Wildlife notes

There are so many whales around but mostly they are too far away for me to see them. Today’s treat was a humpback feeding < 1 mile away and two killer whales swimming close to shore between Race Rocks and the South Islands, making a few passes around East Beach. The best part of it was watching the seals watch the killer whales.  They were close to shore in water a few feet deep, alert and in the ready position, not in their usual lazy rock sausage lounging positions.

Killer whale in the channel between Great Race Rock and the South Islands.

Harbour seals all “stretchy necked” watching for the killer whales.

Facility work

Mike and Richard came with three rolls of pipe for the new water line to the cistern. It was unrolled, laid flat and tied down along the jetty with the hope that it will be better behaved when the time comes to install the line. They took away the old metal composting barrel stored inside the generator building.  We have switched to using the outdoor compost bins which are easier to deal with but the compost that we emptied out of the barrel looked (dark, homogenous and fully composted) and smelled (odorless) fantastic . They also hauled away a drum of used generator oil and more scrap metal.

• cleaned solar panel
• unrolled pipe for the new cistern line
• emptied and removed old barrel composter
• removed drum of used oil

When on a vessel there is an expression “one hand for the boat”, meaning one hand must always be free and dedicated to holding on. Here it is “one hand for the broom”. The broom is a decoy and saves us from direct gull attacks.

The drum of used oil being loaded onto the boat by Mike and Richard..

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 13
• Private: 2

Weather

Clear skies and haze in the am, cloudy in the pm.  Winds variable 1 to 21 knots. Daytime temperatures 12 to 24 degrees.  Warm enough I broke a sweat today!