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- Camera 3 being installed
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- Black Oystercatcher
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- Max
Author Archives: Christine Ouradou
IT Visitors
Weather
Sea:calm
Wind :8 knots
Sky:Cloudy to clear
Later very hot day with a mirror sea
Ecological
Seawater is getting warmer
Long bathing time for the 2 big males and 2 young elephant seals at the jetty.
The tide was very low and I found 2 huge mussels as big as my hand ! Impressed!
One elephant seal never moved for 2 days . She looks old or sick ,maybe both?
Found a gull and a harbour seal dead (not recent).
Maintenance
Max changed the routers in the houses
Max and James installed a camera on a oystercatcher nest with 2 eggs in it. The nest is closest to the boat shed at the top of the rocks, actually just under the camera 5. The new 24/24 camera will be on youtube pretty soon .
Aziz ,a 2nd year student, working at the college this Summer, took pictures and came with me to the top of the lighthouse.
Kyle and Guy pulled the diesel hoses through the island and empty them (around 10 litres) and put them back in their shed
Seawater house: heavy cleaning ,floor and bank inside and outside (old shingles from the roof)
Solar panels and alleys swept.
Vessels
Busy day . More than 30 eco tours vessels and around 4:30 ,8 at the same time …
Other
Summer is here Quiet and beautiful evening on the rock especially
White everywhere ..More gulls. Can’t wait for the census next week!
1st full day on the rocks
Weather
Wind : NW wind ,26 knots at 5:30 ,up to 30 at 7:30 and back to 3 :00 in the afternoon
Sky: Rainy first and cloudy later.
Visibility: 5 miles at 5:30 getting better later
Sea: Wavelets,white caps to calm later in the day.
Ecological
All the elephant seals went fishing this night,came back one after the other this morning.
13 geese pay a visit in the evening and left one hour later.
In the evening an eagle flew over 2 times and post itself on the crane ! the gulls got mad.
Sea water :Temperature 11.1 and salinity:32.1
We found a dry tailbone
Boats
Huge traffic the whole day . All kinds of boats: around 10 Whale Watchers,a few fishing boats,a Canadian sailboat,2 cruising boats,a logging boat with its tugboats,tankers and containers ,an American ship,The Port – Angeles ferryboat,Later I made a quick research on one big square gray one : it was a vehicules carrier coming from Bahamas going to San Diego,Draught:9.1 meter,Speed:20 knots,Gross tonnage :58.767 tonnes . Her name Genius Highway (From Marine Traffic Website).
DND Activity
A few blasts at 9:40,9:44,10:42 ,10:44,and 5:30 in the evening.
Maintenance
Student house tank filled up
Student main house tank filled up
Run the generator for 2 hours and half
Main house :Inside tidying up.
Coming back and setting down day
Weather
Sky: Overcast to rainy;Wind: 10-15 knots West wind;Sea:Calm
Ecological
14 elephant seals and among them 2 big ones :On Great Race my friend Chunk and a new one for me , named Chuckles. The grassy field looks like a schoolyard with the playing young ones.
Surprise to see Gulls already so busy building nest and some on it. Pretty soon we saw our first egg …10 Californian Sea lions on Great Race Rocks
Seawater sampling around noon today: Salinity :32:01 and temperature :10:9 C
Maintenance
Checking around for priorities: A small leak from the gazoil filter needs attention.
Whaler battery put in charge.
Whaler diesel fuel tank filled up.
Different controls done
Boats
One whale watcher boat at 20:30 PM This is unusual ,looks like they were waiting for the lighthouse to light up..it was not for a nice sunset!
Other
We admire the beautiful bricks under the wheels .Thanks to Riley!
Intense activity at the DND: 4 strong blasts between 10:45 and 2:00 PM and a very surprising one at 10:30 PM This one made the house shake ! WE were kept in alert before by a flashing blue light ( a DND zodiac protecting the area).
We looked for a sailboat photo required by the boat owner and taken on Race Rocks . We found it and sent it to the college.
It’s good to be on Race Rocks ! Happy Eco – Guardians!
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- Christine
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- Guy
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- California Sea Lion
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- Chunk the Elephant seal bottom side.
Another active day
2nd coat on the railing …washing of the sampling house: done!
For the first time we saw a drone taking a video of the animals and coming from a whale watcher boat. The southwest wind raised slowly in the afternoon bringing some fog. Catherine and Noemi counted 600 Sea lions from the tower! Very impressive!
Boat trip to town
We went the 4 together to the college and we enjoyed this flat sea and sunny day. We realized how much the kelp has grown around. We now have big fields of them everywhere and the size of those seaweeds is amazing. We really need to be careful with the boat
A new yellow railing
The 21st has been a beautiful and perfect sunny day. We got many watchers coming to see the place and entertained by the sea lion’s show on the rocks. That day was dedicated to the repainting of the yellow railing on the jetty. It took the 4 of us 5 hours of work but the result was stunning. We were happy! Guy folded for good the blue hose and did some fiberglass work on the Whaler. The jetty area where we spent the day was pretty stinky and noisy, our dear neighbors being so closed even some staying at the end of the jetty. They get used to us but I am not sure if we got used to them! 2 boats with fishing gear in the water came close today. One of them understood quickly that he could stay and left …
Summer work
Guy finally put a second fence around the student house and it has been working efficiently since: Humans and their belonging are now well protected. Every day we can see more sea lions around and on the main island. Our 2 students finished the trailer-painting job. The young gulls now fly and swim to the southern rocks and there are fewer birds everyday so it ‘s not anymore an adventure going across the island. The 20th has been a pretty windy day from 29.5knots in the morning to 29.5 late in the afternoon
Painting work all around
We had to go to town and took back more concrete blocs on the island .In the morning we discovered closed to the solar panels the dead body of a pretty big chick and another one closed to the boathouse. That makes a total of 10 dead birds until now. The girls had been very busy painting the desalinator room floor and they put a first coat of rust paint on the trailer. . Many whale watchers were around the rocks more than 20 boats. At 4h00PM the Northeast wind increased a lot and reached 36 knots later in the evening shaking the houses. Sun is lying down at 8H20PM
Trips to the college
It has been such gorgeous day: sun, no wind so the perfect day for picking up some stuff needed to finish to reinstall the fence around the student house before the sea lions invade that spot too. We had to do 2 trips and came back with concrete blocs and poles. Noemi and Catherine had to meet their supervisor at the college so it was a good timing for everybody. For their school project they have to verify the number of seagulls everyday so it will be interesting to see the evolution of the situation