Exploring the Noyo River

To cruisers like us, a dinghy is like a car. It gets us from our anchored boat to the shore and allows us to explore our surroundings. Or 1988 mercury outboard that propels our 12-foot dinghy held strong throughout our Central America/Pacific Islands travels. However, it had not been used for the past 11 years and wasn’t working right. We installed a new carburetor before we left San Francisco but didn’t have an opportunity to fully test it. Now in Fort Bragg, we donned our life jackets and launched our dingy to motor up the Noyo River. We figured that if the motor stopped, we could just float back down with the current. The small river was beautiful, although a bit scary when fallen trees appeared just below the surface, daggered branches threatening to impale the vulnerable sides of our inflatable. And when our propeller shaft found the gravel in the shallows. The motor sputtered a bit at first but easily got us up the river. Sean made an adjustment later, and our old faithful motor is purring like she used to!

Traveling as we are, we experience a variety of new (to us) and interesting landscapes and creatures. This river is home to osprey. At the top of a huge dead tree down the road from the marina, we’d seen a nest that looked like it came from a Dr. Seuss book. I hoped to see a bird in it and mother nature delivered! Here’s what finally showed up.

There are also river otters! Walking to our boat one night, we saw movement midway down our dock and small, wet footprints. It was a “romp” (yes, that’s the right word) of three river otters. They jumped in the water before I had time to get my camera out. I’ve seen them swimming in the marina and walking along the banks of the Noyo River, so I expect there is a large population of them here.

Author: Kathy