Monthly Archives: May 2014

Injured Steller Sea lion

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Clear skies. Strong West winds. Force 6-7.
Barometer was rising most of the day, started to drop around 1200. West gale warning continues for tomorrow as a low pressure moves towards the mainland.

9 tour boats
2 recreational boats passed through the reserve

Yesterday, around midday, an injured Steller Sea lion arrived at Great Race. I saw it swimming through the current below the West cliffs while I was looking for transect pegs. It sussed out the boat ramp (which was full of Elephant seals) and then settled just East of the boat ramp, not far from the crane. It was in the same spot this morning, and stayed there all day. It has a salmon flasher caught in its mouth, and large wounds on both sides. Garry Fletcher suggested it might be an injury from a shark or orca bite. A lot of tour boats have gone through the reserve these past two days, right past this Sea lion, so I expect that it has been thoroughly documented in many people’s vacation photographs.

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Clear

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Clear skies. Moderate West wind. Force 4.
Barometer has been rising most of the day. String west winds are supposed to continue.

9 tour boats
3 halibut boats on the edge of the reserve

A lot of the Elephant seals have pretty much moulted, but they are still hanging out here. There are still a few seals that have just started moutling. One is the big male, one is a female that just arrived on Great Race this week, and there are two juveniles that are just starting to moult around their eyes.

This nice weather means that I don’t have to run the generator very often, mostly because I don’t have to have it on to run the desalinator. I’ve been turning it on for a hour and a half every 5-or-so days just to keep it starting nicely (when it went down for 10 days it took a few tries to get it started). I still check the voltage read-out on the battery bank first thing in the morning, and again around 1600 just to make sure everything is working a it should be.

-Transect peg scavenger hunt
-Finished mapping R. Tracyi

Trev and Flo Anderson’s 70th Wedding Anniversary

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Congratulations from all of Lester Pearson College goes out to the first lightkeepers to welcome us to Race Rocks when the college opened in the 1970s.  They now live in Victoria and are both in their 90’s. Today Helen and Garry Fletcher attended the 70th wedding Anniversary of Trev and Flo Anderson in Victoria. Trev and Flo were the lightkeepers at Race Rocks from 1966-1982.

This link to Trev and Flo Anderson provides other posts
on their work at Race Rocks

Angry birds

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Clear skies. Moderate to strong West wind. Force 5.
The barometer has levelled out around 1007.0 hPa. The forecast is for the moderate to strong West winds to continue.
Big tides and currents these past few days: Low tide is 0.3m and high tide is 2.3m today, and the current is running -6.1kn and +5.6kn.

17 tour boats
6 recreational boats
3 boats fishing on the edge of the reserve

There could be two Cackling geese on the island, or it might just be two small, scruffy Canada Geese, it’s pretty hard to tell. I saw a Canada goose attack a Gull today and break the Gulls wing. I also saw a Gull chase a Canada Goose away from its nest. Lots of antagonistic birds with all this nesting. Judging by the disaster that I have to wash off the solar panels every day, the Gulls are capitalizing on these low tides and catching lots of small fish. I find entire fish skeletons and lots of scales among all the poop on the solar panels. The Elephant seals spent most of the day in the water by the jetty. There are 5 super fat and healthy-looking California Sea lions hanging out on/making a mess of the jetty. I saw the river otter sneak up from the water by the crane and hang out under the crane deck. I think it has a hole/home somewhere under the walkway between the crane deck and the tank shed. I have only ever seen a single otter, but I wonder if it is two and I just never see them together.

I will go as far to say that two recreational fishing boats almost wrecked on the South seal rocks today, but they probably don’t even know how close they came to doom. Two rental boats from Pedder Bay marina came ripping East to West between Great Race and the South seal rocks (which is about a 30m gap). It was pretty close to max flood with the water moving at about 5kn. By sheer luck, they both made it past the rock slab of the South Seal rocks, but I heard one of the boats bottom out on a rock turning around the South-West corner of great race. Thankfully that made him turn away from Great Race because he was headed straight for a very shallow, very sold rock that sits just below the surface. I reported it to the Pedder Bay Marina since they have asked that we contact them when their rental boats are in the reserve. Boating tip from Race Rocks: if there is a patch of ocean that looks like a river, with standing waves and whirlpools, go around it not through it.

-started spring cleaning the Keeper’s house
-pulled nails and tacks from walls, puttied, and did some paint touch ups in the Keeper’s house
-painted upstairs door frames in Keeper’s house

Tour Boats

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Clear. Light West wind. Force 3
Barometer is falling.

23 tour boats
1 dive boat
3 recreational boats passed through

I think the marine tourism season has come into full swing in Victoria. Around 1530 about 10 tour boats passed through the reserve from the West heading back to Victoria. At one point there were 5 boats in middle channel.

There was 16 Elephant seals on Great Race today. They did their usual routine where they are in the water first thing in the morning and then make their way back ashore. Most of them a lying behind the Boat Shed now. Then around midday most of them head back down to the water to cool off. A few of them spent the whole afternoon in the shallows by the jetty.

Marine Science Exam 2

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Overcast. Light to moderate West winds. Force 4. Barometer peaked just above 1015.0 hPa and then started to fall. Forecast for West winds tomorrow. 6 tour boats The second half of the marine science students came out this morning. Because they were a large group it took two boats so both Erik and Chris came out. There was enough water in the morning for the boats to dock next to the jetty to drop the students. The exam has a few stations with tasks and activities that have to be accomplished to answer the questions. There were Elephant seals by the jetty and California sea lions barking on the West side of the island during the entire exam. A few meter sticks were accidentally sacrificed to the current. When they were picked up Erik had to nose Second Nature up to the jetty and the students had to jump on the bow.

Marine Science Exam

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Light variable North wind. Overcast to clear skies. Force 0-1
Barometer is on a slow but steady decline. The forecast is for East winds to shift to moderate West this evening as a small low pressure system moves northward.

6 tour boats

DND was blasting this morning. They sent out an email recently warning people about this scheduled munitions testing. There was about 6 blasts in total, all really loud. The Guillemots are startled by the blasts and fly away, but most of the other animals don’t seem to react.

Erik brought out Laura and Anne along with the first half of the marine science students today to do their 3 hour field exam. The weather and elephant seals cooperated nicely. The DND blasting probably didn’t help with the exam stress.

-sanded and painted drywall repair
-attached Whaler VHF speaker to console stand
-greased hardware on windows that open in the Science house
-Worked on SOPs

Animal Census

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Clear skies, variable light to no wind. Force 0.
Barometer is falling. Forecast is for light to moderate Easterlies.

9 tour boats
2 recreational fishing boats passed through

Animal Census
Steller Sea lion: 24
California Sea lion: 8
Elephant Seal:30
Harbour Seal: 111
Eagle: 3
Canada Goose: 39 adults, 8 goslings
Gull: 180
Oyster Catcher: 10
White Fronted Goose: 1
Pigeon Guillemots: 34

This is the highest number of Elephant seals we have ever counted in the reserve. This morning there were 2 juvenile eagles, and one adult. I have found 3 Oyster Catcher nests: one by the Keeper’s House, one on the bluff West of the jetty, and one on the rocks by the energy building. The Cackling goose is gone. I took the boat past the West bluffs yesterday on my way home and there is no sign of Pigeon Guillemot nesting yet.

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