Category Archives: Marine Vessels

Diesel Delivery and Desalinator Technician

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Fuel in, garbage out

Fuel in, garbage out

Weather: Wind N 15-20 knots

Boats:

  • 1 ecotour
  • Kyle, Guy and a desalinator technician arrived around 1300 in second nature

Maintenance: 

  • offloaded 4 diesal barrels from second nature to race rocks
  • technician looked over desalinator HP pump, suggest bringing it in for a rebuild once parts available
  • Offloaded 5 sling loads of garbage and recycling including: scrap metal, glass, old wet carpets, asphalt shingles, 2 old treadmills, broken small appliances/electronics, TV, oil/fuel rags, empty paint/spray cans, scrap wood, and old line trimmer.
  • stored diesel barrels, pumped 1 barrel to tidy tank and filled day tank.
  • greased steering shaft of whaler
  • filled fuel in whaler

Steady North Wind

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Weather: N wind 15-20 knots in the morning and up to 30 knots NE during the day, temperature around 0 deg C.

Boats: 1 eco-tour, it appeared to be closer than 100m to sealions.

Maintenance: 

  • Clear boat ramp of NE wind debris
  • clean up in basement, prep for offloading scrap/garbage
  • grease boston whaler steering rod

Freezing

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Weather:

  • 25-30 knot NE wind, clear sky.
  • temperature fell below freezing overnight, ground frozen in the morning.

Boats: 3 ecotour vessels in the afternoon, they all appeared to get within the DFO’s 100 m marine mammal setback guideline.

Maintenance:

  • checked on water lines and hooked up extension cables to heat tape on the fresh water tank and the main house fresh water inlet.  Dumped water from rain tank to avoid freezing valve. Drained cistern pump in derrick shed.
  • measured generator diesel levels, filled day tank.
  • started generator in the morning, ran for 3 hours before overspeed fault.  Ran again in the evening without overspeed.
  • chopped wood, cleared out firewood cutting jig

 

Freeze up coming

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A group of visitors from the college was planned to arrive around noon but the trip was canceled due to poor weather conditions.

Weather:

  • Fog horn started up at 1 am, light fog, didn’t last very long.
  • Wind NE 15-25 knots most most of the day.
  • The forecast is calling for temperatures to fall below freezing in the coming days.
  • Fresh snow visible along the coast in Metchosin

snow-dec-6-2

snow-dec-6-3

 

 

 

 

Maintenance:

  • Checked on exposed water lines, started up assistant house furnace to keep above freezing.
  • Did some clean up of blown off roof shingles, broken gutters, pipe, etc.
  • Ran derrick engine
  • Cleared boat ramp
  • Generator automatically shut down due to overspeed fault.
  • Requested new log peavey to replace old broken one.

Boats:

  • Photos below of The Argent Daisy, a chemical tanker, passing by Race Rocks.

 

clear sky, humpback

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Weather: steady west wind, 20-30 knots.  Mostly clear sky.

Ecological:

  • One humpback whale was visible near the reserve for several hours beginning around noon.
  • 3 Male elephant seals have been staying mostly on Great Race, traveling individually to middle rock occasionally.
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Humpback between North Rock and William Head

Maintenance: Flushed rainwater barrel pipe to cistern.

Boats: 1 ecotour, caused some disturbance of sealions near jetty as well as on South Islands.

Guardian shift change

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Guy left the station around 800 in the morning. We met around noon at the college and debriefed. I came out in the whaler and landed around 1400.  I will be here for the month of December.

Ecological

  • There were 3 male elephant seals on Great Race when i arrived, 2 of them are adult including Chunk, the other appears to be adolescent.  There was another male elephant seal on West Rock.
  • There are more sealions in the reserve than I recall from previous years at this time and they are more present on Great Race as well,  including a persistent congregation on and around the jetty.

Boats

  •  3 ecotour boats after I arrived in the afternoon.  Two of them appeared to be within 100 m (DFO setback guideline) of sealions.

Last Full Day of the Shift

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-20 knots W, later 10 knots E, then 20 knots N
  • Sky: sunny in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon
  • Water: calm
  • Too cloudy to see the large moon tonight.

Ecological

  • 3 elephant seals on Great Race.
  • The little female did not return with the others.
  • I observed two armadas of cormorants in the afternoon.
  • Then they all flew away!
  • Also one young seagull is wandering around with a broken wing.
  • I think it is the same gull that I saw a couple of weeks ago.

Maintenance

  • Added one 55 gallon barrel of diesel to the tidy tank.
  • Finished hauling the various unused pieces of the electric fence back to the tank shed.
  • Stacked some firewood.
  • Cleaned the house for Guy.
  • Published the July, August, September, and October seawater data sheets on the website.

Boats

  • One boat appeared to be inspecting the Rosedale Rock buoy.
  • Two eco-tours came by.

Other

  • This is my last log post out at Race Rocks, until next time.
  • Hopefully I will be back out here in the springtime!
  • Signing off now. Good luck Guy (and Alex)!

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The Accreditation Team

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 10 knots N
  • Sky: overcast
  • Water: calm
  • Fresh snow on the Olympic Mountains.

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Ecological

  • 4 elephant seals on Great Race

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Maintenance

  • Stacked some fire wood.
  • Did some electric fence re-organizing.
  • Cleaned the solar panels.

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Boats

  • Kyle came out in Second Nature.
  • One pleasure craft came through the Middle Channel.
  • A few eco-tours came by.

Visitors

  • Kyle brought the accreditation team out for an hour long tour.
  • Three men: an Austrian, a Colombian, and a British via Tanzania.

Sea Lions, Boats, & Other Stuff

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles (Mt. Baker visible)
  • Wind: 5-10 knots West
  • Sky: overcast
  • Water: rippled

Ecological

  • Census day!
  • Two California sea lions with neck rings. Poor guys.
  • Two sea lions with brands.
  • California: X168
  • Steller: 678
  • Saw a few California sea lions with head injuries, as well as one Steller.
  1. California Sea Lions: 678
  2. Northern (Steller) Sea Lions: 533
  3. Harbour Seals: 37
  4. Elephant Seals: 5 on Great Race
  5. Seagulls unspecified: 449
  6. Thayer’s Gulls: 235
  7. Glaucous-winged Gulls: 20
  8. Cormorants unspecified: 357
  9. Brandt’s Cormorants: 10
  10. Pelagic Cormorants: 6
  11. Double Crested Cormorants: 4
  12. Black Turnstones: 20
  13. Canada Geese: 5
  14. Dunlin: 1
  15. Savannah Sparrow: 1
  16. Bald Eagle: 1 adult

Maintenance

  • Ran the saltwater pump into the cistern for 5 and a quarter hours.

Boats

  • A handful of eco-tours came by today. At least 5.
  • One of the boats caused a minor sea lion stampede on the east part of Great Race.
  • My photos only show the tail end of the stampede.
  • Much more happened between the “pre stampede” photo and my end shots.