More and more tour boats are visiting the reserve this week. It is easy to loose track of the numbers because they come out of nowhere it seems and from every direction. I estimate we are seeing about 20 visits a day this week. This may be because the orca are out of range, and Race Rocks can always be counted on to provide a picturesque opportunity to see marine mammals in the wild. By and large the tour boat operators are respectful but some operators seem ignorant of the reserve boundaries and come in or leave a little too rapidly. I will be emailing the companies to clarify this issue when I have some photographic evidence.

Whale-watching vessel

This enormous vessel is new. I will be curious to see how marine mammals react to it. I suspect it will have less impact than the zodiacs because it will stay a bit further away and more people will see the animals on one trip than 6 or 8 zodiac trips. We will see!

This large California Sea Lion arrived yesterday. He has a brand that appears to be 909 (or 606). More pictures of him coming soon….

Elephant Seals at Docks

There are 6-7 elephant seals finishing up their moulting now. On occasion we get a little traffic jam on the ramp. Here Bertha reminds the others who is boss…

The military conducted several over-flights whilst on manoeuvres, but at a reasonable altitude. Yesterday Erik and I shipped 500 gallons of water over, as finding parts for the desalination unit is challenging. I hope that volume will last a month or so…