Weather: 

• Visibility 14 miles
• Partly cloudy, sunny
• Wind 25-35 knots (gale warning in effect)
• White caps and spray. Waves up to 4 m.

Visitors/Boats: 

• The college boats are still in for maintenance, so we have not had any visitors. We are hoping to go to the main island soon but winds were much too strong and unpredictable today.
• The past couple of days we have seen a handful of eco-tourism vessels and pleasure craft. Some vessels have approached within 20 m of our jetty and surrounding Great Race Rock. The elephant seals have been scooting up the jetty to get away and the few sea lions remaining appear disturbed.

Ecological: 

• We were sad to find the missing gosling deceased. It seems that due to its injured foot it was easy prey for the bald eagles that have been swooping by lately.
• We are now in the company of 4 very large male elephant seals who have stopped here to moult. They are enjoying taking regular baths in the shallow and protected jetty waters.
• The occasional sea lion has stopped by and hauled out for a rest, but otherwise they have all moved on.
• The seagulls are becoming more and more aggressive. We are anticipating the need to wear protective equipment sometime in the coming week!

Maintenance/Other:

• We are still waiting for the delayed desalinator, so we are conserving water as much as we can in the meantime, as it is not possible for more to be delivered without the use of the college vessels.
• We have been collecting shingles as the high winds are tearing them off of the sheds (new metal roofing is expected sometime soon), and often find fishing lures, bits of rope, and other litter wedged into the rocky intertidal.
• The beautiful sunny days lately have meant that we have been able to operate entirely on solar power most days. We’ve been having some troubles with the battery charge readings but otherwise the system is working without a hitch!