Author Archives: JAP

Month End Reporting – and time to batten down the hatches!

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As March has come to an end, yesterday’s primary task was to compile various end-of-month reports, including the daily salinity measurements (sent off to DFO) and a detailed account of energy and water consumption. Over the past 31 days, for example, we desalinated 5504l of water – with nearly half of that powered by solar!

 

Compiling the Reports

Monday evening saw a beautiful sunrise and plenty of sea lions camping out on the north side of the island:

 

That is quite different from the weather today: as I’m typing this, there’s a gale blowing (WNW 39kts), with gusts up to 44kts – time to take down that flag, and batten down the hatches!

Ecological Notes: 

  • Two elephant seals continue to hang out on the island; the juvenile male has not been around for a few days

Visitors: 

  • 2 canoeists came to the docks on Monday afternoon but didn’t land

Facility Work:

  • Monthly report, including checking of all fuel & water stores
  • Compiled & submitted salinity log
  • Chopped Firewood
  • The flag was taken down during a gale

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • Few vessels are out due to the weather

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

 

AI innovation comes to Race Rocks

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[FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE]

Revolutionising Lighthouse Illumination with AI Technology

In a groundbreaking development for maritime safety and coastal aesthetics, we are proud to announce that Race Rocks has been chosen as a trial site for the world’s first AI-powered system designed to dynamically to alter light house colour schemes. Developed by some of the world’s leading AI firms, the new system promises to enhance navigational guidance while continuing Race Rocks’ proud tradition of digital innovation in protecting coastal landscapes.

Traditionally, lighthouses have maintained a static colour scheme, providing vital navigation aid to seafarers. However, with the new Automated Palette Regulation Intelligent Lighting For Oceanic Observation & Luminosity System, Race Rocks lighthouse will for the first time be able to adapt its illumination in real-time, optimising visibility and aesthetics simultaneously.

AI at Race Rocks (Sample Illumination)

 

Powered by advanced artificial intelligence algorithms, the system ensures optimal colour selection based on weather conditions, visibility range, and time of day.

C Lyon, director of mammalian affairs, commented:

“Our aim in bringing AI to Race Rocks is to marry safety and beauty along Vancouver Island’s coastline. By harnessing this exciting new technology, we can offer dynamic colour schemes that not only enhance navigational clarity but also elevate the visual appeal of lighthouses, enriching the coastal experience for locals and visitors alike.”

As a testing ground for AI deployment in lighthouses across the Pacific Northwest, a range of colour schemes have been proposed to showcase its versatility:

  1. Ocean Blue Serenity: A calming blue hue, perfect for clear nights and tranquil seas.
  2. Sunset Glow: Warm tones of orange and pink evoke the magic of a coastal sunset, ideal for twilight hours.
  3. Emerald Beacon: A vibrant green reminiscent of coastal foliage, enhancing visibility against rocky shores.
  4. Starry Night: Deep indigo with specks of white, creating a celestial spectacle against the night sky.

In deploying the Automated Palette Regulation Intelligent Lighting For Oceanic Observation & Luminosity System, lighthouses are not just beacons of safety – they become symbols of innovation and beauty, illuminating the way forward for coastal communities.

For further information please contact Elle P. Hantseal at 48.2983N | 123.531W.

[Race Rocks, 1 April 2024] hey Jeremias,, what a coincidence  with April fools day…lol

=== ENDS ===

Happy Easter!

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Race Rocks is famed for its biodiversity (have you checked out our extensive, illustrated taxonomy yet?) – so imagine my surprise when during my regular morning round I encountered a hitherto unspotted species…

Lepus Paschalis (Scotolatae Helveticae)

Whilst our new visitors are cute, as an invasive species I was left with no choice but to take them away for further inspection, and, err, removal from the ecosystem…

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL THOSE WHO CELEBRATE!

Salinity Saturday

Image

A relatively calm Saturday on the Rock provided ample opportunity to finish off various tasks I didn’t quite have the time to complete over the last week – including the monthly calibration of our salinity measurements. What’s that, you ask?

For decades, Race Rocks has been an important site for collecting seawater data – thus creating a valuable longitudinal data set. Every day at maximum flood,* a measurement is taken from the end of the jetty (lifejackets mandatory, especially in rough conditions!), recording both current salinity and temperature.

The digital Salinometre

It’s a quick and straightforward process – submerge the probe to a depth of 1m / 3ft, wait for the readings to stabilise, and press ‘Enter’ to save the data. But it wasn’t always thus – and once a month, the Salinometre is calibrated using the ‘old method’ – i.e., collecting water with rope & bucket, transferring it to a beaker on the workbench, measuring temperature and specific gravity, and then working out salinity using the charts provided.

It’s a bit more complex than the digital measurement – but always reassuring to see the results align!

______
*or, historically, an hour before high tide

 

Ecological Notes: 

  • Sealion numbers continue to increase steadily, with nearly half a dozen naughty ones hauling out on the docks all day

Facility Work:

  • Electric fence repairs, esp in SW sector
  • Solar panel clean
  • Weekly battery water topup
  • Pressure washed approx 1/2 of paths
  • Desalination

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • Numerous ecotourism vessels as the holiday weekend kicks off
  • A lone visitor on a jetski – first time I’ve ever seen one in the reserve!

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72

Topping up the Tanks

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Race Rocks is an island without natural water sources – so every drop of water needs to be desalinated. It’s an elaborate process, usually producing no more than 1.5 litres per minute. Come along for a look behind the scenes!

First, we need to get lots of seawater into the main cistern, located between the lighthouse and the Keeper’s cottage. This involves running firehoses (the old Pearson College firefighting setup!) from the cistern down to the dock, and hooking it up to a portable generator (aka ‘the trash pump’).

 

Filling the Cistern

 

It takes several hours to fill up the cistern – leaving plenty of time for step 2: the desalinator.

The ever-fiddly desalinator

With a reverse osmosis system and secondary UV filter plus various pumps required for operation, running the desalinator is probably the single most energy-hungry task, taking baseline consumption from 1.3kW to a load of around 3.8kW: not something you want to risk on batteries alone! As a result, we try to desalinate as much as possible in the early afternoon hours on sunny days, when solar power generation can exceed 5kW. During the winter months and on grey days, the only option is the diesel generator – making every drop of water even more precious.

The main generator

Once desalinated, the water is stored in a big white tank next to the desalination bunker, whence it is distributed to the residences, and filtered one more time before it comes out of the tap. There’s still quite a lot of sediment to be washed out, as you can see from the filters I changed this morning:

Out with the old (right) and in with the new (left)

It’s been a busy day, but lots of tasks are now ticked off the list: thank you Cedric for coming out to help with a few things that required two pairs of hands!

Thank you, Cedric!

Ecological Notes: 

  • One of the female elephant seals and the juvenile male returned to the island today.

Visitors:

  • Cedric from Pearson College kindly came to help out with a few tasks

Facility Work:

  • Set up firehoses & trash pump to fill central cistern
  • Replace water filters in both dwellings
  • Recycling and compost runs
  • Topped up furnace tank in keepers’ house with 200l of diesel
  • Moved large barrel of diesel to the generator room

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • The number of ecotourism vessels is clearly picking up ahead of the holiday weekend 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

The Nesting Season Begins

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With the days getting longer and (in theory…) warmer, nesting activity is picking up – more and more seagulls continue to arrive to stake out their territory, collecting grass bedding and defending their budding nesting sites.

Checking out the prime real estate

The Geese are well ahead, with three pairs already nesting – one right by the Keeper’s cottage, one just outside the generator room, and one at the back of the tank shed. Constant vigilance is required, however, lest a greedy seagull comes for the freshly laid eggs…

Ecological Notes: 

  • The male elephant seal set off for his morning splash as usual, but didn’t return throughout the day. The more junior female has returned, resting all day on the rocks above the jetty.

Visitors: 

  • Cedrick’s planned visit postponed until tomorrow due to inclement weather conditions.

Facility Work:

  • Work on perimeter fence where posts had been knocked over by wind / elephant seals
  • Fixed doorframe to desalinator bunker which had snapped off
  • Moved empty Diesel barrels to Tank Shed in preparation for tomorrow’s fuel transfers
  • Begun mapping of load factors / electricity consumption of different appliances across the island

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • Quite a few ecotourism vessels all around the resort
  • After SAR exercise north of Race Rocks

 

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72

The Weekly Animal Census

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Today, it was time for the weekly animal census on Race Rocks – a longstanding tradition (see the full archive, here) that allows us to keep track of an ever-fluctuating population of birds and marine mammals. The morning weather wasn’t particularly promising, with wind, rain, and dark overcast skies.

Combined with high tides and a rough sea state, perhaps it wasn’t entirely surprising that the numbers seemed a bit lower than usual – with the harbour seals in particular mostly hiding out in the waves surrounding the South Rocks, and thus rather tricky to count. Alas – who was about?

Census equipment – species list, binoculars, and a clicker to keep track of everyone

 

March 27th Animal Census

Birds:

Oyster catcher: 22
Harlequin duck: 15
Gulls: 195
Cormorant: 73
Pigeon guillemot: 101
Juvenile eagle: 1
Adult eagle: 1
Canadian geese: 9
Shore / Surf birds: 15
Turnstones: 10

Marine Mammals:

Steller sea lions: 14
Harbour seal: 21
Male Elephant seal: 1 (back on land after a lengthy morning expedition)
Female elephant seal : 0
California sea lion: 24

The weather did eventually start to calm down a bit – still hopeful to catch my first RR sunset of the trip later tonight!

 

Facility Work:

  • Weekly Animal Census
  • Continued algae clean-up on Generator Roof
  • Chopped Firewood
  • Prepared new Water Filters for both the Keeper’s Residence and the Marine Science Building
  • Early AM generator run to top up batteries, PM solar enough to reach charge status of 100%

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • 1 ecotourism vessel, passing between the South Islands and Rosedale Reef

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Full Moon Tuesday

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I woke up quite early this morning (not difficult when the seagulls keep jumping around on your roof, and the sea lions continuously bark at one another…!), and was rewarded with the most astonishing full moon:

The moon (!), the stars, and Race Rocks Lighthouse

The clear night translated into a beautiful sunny morning, so I headed up the ladder to the roof of the generator room to give the solar panels a good scrub and maximise energy generation…

Everyone’s favourite task…

… and duly managed to run the desalinator purely off solar power from just before noon until around 3:30, when the clouds started to fall in.

Generation eventually went as high as 5kw!

 

Ecological Notes: 

  • The juvenile male elephant seal continues to hang out on the island, whereas I didn’t spot either of the females all day.

    Always keeping a watchful eye in between snoozes…

  • Sea lion numbers continue to increase steadily: it’ll be interesting what tomorrow’s census yields

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

 

Facility Work:

  • Solar Panel clean
  • Stagnant Water removal and Anti-Algae Treatment of Generator Room roof to ensure it doesn’t become treacherous to work up there
  • Topped up generator fuel
  • Hoisted new flag

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • No visits to the reserve
  • Extensive coastguard exercises on both sides of the Strait

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

 

Back on the Rock!

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Hello dear readers!

I’ve been lucky to come to Race Rocks on and off for just over twenty years – and there is still nothing quite like the magic of pulling out of Pedder Bay and first catching a glimpse of the lighthouse on the horizon.

I arrived yesterday afternoon to glorious sunshine and a warm welcome and handover from Kendra, and quickly felt at home once more amongst the island’s sights, sounds, (and smells!)

The weather had turned to grey and windy this morning – but who can worry about inclement conditions when there are boisterous sea lions going about their morning stomp down to the jetty for a quick dip?

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the island, re-familiarising myself with facilities and SOPs, and frequently just stopping for a moment to marvel. It’s great to be back!

 

Ecological Notes: 

  • Several orcas entered the reserve south of Great Race Rock, but didn’t stay for long or come in to feed.
  • The lone juvenile male is now consistently joined by two females, with Petal continuing to enjoy demolishing any flowers she can find around the island.
  • Spotted one of three currently resident sea otters.

Visitors: 

  • Greg and Cedric came on Second Nature to pick up Kendra and dropped off some fresh drinking water.

Facility Work:

  • Handover inspection of facilities, fuel, water &c
  • Checked Battery Acid levels and topped up as appropriate
  • Setting up in the Keeper’s cottage
  • Checked safety equipment (first aid kit, fire detectors & extinguishers, &c

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • 2 ecotourism vessels

 Weather – Current:
http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:
http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?