Heavy fog crept in and out through the day, fog horn went off a couple of times
Boats/Visitors/Sightings
Search and Rescue Operation currently underway for 58 year old asian male kayaker who hasn’t been seen since yesterday.
I received the information this morning from Pearson College about an active search and rescue for a kayaker who left from Beecher Bay on Monday afternoon. I immediately did a sweep of the Race Rocks perimeter and a scan of the area from the top of the lighthouse. There was a rescue helicopter and several marine vessels around the area throughout the day. As of 2200 hrs on Tuesday he hasn’t been seen.
A small pleasure craft with 3 occupants was fishing in the north end of the reserve. After several attempts to radio them and using the air horn to get their attention, they remained for 20 mins or so. They left after catching a couple of large fish. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to catch the vessel’s number. Photographed below.
A Pedder Bay Marina boat with 4 occupants was fishing in the east end of the reserve. I called the marina immediately but they couldn’t get in touch with the people in the vessel. They left the reserve area when the tide pushed them east about 10 mins later, but they still remained on the boundaries of the reserve. Photographed below.
Marine Mammals
The Sea Lions seem to have disappeared today – no sign of them anywhere on the main lighthouse island.
Saw some orcas about 2 km south – surprisingly they stayed there for over 2 hours! The orcas out-waited several whale watching boats.
There was a man who arrived close to the reserve in a row boat. Upon talking to him I learned that he rowed here all the way from Port Angeles and was headed to Victoria, but the tide pushed him to Race Rocks instead. After rowing around the reserve for a few minutes, he headed on to Victoria.
Bird Notes
Noticed a sudden rise in number of immature gulls. Photographs below.
Marine Mammals
The latest elephant seal count is at 5 males and 1 female.
There are two California Sea Lion young ones around the jetty, with an adult (presumably the mother).
Spotted the HMCS Calgary leaving Pedder Bay and heading out towards the open ocean
Technical
Yesterday Kyle and Guy visited the island to go over all the energy and support systems. They identified some issues with the desalination pump, and the solar panel grid. There will be a technician coming soon to fix those.
Bird Notes
I saw a whole flock of Pelicans fly over the island – about 15-20 in number.
Garry Fletcher (ER Warden) and the IT team from Pearson College came ashore this morning. The IT team worked on replacing some of the wiring at the top of the lighthouse while I gave Garry a brief rundown of the happenings on the island.
A group of 9 visitors from the Kule Foundation came for a tour later in the afternoon. They spent close to an hour exploring every part of the island, including the top of the lighthouse, as Guy and I provided information, facts and stories.
After a Seaking Adventures boat violated the rules of the reserve day before yesterday and went into the eastern channel, I called the company this evening to give a warning. They explained that they have a new driver who is new to the area, but assured me that there would be no more boating violations on their part.
HMCS Edmonton was headed towards Pedder Bay this evening, along with a tail of two hard-hulled inflatables.
Bird Notes
A Pelican spent a good part of the afternoon on the island, just north of the student house. I haven’t seen this Pelican here before in the last 10 days that I have been at Race Rocks.
More seagull eggs. None hatched yet. Seagulls are relatively less aggressive than usual for this time of the year.
Marine Mammals
Garry spotted a new male Elephant Seal on the island today. It’s a fairly young one with remarkably unmarked/scarred skin. We believe that’s because it may have recently finished molting.
One of the whale watching boats entered the channel on the East side of the main island. I was busy trying to get them to reverse out and couldn’t run to get a picture unfortunately. I’ll be on the lookout for the same boat again.
Guy brought several volunteers and visitors to the island today! The volunteers helped Guy place some of the old batteries on the upper shelves of the battery room. Guy was also able to help me with the desalination and power washer issues. We were also able to test the YSI meter to confirm that it is giving inaccurate readings and needs to be fixed.
Marine Mammals
There were 3 female and 1 male Elephant Seals on the island today. The second male from yesterday was nowhere in sight.
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
