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By Bill Thorington,
FOER Board of Directors
The River Center in Fortuna hosted a late summer kayaking tour in the estuary of the Eel River. Local kayakers met at the new River Center office at 7th at Main Streets in Fortuna, and caravanned through the Ferndale bottoms, past Port Kenyon to the end of the road at Morgan Slough. We timed the trip so that we began at low tide, had a couple of hours to get out onto the main Eel, and returned with the incoming tide.
The low water in the slough was no match for our stealthy kayaks. The group traveled in single file for about a mile, since there was barely enough room for our paddles. Soon the slough began to widen to nearly ten feet, making paddling a little easier. It was a quiet, calm and rare day without a breath of wind. Kayaks silently sliced through the reflective water as birds watched overhead. Most birds and animals dont fear intruders from the water, so you can often kayak to within a boat length or less of birds and mammals. Our trip was no exception.
Morgan Slough empties into the Salt River a few hundred yards from where it joins the Eel. At that point the Eel is nearly a mile wide, subject to tidal action, and abundantly populated with seals, sea lions and a menagerie of sea birds, not to mention an island that hosted nearly a thousand pelicans. But rather than entering the Eel just yet, we headed up the Salt River, taking advantage of the incoming tide. The Salt River is wide and deep, and with its many sloughs and tributaries, makes up a large part of the Eel River Estuary.
The estuary is extremely important to Salmon. This is the last stop on their out-bound trek, where they rest, adjust to a salt environment and new foods, and put on weight as they prepare to head out to the open sea, a very different and hostile environment compared to the creek where they were born and the river where they have lived. The estuary is teeming with life: fish, mammals, crustaceans and birds are abundant. River otters play in these waters and feast on fish, shore birds peck out small fish with precise accuracy, sea gulls (like the one photographed here) eat crabs and other food..
After traveling up the Salt River for a while, we entered the Eel and headed for one of the two sand islands about a half-mile out toward the mouth. These islands migrate, grow, shrink, appear and even disappear as the tides and weather dictate. Seals popped up a few feet from our kayaks and propelled themselves high out of the water to get a good look at us. I was able to get within a boat length of the island and the pelicans at the shoreline. What an opportunity to see the color of their eyes in my camera.
Taking advantage of the tides, we headed back across open water toward the Ferndale side. We skirted the shoreline and headed upstream until we came to the mouth of the Salt River, making our journey a full circle. A few hundred yards up the Salt and we came to the mouth of Morgan Slough, which had grown substantially at full high tide. It was much easier getting back up Morgan Slough this time with six more feet of water and three times as wide. We are all looking forward to the next trip, perhaps in McNulty Slough.
If you are interested in kayaking on the Eel, especially on the scores of miles of waterways in the estuary, call the River Center at 725-1559 to find out about the next trip. We have a limited amount of equipment to loan, if you dont have your own. Come learn about the river from the river.