Author Archives: Carol and Mike Slater

Project week for PC students

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Monday, November 05, 2001
 Good Evening,
PC STUDENTS: Project week students –Well we are just finishing our second day here at Racerocks. Today Sarah and I seeded some grass in the fissures of the newly restored rock. Along with Salla we ventured to the top of the lighthouse. The view is spectacular! The high light of our day was a poignant video captured by Kiprop of a sea lion sneezing. We vacuumed the tank, and we all learned to syphon, valuable skill. It was a fantastic day out today, which culminated in a great pizza.
We will attept to rise for 7:30am in order to do the morning recordings. We have decided today to make a video, entitled “How to survive on racerocks, for dummies.” We will start production tomorrow.
Goodnight!
posted by HANNAH McKinnon at 7:21 PM
 PC STUDENTS: Project Week students-On Sunday, five students from Lester Pearson College, Salla from Finland, Sarah from Saskatchewan, Hannah from Manitoba, Muyad from Palestine and Kiprop from Kenya moved out to stay at Race Rocks in the Marine Science Centre for the week. They have a number of projects they are doing while there so they will be commenting on what is happening on this log over the next few days.
posted by Garry Fletcher at 1:50 PM
 Good morning
WEATHER:Sky cloudy — Vis 15 miles — Light rain shower — Wind north west 6 knots — Sea rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:19 AM

Large wave day, Minke Whale observed

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Friday, November 02, 2001
Good evening
WEATHER: Max. 10.7ºC — Min 7.5ºC — Reset 8.1ºC Rain 0.4 mm Wind was light and variable. It was a great day to be on the rock.
Although the sea was fairly calm, the 4-6′ swells coming in from the west and piling up to 10-12′ green and white frothy curls on the underwater reefs made for great wave watching!
MARINE LIFE: The birds continue to feed in in large numbers but impossible to count because of the glare on the sea.It was also impossible to positively identify a whale that looked like a 18-20′ Minke Whale even with the telescope, because of the glare and distance.2 of the 4 Northern Elephant Seals regularly hauling out in various areas of Gr. Race spent several hours on the boat ramp enjoying the sun.
HUMAN INTERACTION: There were 5 tour boats and one pleasure craft (4 metre sailboat) in the M.P.A. today.posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:20 PM
Good morning
Sky part cloudy — Vis. 15 miles — Wind west 14 knots — Sea 1 – 2 foot chop
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:17 AM

Seabird feeding frenzy

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Thursday, November 01, 2001
WEATHER: We had calm seas for most of the day although the wind has increased to over 24knts in the past 1/2 hour.
MARINE LIFE: Fishing was good for the birds and sea lions today! Just after 10a.m. the sky was filled with hundreds and hundreds of sea birds,gulls,cormorants and common murres streaming across the islands southward to a tideline about 1/2 km. away.Looking with the telescope I estimated 3500-4000 sea birds feeding—-by 13:30 most had dispersed. In a space of three hours we saw 5 Steller(northern)sea lions catch salmon (-that looked to be 5-8lbs) in the kelp bed between North Rocks and Gr. Race. The birds,especially gulls rush over to get any bits of fish that break away as the sea lion thrashes the fish back and forth at the surface.The two juvenile elephant seals that were hauled out in the little bay with a group of about 20 harbour seals, swam out into the large kelp bed along the east side of Gr. Race just before 14:00 and had not returned before dark.Have not seen the large bull elephant seal that spends a good portion of the year stretched out atop West Rock.Did a boat tour around all the islands today and counted 97 California and 27 Steller sea lions. Also counted over 800 Cormorants.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 10:03 PM
Good evening
Max. 10.0ºC — Min. 8.1ºC — Reset 9.7ºC — Rain 1.6 mm
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:04 PM
Good morning
Sky overcast — Vis. 13 miles — Rain showers — Wind north east 5 knots Sea rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:12 AM

Orca visit

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Wednesday, October 31, 2001


WEATHER: Max 10.1ºC — Min 8.1ºC — Reset 8.9ºC Rain 14.6mm
Total Rain fall 108.1mm for the month of October 2001- Mean high temp. 11.5ºC — Mean low temp. 8.1ºC
MARINE LIFE: A blustery start to the day again but the weather did not seem to bother the mature Bald Eagle that arrived shortly after 9:00 and stayed for over two hours.We noticed the second visitor at 12:50 just west of Gr. Race,a lone transient bull Orca. He ‘cruised’ along the shore of North Rocks and Gr. Race and then into the kelp bed on the east side of Gr. Race.The Harbour seals were very agitated,crowded together close to shore, bobbing up and down to watch for the whale. Interestingly several groups of sea lions(steller&california) followed along about 200′ behind the Orca. Watched through the telescope one group of 10-12 sea lions follow the Orca about a mile east when we lost sight of them.

 

 

Early Eagle Appearance

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Tuesday, October 30, 2001
Good evening
WEATHER: Max. 9.0ºC — Min. 6.7ºC — Reset 8.9ºC — Rain 3.6 mm
Although the wind got up to 20-22 knots late morning, by 14:00 the cool northerly eased off to a dull rainy afternoon.
MARINE LIFE: There are fewer than 100 Sea Lions hauled out but we have over 500 gulls,Glaucous-winged,Western and a few Herring gulls. We counted 190 Cormorants,mostly on North Rocks.The immature Bald Eagle that spent most of the day on the high point of the rocks just SE of Gr. Race Saturday and again Sunday has not been back – maybe the immature gull it caught and ate was enough gull for a while, their preferred food is fish. We do not usually see many Eagles out here this time of the year as they congregate at the rivers like Goldstream which are full of salmon returning to spawn.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:03 PM

No blasting today– sealions return

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 Good morning
Sky overcast — Vis 15 — Wind west 9 knots — Sea rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:40 AM

After a quiet weekend (no blasting at D.N.D.) only 85 Sea Lions have returned to their usual haul-out areas.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 10:49 AM

The poor quality video from camera#1 and especially #3 is because of the sheets of rain driven by the 45-50knt. winds we are enjoying at this time! The visibility is very poor but looks like all but 8 or 9 sea lions have moved into the water, the aprox. 300 gulls are all huddled together in small groups facing into the westerly.13 Black Oyster Catchers are together in a small depression on the east side of Gr. Race in the shelter of the house.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 3:48 PM

Driving Rain

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Monday, October 22, 2001
Good evening
Max 10.5ºC — Min. 8.0ºC — Reset 8.9ºC — Rain 13.6 mm. As you see it was not a good day for fishing.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:33 PM
The poor quality video from camera#1 and especially #3 is because of the sheets of rain driven by the 45-50knt. winds we are enjoying at this time! The visibility is very poor but looks like all but 8 or 9 sea lions have moved into the water, the aprox. 300 gulls are all huddled together in small groups facing into the westerly.13 Black Oyster Catchers are together in a small depression on the east side of Gr. Race in the shelter of the house.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 3:48 PM

DND blasting

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Good morning
Sky overcast — Vis. 15 miles — Wind south west 10 knots — Sea rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:12 AM
Friday, October 19, 2001
Good evening
Max 10.5ºC — Min 8.8ºC — Reset 9.9ºC Rain 2.4 mm — Sky cloudy until 11:45 than part cloudy
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:20 P
If you were watching camera #1 or #3 in the last few minutes you may wonder why the Sea Lions all rushed into the water,well the D.N.D. are preforming explosive exercises. Yesterday morning we counted 580 sea lions hauled out on the various islets but after three ‘blast ‘series fewer than 50 sea lions remained hauled out, by 2 p.m. when the blasting had ended for the day we counted only 9 sea lions hauled out on the rocks. This morning fewer than 100 sea lions had returned to the haul out areas. The first blast today at aprox. 10:28 alerted the animals and the second blast about 2 minutes later scared all but 23 into the water. Since the two blasts 10:51 and 10:53 only 17 animals are stilled hauled out!
posted by Carol or Mike S at 11:03 AM

Weather notes

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Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Good evening
Max. 11.0ºC — Min. 8.1ºC — reset 10.5ºC rain fall for the day 9.2mm
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:06 PM
in the last 20 minutes the weather has deteriorated – winds are west 30 gusting 40 knots with 4′ seas
posted by Carol or Mike S at 3:08 PM
Good morning
Sky overcast — Vis. 12 miles — light rain — Wind north east 11 knots — Sea rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:10 AM

Herring Balls in Race Passage.

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Thursday, September 27, 2001

We enjoyed a fairly typical fall day weather-wise here at Race Rocks today.
Temperatures max 12.0 C — min 9.1 C — reset 11.3 C — Total rain fall for the day 0.4 mm.
Returning from a noon meeting on campus we did a boat tour around all the islets – we counted
280 Northern or Steller sea lions – 295 Californian sea lions and 220 Harbour seals hauled out on the rocks. We also counted approx. 80 Cormorants. Earlier in the day we saw 2 ‘ fish balls’ with several hundred sea birds feeding just east of Great Race.