Wednesday. September 25. Today we paddled on the Big River. Quite a contrast to paddling on the coast. Flat calm water. Peaceful and Quiet. The Redwood Trees stand majestically on the steep banks of the river. We were a little slow getting on the water. A pod of about eight kayakers were launching as we were getting ready. Three of us were on the water at 9:40.
We paddled up the river until noon keeping an eye out for a good landing spot for lunch. The steep banks of the river do not provide many spots to land. At noon we found a shallow sandy spot among a few fallen logs and ate lunch sitting on a log with our feet dangling in the water. We didn’t dally long. With the water level dropping with the ebbing current, we were back on the water at 12:20 after a 20 minute lunch stop.
We had crossed over a fallen log going up the river and on the return trip the water level had dropped enough that getting our boats through the tangle of branches and over the log proved to be a bit of a challenge.
We saw quite a few cormorants and a couple of water ouzels on the river. Paddling back down the river with the current pushing us made for a fast trip. We were back at our launch site at 2:25 having logged 11.6 miles. More photos are available in an online gallery.
