Friday March 21, 2014 Jenner CA.
The fog was in but it cleared
As I pulled into Jenner today, I could see Ray and John in their boats taking a break over at Penny Island. I put my boat in the water and paddled across and joined them.
The fog was in with a low wind. The water level of the river was up a bit from yesterday indicating that the river’s mouth was likely closed up with sand.
We headed on up the river at a leisurely pace stopping often along the way.
My seal buddy was on a log just past the east end of Penny Island. This guy seems to hang in the estuary a lot and pops up around me wherever I’m kayaking on the estuary, like if to say hi.
We continued on up the river on the south side to Eagle’s landing and kept going almost up to the highway one bridge.
We could see a bunch of cormorants on the beach on the opposite side of the river. There were a lot of them is all I can say.
Here are some of them, just resting on the shore.
About that time, John says are there turkeys down here? Yes, we have wild turkeys and yes those are turkeys over there on the north shore.
I had my turkey call with me, so gave a couple of calls and they responded.
I paddled over by them to get a better photo and they didn’t leave.
Three of the male wild turkeys feeding along the river’s bank.
I watched them for about ten minutes before going back across the river and rejoining Ray and John, still headed on up the river taking it easy.
The fog mostly cleared out and the sun was out for a real nice day with very little wind.
We dallied for a bit before turning around and heading back down the river. A pair of Mallard ducks was resting in the grass on the shore as we passed.
As we approached Paddy’s rock I could see a bunch more cormorants on the rock and in the water, with the town of Jenner in the background. There was still a bit of fog hanging over the town of Jenner, but it soon cleared away too.
We decided to go for a walk on Penny Island so we headed down the back channel. There were a bunch of kayaks already at the spot we were going to land, so we skipped that spot and continued on down towards the west end of the island where we put our boats ashore in the green spring grasses.
We walked the length of the island and back again going through a lot of berry bushes with thorns and some stinging nettles too. I picked up a few thorns but was able to avoid the nettle’s sting.
Ray and John following me on one of the island trails. Oh, this area had a lot of wild rose bushes with lots of thorns too, with nice little pink flowers.
I think that walk took a little over an hour. When we got back in our boats Ray and John headed on in for the day and I headed down to check out what the river’s mouth was doing.
It’s closed up with sand that gets piled up there by the wind and the waves from the ocean. You can see the sand across the mouth damming it up and closing the river’s drainage to the ocean. Lots of Harbor seals and seagulls in the area as usual.
This photo is of the closed river’s mouth looking out towards the Pacific Ocean. See the sand across damming it up.
After awhile, I headed back in for the day, it was about 5:30Pm when I took my boat out of the water and went on home.
This photo shows the water level gauge at the visitor center, about 6 and a quarter feet, the water level is rising.
That was it for the day as I was real tired out when I got home and didn’t do much except make sure the coach didn’t get away.
Nice day.