
As I padded along I could see several grebe swimming in the water up ahead. This grebe crossed by my bow.
I continued on down towards the Jenner boat ramp, up ahead. Even though the water looks wavy, the wind was down and not bad at all.
Dan and his wife were at the boat ramp as I pulled in and I took my boat out of the water.
I went on home for the day for a nap and that was my day.