The calm weather attracted several ecotour boats as well as many private boats
I witnessed several boating violations:
2 marina boats were getting really close to the sea lions. I had to call the marina and report the boats.
A private small boat tried to enter the ramp area near the jetty. I went up to the jetty and asked them to reverse out of that area.
A whale watching boat almost entered the lighthouse island and the south islands, but stopped short when I went outside and made myself visible.
Technical
Over the last 48 hours, for some reason, the batteries were draining faster than usual and even running the generator for 2+ hours daily wasn’t enough. This morning the batteries came to a critical low of 18%. I got in touch with Guy over IM and we troubleshooted the cause to be excess power consumption from the student house. After closing a few switches and unplugging some machines, I ran the generator for 4 hours and was able to bring the batteries back up to 100%. The bright sun all day today definitely also helped juice the batteries up faster.
Ecological
Noticed several more seagull eggs today. None hatched so far
About a dozen elephant seals out there today, one young male, the rest female
looks like there is a few oyster catcher nests around, I saw the one by the house awhile ago, I hope to see them hatch before I leave at the end of the month but we will see
Guy and Travis took a couple groups of students for a cruise around the island, unfortunately it was too shallow for them to dock so they went around in the boats
Ecological
Only counted 11 elephant seals today, one might be hiding in the rocks on the east side though
the seagulls are building their nests but no eggs yet
Another elephant seal showed up on the east side of the island in the late afternoon, so it looks like there is 13 now, the new one looks like a young female
