A new male Elephant Seal

Weather

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

Quite a few ecotour boats today, especially ones I haven’t seen around the island before
I noticed a helicopter in the distance, in the direction of Port Angeles, which I think might be a Coast Guard helicopter. It seemed to be circling a certain area for about 15 mins. Didn’t see any other vessels around.

Technical

The desalination pump doesn’t seem to be drawing water anymore. I initially thought the tide was too low for the pump to draw the brine, but even at high tide it doesn’t seem to be drawing any water. I’ve contacted Guy about it and he will be looking into it tomorrow.

Marine Mammals

There were 3 female and 2 male Elephant Seals on the island today. The second male was a new arrival and it caused a fight between the two males. Neither was seriously injured during the fight – it lasted a few minuted before both returned to the water.

Very windy day

Weather

Boats/Visitors

Birds

The seagulls have gotten noticeably more aggressive but still no signs of offspring

Marine Animals

There were four Elephant seals on the main island today – one male and three female. The male and one female seemed to occasionally get aggressive with each other, but no harm was done to either.
One of the females still seems to be undergoing the molting process.
Elephant Seal tagged B198 is still on the island and has been in the same spot over the last few days.

Overall, quite an uneventful day.

Weather

Boats/Visitors

The calm weather attracted several ecotour boats as well as many private boats
I witnessed several boating violations:
- 2 marina boats were getting really close to the sea lions. I had to call the marina and report the boats.
- A private small boat tried to enter the ramp area near the jetty. I went up to the jetty and asked them to reverse out of that area.
- A whale watching boat almost entered the lighthouse island and the south islands, but stopped short when I went outside and made myself visible.

Technical

Over the last 48 hours, for some reason, the batteries were draining faster than usual and even running the generator for 2+ hours daily wasn’t enough. This morning the batteries came to a critical low of 18%. I got in touch with Guy over IM and we troubleshooted the cause to be excess power consumption from the student house. After closing a few switches and unplugging some machines, I ran the generator for 4 hours and was able to bring the batteries back up to 100%. The bright sun all day today definitely also helped juice the batteries up faster.

Ecological

Weather

Boats/Visitors

Ecological

Spotted a young elephant seal (about 3-4 ft in length) near the jetty.
Seagulls have laid their eggs! I estimate about 30-40 eggs on the island so far, definitely growing in number. Some seagulls are still building their nest/adding more straw
Spotted a tagged elephant seal near the jetty. Tag number was B198. Photo below