Liquid Fusion Kayaking

Rain on the North Coast of California usually happens in the winter and early spring and has us traveling inland to the rivers of the Coastal Range for whitewater river kayaking. 2012 has been a dry year so far. Yesterday we managed to get over to the Eel for a low-water run that was Jeff’s second run and my first of the season. While we love the surf and the spray of salt-water, there is nothing quite like floating downstream.

The media has many people envisioning whitewater kayaking as paddling over death-defying waterfalls or hairy first descents of big water rivers in little traveled parts of the world. We don’t have any of these death-defying trips in our plans but respect the courage and skills that it takes for this type of boating.

What we like about whitewater kayaking is the adventure of journeying through a river canyon. We like the technical aspect of running rapids – water reading, precision boat control, and composure under pressure (like when you capsize in turbulent 45 degree water or miss your line and quickly have to find a new one).

We also like the planning, preparation and training for emergencies that might occur on our trips in the wilderness. On our trips, we are the only solution to problems that might occur so a toolbox (drybags) of items packed into our tiny boats is a must. First aid materials, extra paddles, throw ropes, carabiners, webbing, extra food, and emergency supplies are typical items that we carry and practice using.

Most of all, we enjoy the landscape and wildlife that one only sees while paddling on the river. Yesterday, we saw and heard lots of American Dippers. These are small birds that like us enjoy swift moving fresh water. They are known to walk on the bottom of creeks, streams, and rivers in search of insects and aquatic invertebrates.

Yesterday, we also were privileged to see several bald eagles including several dining on the carcasses of spawning salmon.

It is a pretty special feeling to be floating down the river and see black tail deer casually watch us go by. Perhaps they are unalarmed because they know that we are only passing through or just accept us as part of the movement of the river. Other unexpected wildlife sitings are another perk of floating down river.

As we finalize our spring calendar, our thoughts keep returning to the river. In addition to teaching whitewater kayaking classes on the river, our hearts long for a multi-day whitewater trip. Last year we blocked out 2 weeks in April to paddle and enjoy the Eel River. We have a similar window of time this year before we get busy with the summer season. Where will we go? The only plan now is to go with the flow – down river.

It was raining so we took Friday afternoon off to help out the Audubon Society with a black oystercatcher survey. I guess most people take a sunny afternoon off to go to the beach or something, but we live life a little out of the box.

The black oystercatcher is a species of concern. They are coastal birds that are almost prehistoric looking with their jet black bodies and bright red bills, pink legs, and glowing yellow eyes. They live on coastal rocks and feed on mollusks like mussels. With lots of rocky reefs and coastal rocks, the Mendocino Coast is a prime habitat for them. The California Audubon Society decided to organize a citizens in science project to survey the oystercatchers with special attention paid to nesting behaviors.

Of course kayaking is our favorite way to explore coastal rocks so we loaded up our sea kayaks and took them to Noyo Beach. Our survey area was Noyo Bay and the area just to the north and south to the southern headlands of Hare Creek. We had unbelievably calm ocean conditions. It was fun to meander through the rocky passages that are often inaccessible due to waves exploding through them. We had binoculars, our waterproof tablets, waterproof camera, and GPS.

We found 4 nesting pairs of oystercatchers in our survey. We knew of 2 of the pairs from watching them over previous years. We also saw quite a few Western gulls and pelagic cormorants sitting on nests in our survey area. We saw a common raven nest with 3 young as well as a couple of common ravens raid a couple of cormorant nests. The ravens swooped in and scared the brooding parent off the nest and rifled through the contents of the nest.

We haven’t been out in our sea kayaks much so this was a great way to get some of the rust off our long boat skills. We used our greenland paddles because they are stealthy and quiet for wildlife watching. Of course we had to surf a couple of waves at Hare Creek and ride a couple of pour-overs and slots. I took advantage of the south swell for a fantastic ride over a wash rock with a gorgeous cascading backside (Of course – Jeff didn’t have a camera). Here’s Jeff coming over Nick’s Nightmare.

And Jeff blasting through Angie’s Angst.

After our paddle, we drove up to Pomo Bluffs with our spotting scope to scope out several of the nests that we had seen. From on top of the headlands, we had a better vantage point to see the oystercatchers in their nests.

The Mendocino Coast Audubon had local birders covering most of the coastline during the 4 day survey period. It is great to see people rally to help out with these citizen science projects. We were happy to be able to help out with a portion.

Have you ever thought about how much plastic we use?

And where it ends up?

Plastic seems to have become a necessity in our lives. Many of us have discontinued using single use plastic bottles and carry cloth bags to the grocery store. Unfortunately, this is only a start. As I write this, I look at all the plastic shtuff around my desk and all the plastic kayaks on our kayak rack.

Plastic seems to have become a necessary evil in our lives today, but I think that we need to start decreasing our dependence of it and be more conscientious of recycling and proper disposal.

Any thoughts or ideas? Please share, discuss, ect.
Let’s work together to increase awareness and start working toward solutions!!!

The To-Do list is HUGE at the moment as we get ready for Fort Bragg and Mendocino’s summer visitors. But after spending a rainy Monday in the office, we had to get out and paddle.

Of course an inch or more of rain in Mendocino County often means WHITEWATER!!! So we packed up our whitewater kayaks and headed to the Eel River for what would probably be our last run on the Eel until next winter.

In winter in Mendocino County, the ground is usually very saturated with water. When we get a couple of inches of rain, a lot of it runs-off quickly into our local rivers. However, after having a couple of dry weeks in the spring, the vegetation and ground are thirsty and soak up spring rain showers. This results in less flow in the river than we would anticipate in the winter.

When we got to the put-in, the water level was very low – just runnable. It was fun to see the river at this level. The flow was slow so there was plenty of time to make moves as long as you weren’t trying to dig your paddle into rocks. There wasn’t quite enough water in the eddies to get a good purchase with a paddle to use the eddy to feed onto a surf wave. The guys definitely tried resulting in lots of clunking sounds of paddles on rocks, but they were successful and caught a few good waves.

I sat back and took photos and video of their antics as I enjoyed the greenery of spring and the intermittent showers. It was very exciting to see a wood duck with her brood of 11 ducklings (unfortunately I had technical issues with my camera and missed the shot).

A couple of the rapids were really boney at low water and others were really fun. My favorite was the trailer rapid which at normal flows is fast and furious with a couple of nasty hydraulics to avoid. At low water, the characteristic jumble of split rocks at the bottom was visible but was otherwise a completely different rapid. Where the nasty hydraulics usually churn were giant eddies. Instead of taking the freeway line past these monsters, we could zig-zag and eddy-hop along as we negotiated the elevation drop.

Maybe we will get another good spring rain for some more local whitewater boating, but if not we won’t be kicking ourselves for missing the last run on the Eel of the year.

For the first time in 4 years, the Cache Creek Wilderness Run has been predictably running at a level that is fun for a day trip. When one of our paddling friends emailed about doing it on a day our calendar was clear, we jumped on the opportunity.

Clear Lake is over its capacity so they have been releasing over 3,000 cfs from the dam for the past week. Combined with flow from the North Fork, we estimated that our flow was approximately 3800 cfs.

As we met at the put-in, what to wear was the debate of the day. Being that we were embarking on an 18 mile wilderness run that hasn’t been run (to our knowledge) in several years and that only 2 of the 4 of us had run it over 4 years ago, we weren’t sure what to expect. Down trees and landslides can occur and greatly change the character of a run. We knew the flow was going to be swift with the dam release and looking at the flow coming down the creek at the take-out. Prudence would have us dressing for the worst case scenario and potential immersion. Most of the group opted for drysuits, but I went with my drytop and farmer jane. Eighty degrees and sunny are not my usual boating conditions so if I got hot, I wanted to be able to get wet.

This run is described as a class II(III) by American Whitewater and California Creeks. It is fun to look at the photos on the CA Creeks site which are at low water and over 3000 cfs lower than what we were running it. During our run, the “Big Rock” in Bill Tuthill’s CA Creeks write-up was not visible creating a pour-over and large hydraulic.

As we launched, we were apprehensive about the possibility of down trees and strainer hazards in the muddy waters. The flow on the North Fork moved us along at a comfortable pace as we cautiously boat scouted blind turns and brushy channels.

We enjoyed the sweet sounds of western meadow larks singing and a slight warm breeze that rippled through the budding willows and alders. The landscape of steep open hillsides was quite different from the mossy forests of our typical Mendocino County wilderness runs.

Evidence of volcanic activity was evident in the geology. At one point, the creek cut through a bank of ashfall.

As we bobbed along the North Fork, we continuously scanned the trees and skies for bald eagles. We saw 2 driving to the put-in and hoped to see some more. At one point, the creek bank was not the usual rocks and trees but was built of old automobiles. The vegetation has grown around and through the cars. It is novel, but probably not the most environmentally conscious way for the property owner to stabilize the creek bank.

The character of the run changed significantly when we hit the main branch of Cache Creek (changed to the tune of about 3500 more cfs). The creek was definitely moving along at a good clip and above its regular channel and flowing through the trees and brush at its edges. Few eddies existed along its edges as did opportunities for landing. There was quite a bit of squirrelly water where water flowed over submerged rocks and where channels converged. The squirrelly waters of one of these convergences grabbed one of my edges and gave me a quick dunk.

All 4 of us enjoyed watching for birds. A pair of accipters had us debating between cooper’s or sharp shinned hawks. We were delighted with siting of over 1/2 dozen bald eagles (like the photograph below, some were juveniles and weren’t so bald).

The highlight of the day was seeing a bear and her cub. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we were the highlight of their day as they appeared alarmed by our presence and galloped up the hillside.

The rapids on the run were quite rapid. The bigger ones were mostly giant wave trains with an occasional hydraulic to keep one on their toes. At this flow, we were flying along but one would expect that some might be fun to play on at a lower flow.

Not many wave surfing opportunities. Jeff happened to catch a photo of this wave as we breezed past it.

Knowing that it was an 18 mile run and not knowing what hazards we would come across on the river, we had expected it to be a long paddle. It ended up being the fastest 18 miles any of us had done on a river – we did it in 3 1/2 hours with a lunch break and a stretch break.

They are still releasing 3000 cfs from Clear Lake into Cache Creek and it is still runnable. A boating buddy of ours asked if we wanted to run it with him this week – we declined. We had a great day on the river and enjoyed the run but are looking forward to exploring some other local runs.

Arriving home after some pre-holiday travels, we were anxious for some boating close to home. We decided on an exploratory paddle of the South Fork of the Noyo River – a class 1 tributary of Fort Bragg’s Noyo River.

We have heard nightmare stories from locals trying to run this at flood stages. Our plan for the trip was to enjoy the scenery and wildlife. Being in a wooded area, log strainers are inevitable hazards so we chose a flow that would be high enough to float us down the river but mellow enough for us to limbo under logs and easily get in and out when necessary to portage obstacles.

Our journey entailed approximately 4 miles of paddling (and portaging) on the South Fork of the Noyo River followed by 4 miles down the Noyo River to our shop at Dolphin Isle Marina.

The trip met our expectations lots of log strainers and great scenery and wildlife watching. We limboed 12 logs and portaged numerous times.

Our favorite sitings of the trip were 6 Coho Salmon and numerous American Dippers. We came across a couple of the Department of Fish and Game surveyors wading the river and counting salmon. Talking to them, we discovered that the candy cane striped ribbons that we were seeing along the river were their markings of Coho Salmon sitings.

In addition to enjoying the scenery and wildlife, we realize that the run was a good preparation for our upcoming swiftwater safety class for the local fish surveyors. Check out our photo gallery for an entertaining slideshow of our adventure.

Here’s our latest video creation Outdoor Adventures in Fort Bragg, California featuring some of our land and sea adventures in our home of Fort Bragg on the Mendocino Coast of California. Of course, we feature kayaking but also some of our other favorite activities on the coast and in the forest including abalone diving, mountain biking, and more.

A special thanks to Brent Reitz – master instructor of the Forward Stroke – for allowing us to use Single Care as our main song. If you have taken one of Brent’s Forward Stroke Clinics, you probably have immensely improved your forward stroke and probably heard him rock-out on the harmonica. Here’s a link to his group – Bad Habits.

We hope that you enjoy the video – we sure had fun making it.

Dolphin Isle on the Noyo River of Fort Bragg, California has become home to a male harlequin duck. We enjoy seeing him daily and admire his handsomeness but can’t help to think that he is a bit odd.Over the past 3 years, this harlequin has delighted and baffled us. Typically harlequin ducks like turbulent waters not flat water estuaries like the Noyo River. Harlequins typically are solitary birds or hang with just a few of their species. This harlequin is quite gregarious with other ducks. He flocks with the buffleheads in the winter and the mallards the rest of the year.

He doesn’t appear to have a mate. In previous years, we had hoped that he would convince a female to return to the Noyo with him. However, last year he only migrated for a short period of time, and this year he did not migrate. Here’s a photo of him this summer on the Noyo in eclipse plumage.

Odd or not, we enjoy his colorful presence on the Noyo River.