Thursday May 19, 2016 Monte Rio CA.
Looks like it’s going to be windy
The weather guys said it was going to be windy down at Jenner today, but I thought I’d drive down and take a look for myself as sometimes they are wrong. I could see the wind was already up as I drove into Jenner and I also noticed there was a school bus and a lot of kids all over the boat ramp, so I drove on down to the overlook at the river’s mouth where it meets the Pacific ocean.
The overlook
Here’s what the overlook looks like looking back up the river.
The river’s mouth was open with a bunch of harbor seals resting on the sand down there.
Here’s some of the harbor seals.
The seal lady
I spotted Andy in her car watching the harbor seals. She a seal biologist and was most likely watching the seals reaction to the guys on the beach taking the measurements to make sure they didn’t bother the seals too much which I’ll tell you about shortly.
I talked with her quite a while about what the biologists are up to this year which is mostly more of the same stuff they’ve been doing in previous years.
Surveying the beach
I noticed this tripod at the overlook which meant the guys were doing a survey down on the beach. They do this once a month to record the sand movement so they can put it on the computers.
Eventually, I spotted the guy taking the measurements down on the beach. He places that stick where he wants to measure and it sends the info back to the tripod to get recorded. So all he has to do is walk all over the beach to get all the measurements.
Staying out of trouble
With the wind up and all the kids on the boat ramp, I decided to head back to Monte Rio to kayak as I knew the wind would be down there and I wouldn’t get into any trouble at the boat ramp as suspected I might get into some trouble at the Jenner ramp today with all the kids on it. :O)
Monte Rio paddle
So, I drove back to Monte Rio and put my boat in the water and headed down river towards the Villa Grande area. Not much wind here.
I was watching this pair of mallard ducks when the great blue heron flew in.
River otter
And shortly after that I spotted something swimming under the water going past me. I followed it and it went to shore. A river otter. It saw me and hurried down river along the shoreline as if I was hot on it’s tail as I watched it go out of site.
Osprey nest
As I arrived at the Villa Grande hole, some osprey were doing a lot of screeching at the nest there. I watched as a parent would come in to feed the young one with a lot of screeching.
I hung around the Villa Grande Hole for awhile then started back up the river stopping along the way.
Here’s one of the spots I stopped at to enjoy the day.
Lots of ducky’s
There’s a good crop of ducky’s this year. I went by this bunch as I started up along the little island just below the boat ramp. Mergansers and some mallards. The little ones are mergansers.
I went up the little channel by the island to see if it was deep enough for me to paddle on up, but it wasn’t.
While I was checking to see if I could paddle on up, these two female mallards brought their little ones right up near me.
Cute.
I paddled up near the Monte Rio bridge then went over to the boat ramp and pulled out for the day.
Nap time
When I got home, I had intentions of going to Santa Rosa to do some shopping, but a nap got in the way of that, so I’ll do that tomorrow.
Weeds got mowed
In the evening, once the sun was low in the sky, I got the weed mower out and gassed it up and mowed some weeds until just before dark and that pretty much pooped me out.
Nice day.