Monthly Archives: May 2002

Crows are harassing the Gulls

Posted on by
Friday, May 31, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 13.0 C  Min. 8.1 C  Reset 10.0
MARINE LIFE: Another beautiful day here, with quite a lot of marine activity. The Glaucous Winged Gulls are actively mating and nesting, being very defensive of their nests. Crows are harassing the Gulls, Oystercatchers and and Pigeon Guillemots, in search of an unattended nest and egg. One of the pairs of Canadian Geese on the Island are nursing their five young Goslings, despite the Goslings rapidly increasing size the Geese continue to be very protective of their youngsters. Divers spotted some large Ling Cod around the docks, along with a healthy stock of smaller fish.
HUMAN INTERACTION: A lot of fishing activity around the reserve today, around 10 to 12 vessels on the reserve border actively fishing. Problems with both vessels motoring too quickly through the reserve and fishermen disregarding the reserve limitations and fishing around West Race Rocks. Four eco-tourism vessels moved through the park today.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:33 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Part Cloudy  Vis. 15 Miles  Wind West 9 Knots Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:51 AM

Pearson College students out to begin work project.

Posted on by
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 13.0 C Min. 8.9 C  Reset 11.9 C Rain 0.2 mm
A very good evening to all of you. It has been a bright day out here at Race Rocks and we are looking forward to great days ahead. Our summer project is scheduled to last for 2 weeks. The students out here are Kiprop from Kenya, Ben from Australia, Ryan from Canada, Hiendrick from Poland and Joe from the U.K. We spend the better part of the day planning on a whole range of activities to carry out in the next two weeks. We are going to be carrying out daily live webcasts from Racerocks starting Tuesday. Our divers will also be in a position to bring you live images of marine life from the Race Rocks underwater.
Have a good evening.
Kiprop.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:20 PM

Northern and Calif Sealions still here.

Posted on by
Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 13.0 C  Min. 9.3 C  Reset 12.0 C Rain .06 mm
MARINE LIFE: 1 juvenile Bald Eagle which again arrived in the afternoon and made several unsuccessful attempts to land on Great Race.There is a group of about 9 Northern Sea Lions spending a lot of time swimming along the north and east shore of Gr. Race could be the same group I saw and heard in the early hours yesterday.Can hear the California Sea Lions barking off and on during the night,they are hauled out on Middle Rock and the sound carries over this way very well with the westerly.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 2 ecotour boats and 3 pleasure craft. Angus out in Second Nature with group from DFO. Late afternoon Chris out in Second Nature with the students who will be here webcasting etc. A full load with food,supplies and air tanks. Hope the weather gets a little nicer for them.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:59 PM

Good MorningWEATHER: Sky Cloudy  Vis. 15 Miles Wind West 15 Knots  Sea 1 – 2 Foot Chop
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:45 AM

Still 5 goslings and 5 oyster catcher chicks.

Posted on by
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 12.9 C  Min. 8.9 C Reset 11.0 C  Rain 1.0 mm
MARINE LIFE: 2 mature Bald eagles this morning then 1 juvenile late in the afternoon that made several attempts to hunt on Gr. Race but so far the gulls and oyster catchers have been able to drive it away Still 5 goslings and 5 oyster catcher chicks.A noisy group of sealions circled the island a couple of times in the early a.m. at one point could see their wet heads shining in the path of the moon which was very bright off and on as the clouds rolled past.
HUMAN INTERACTION: There were 6 ecotour boats and 7 pleasure craft through today. Station boat to Pedder Bay and back.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 8:16 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Obscured  Vis. 0 Miles Fog  Wind North 7 Knots  Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:59 AM

Black Oystercatcher eggs not all hatched

Posted on by
Sunday, May 26, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 12.9 C  Min. 8.8 C  Reset 12.1 C  Rain 2.0 mm
MARINE LIFE: 1 juvenile and 1 mature bald Eagles. The gulls are still busy nest building, mating and keeping the eagles at bay. Most of the Pigeon Guillemots have paired off, mated and are now among the rocks were they lay their eggs as deep in a rock crevice as they can.The Oyster Catcher chicks are still in the nesting area as of this morning since not all eggs are hatched.Once the last egg is hatched the chicks will all be moved down the shore closer to the food source but above the high tide line.The low tides during the day will afford the chicks a steady diet of limpets, mussels,chitons and the like.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 17 pleasure craft and 14 ecotour boats today. Although the Swiftsure was less than ‘dramatic’ we did enjoy watching a mini race about 17:00 as three returning boats ‘caught’ the brief westerly all be it only 15-17 knts. The one boat that was second of the three ‘stood’ off the shore and had just that extra wind to move ahead. An audience small, granted -just the two of us- but it was exciting none the less. By 18:30 the wind was back down to 5-6 knts and the 25 or so remaining boats took a long time to pass by, a nice show of the colourful spinnakers against the grey-black rolls of fog to the west.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:27 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Overcast �� Vis. 12 Miles �� Light Rain �� Wind West 5 Knots �� Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:47 AM

Admin Report spring 2002

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The New Landlord
Responsibility for Great Race Island has recently reverted back to the Province of British Columbia represented by BC Parks. The Coast Guard has officially turned all surplus buildings and facilities at Race Rocks over to BC Parks for use in support of education, research and the protection of the Marine Protected Area. Before transferring the assets, the Coast Guard completed extensive upgrades of the fuel systems, generators, buildings and other equipment including the large equipment hoist. The Coast Guard retains a small area of land around the historic light tower and responsibility for maintenance of the tower, operation of the light, fog signal and automated weather reporting system.

BC Parks has in turn entered into a 30 year agreement with Pearson College to designate responsibility to the College for the operation of the facilities, delivering education programs, supporting research and providing supervision for the Ecological Reserve and Marine Protected Area. We look forward to working closely with BC Parks to serve as custodians of this precious ecosystem on behalf of the people of British Columbia and Canada.

Community Support
We are fortunate to have strong support and co-operation from the many visitors to the MPA. We continue to work with the eco-tourism and scuba diving operators to ensure their operating guidelines are carefully followed while their many appreciative visitors have the opportunity to experience the remarkable diversity of Race Rocks. This kind of public education is an essential element of promoting public awareness of the value of the MPA initiative. We hope to work with the eco-tourism operators this year to encourage their customers to voluntarily contribute financial support for Race Rocks. We continue to have an excellent working relationship with the operators.

Sports fishers continue to honour their commitment to avoid fishing within the MPA boundary and we have had great cooperation from Sean and the staff at Pedder Bay Marina. DFO staff members have recently strengthened relationships with the local kayaking community as well.

We are also engaged in an effort with the Department of National Defence and DFO in an attempt to mitigate the impacts on the MPA as a consequence of DND activities at the nearby Rocky Point Base.

The Financial Picture
We continue to rely on our many supporters to sustain the operation of Race Rocks MPA and the racerocks.com website. We greatly appreciate the support of many of you who have made donations both large and small. Every donation helps and through the web we have made new donor friends all over the world. We particularly welcome as new supporters, the Ivey Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Georgia Strait Alliance and a new technology sponsor, Channel Storm from Israel. Apple Canada, Apple Learning Interchange and Akamai continue to be generous and helpful supporters and advisors

Regrettably we are likely to end our fiscal year on June 30, 2002 with an operating shortfall of $27,000 on our budget. Pearson College has undertaken this debt on an interim basis. We are working closely with government agencies to stabilise the financial plan for long term sustainability of the MPA.

racerocks.com
Garry and our students continue to develop extraordinary features for the MPA’s award winning website. The use of the site by students, teachers, science centres and cyber visitors from around the world has expanded considerably. Technology has proven to be an effective way to widely share Race Rocks and Canada’s Marine Protected Area strategy without negative impacts. Three of the most popular new resources on the website are the Archives, Daily Log and Race Rocks Taxonomy file features.

Video Archives
A great supplement to our live cameras (because you can be sure to find what you are looking for) is an extensive menu of special topic video clips that are being developed for the site. These are great classroom resources for teachers and on-line learning. Check them out

Daily Log
Our resident eco-guardians, Mike and Carol Slater have done a great job of telling the Race Rocks story on the web in the logs. Everything from an elephant seal invasion, to the surprise hatching of our first Canada Geese chicks a few weeks ago have been faithfully recorded. Information in the Daily Log is also backed up by a data base that will allow us to recover data on various marine mammal and bird sightings as well as visitor and vessel traffic. Over the years this data is bound to be useful to researchers and resource managers.

Race Rocks Taxonomy File
This will be a long term project. Garry is determined that we create a truly innovative and accessible taxonomy file featuring all the species at Race Rocks and utilizing the very best of what the web has to offer; video clips, photos, text and Internet links. With the guidance of Garry and our other Biology/Environmental Systems faculty members Catrin Brown and Laura Verhegge, the project is launched with 70 species files established this year. This work in progress is available on this website:

and Next…..….
We look forward to an interesting summer season. Throughout June we will have a team of students as guests at Race Rocks providing regular webcasts. Check the calendar for the schedule. We hope to raise the funds required to deal with our debt and a few important upgrades on the project. we urgently need to upgrade the sewage facilities on the island by installing composting toilets to eliminate discharge into the MPA there is a remarkable enhanced remote control camera with 360 degree rotation and a much more powerful zoom capability which we hope to acquire we hope to get data from the underwater sensors (which have run well for over a year) available to you on the website

Most of all, we look forward to your continued involvement and support for Race Rocks Marine Protected Area. Thank you for your support.

Angus Matthews
Director of Administration
and Special Projects
Pearson College/Race Rocks

Swiftsure-a ‘driftsure’ this year!

Posted on by
Saturday, May 25, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 15.2 C  Min. 8.5 C  Reset 11.9 C  Rain 2.2 mm
MARINE LIFE: 2 mature Bald Eagles today. The gulls were very busy this afternoon gathering nesting material,there are always some early nesters then a large group all at once, then there are the stragglers that seem to leave things to the last minute.There are some very fussy nest builders and then others that have nests that are quite sparse and somewhat messy.Last night there were at least 2 elephant seals just off shore snorting and bellowing so loud it woke me up about 2 a.m. expected to see them hauled out on the boat dock in the morning but they were back over by Middle rock floating about, quietly! Angus reported 2 or 3 Orca in Race Passage as he was coming across from the college just after 09:00.
HUMAN INTERACTION: Hyaku in from the College -Angus and group to do the live webcast for the Swiftsure-a ‘driftsure’ this year! A little rain this morning and no wind to speak of, a beautiful day on the water for all but the racers.Hyaku to Victoria and back with mechanic and parts-engine repaired and ‘purring’ nicely again.The Swiftsure boats started coming through the passage quite late but with a lot of spinnakers was a colourful sight.A couple of race boats came through between North Rocks and Gr. Race, one was very close going between West Race and Gr. Race and used great skill and energy to manoeuvre through the reefs and tide.In addition to the sailboats there were 47 Ecotour boats and 26 pleasure craft through the reserve.Took pamphlets out to 2 pleasure craft fishing off the east shore of Gr. Race. 1 Dive boat dove the West Race in the morning then returned for an afternoon dive north shore of Gr. Race.The weather forecast is not too encouraging as far as wind is concerned, light in the a.m. but some hope with possible westerly 10-15 knts. in the afternoon.Should be a colourful spinnaker run to the finish line, that is if there are any boats left in the race! Last I heard over 100 boats had pulled out of the race.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:37 PM

 

Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Overcast  Vis 10 Miles Light Rain  Wind West 6 Knots Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:45 AM

Black Oystercatchers hatch

Posted on by
Friday, May 24, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 13.9 C  Min. 7.0 C Reset 11.0 C
MARINE LIFE: 1 mature Bald Eagle today which spent most of the time on North Rocks but did manage to circle over-head just before dark,the gulls and oyster catchers took flight as usual and drove the big bird out to sea. The eagle continued towards Bentinck island the ‘triumphant’ gulls returned to the usual noisy reception of the other birds.I can’t say things really quieted down as like the past few nights the birds are quite active. At times it sounds like we have neighbours living in the attic,noisy neighbours with heavy boots! Such small birds but they can make quite a racket especially when a bunch of them land at one time when all else is quiet! We have Oyster Catcher chicks! I saw one but know there are others. As I walked around to check out the nests the adult birds went into a frenzy of warning ‘chirps’ so I knew it wasn’t just eggs they were protecting. Did a boat tour this afternoon,counted 14 California Sealions, 6 Northern Sealions and 5 Elephant Seals hauled out on Middle Rock, also 5 California Sealions hauled out on the south slope of the SE rocks. A couple of Elephant seals are off the north shore of Gr. Race tonight, can hear them snorting so must be just off the dock.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 5 Ecotour boats, 2 pleasure craft. Station boat to Pedder Bay and back-had to get the flat tire on the truck repaired-was a great day to be on the water. Hope the wind picks up a little for the Swiftsure tomorrow -can’t believe I said that after all the complaining I’ve done over the last while about the wind! But really what is a sailing race without wind!
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:19 PM

 

Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Clear  Vis 15 Miles  Wind West 8 Knots  Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:51 AM

The chicks are growing quite fast,not surprising as they eat their way around the island several times a day.

Posted on by
Thursday, May 23, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 12.3 C  Min. 7.3 C Reset 11.2 C
MARINE LIFE: 1 mature, 1 juvenile Bald Eagles today.The goose family still at 5 goslings.We look for them every morning hoping to count 5, so far so good. The chicks are growing quite fast,not surprising as they eat their way around the island several times a day.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 3 Ecotour boats and 1 orange inflatable with no identifying markings, one person on board. The boat made several trips around Gr. Race then sat out front for about 40 minutes before taking off toward the SW. Hyaku was out with Chris, several visitors and drums of oil for the diesel engine (oil change after repairs )
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:02 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Part Cloudy  Vis. 15 Miles  Wind West 17 Knots Sea 2 Foot Chop
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:39 AM

Still 2 pair of geese and 5 goslings!

Posted on by

 

Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 12.1 C  Min. 7.5 C  Reset 10.8 C  Rain 0.4 mm
MARINE LIFE: 2 mature and 1 juvenile Bald Eagles. Still 2 pair of geese and 5 goslings! 5 Sealions hauled out on the SE rocks first thing this morning but left just after noon.The gulls are still busy gathering what they can find for nest building,stopping every once in a while to squabble over territory.
HUMAN INTERACTION: 1 ecotour boat and 1 pleasure craft today. Mike spent most of the day in the engine room cleaning up oil-seems the duty engine has a leak in the fuel line, hope the standby engine keeps on ‘ticking’ or we will be in the dark and cold with nothing but the sound of the wind!!
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:07 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Part Cloudy  Vis. 15 Miles Wind West 17 Knots  Sea 2 Foot Chop
posted by Carol or Mike S at 5:23 AM