Category Archives: Marine Vessels

New Students

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a bit of boat traffic, many ecotours, fishing boats and sailboats
  • Guy brought by a couple boat loads of the new first year students, as he did yesterday so we could give them a little tour of Race Rocks, its great when the students get to come out here and see another aspect of Pearson College, they don’t come out here that often and you can’t see it from the college

Maintenance

  • having some camera issues lately, will need to order a new SD card for the Race Rocks camera and the one in personal camera is not cooperating either, but hopefully we will be able to get more photos up soon

Ecological

  • still around 300 sea lion, mostly californias around the island.
  • plenty of harbour seals on the outer rocks, a few on the main island
  • also a few whale sightings, I saw two humpbacks by north rock yesterday morning and Guy said he also saw killer whales near there when he came he around 9:30am yesterday.
  • Also one of the younger seagulls I posted a photo of last week is dead, not quite sure what happened, just its body by the pathway
  • there are still about 4 of the younger ones all together

Its been an eventful week and hopefully I can start taking pictures again soon :)

Census and Visitors

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a bit of boat traffic, most of it being whale watching tours
  • Guy, Greg and Mike came by today to take the old washer and dryer in for repairs

Maintenance

  • did some pressure washing today, but will probably do more of the solar panels tomorrow, need to fuel up the pressure washer first

Ecological

  • Quite a few sea lions, and harbour seals around
  • Birds consist of seagulls and cormorants, haven’t seen any eagles or harlequinns around, there aren’t even any geese here today
  • it looks like one of the young seagulls, there are still about 7 maybe 9 around of the really young ones, but it looks like one of them was pecked at around its head

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 104
  • california sea lions – 198
  • harbour seals – 55
  • gulls – 289
  • cormorants – 26

I’m Back

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 miles
  • Wind: 15-25 kn SW
  • Sky: slightly hazy/partly cloudy
  • Water: a bit choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Plenty of ecotours, whalewatchers around today, by the way they were circling the kelp patch I assume the otter was there

Island maintenance

  • had to run the generator for a few hours today because there was not a lot of sunlight
  • also cleaned off the camera by the helicopter pad, received a message saying the cameras were getting difficult to see through

Bird notes

  • Nice to see a few younger seagulls around, they were already a decent size and lost their baby feathers by the time I got here last september

Marine mammals

  • Plenty of sea lions already on the main island, will need to put up a fence soon to keep them away from important areas, such as the generator room, don’t want to run into them if I need to get to the generator

Visitors, injured seal, and canoes

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-20 knts W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Kyle visited the island today and brought Nick along, who is a former Ecoguardian and currently works as a facilitator for Pearson’s PSYL program. They brought my my food supplies and Kyle gave Nick a tour on some of the newer systems here.
  • Lots of whale watching boats in the area today
  • Saw a bunch of canoes paddle past the island, headed south. I believe they originated from Beecher Bay. Photograph below.

Marine mammals

  • Noticing a slow rise in the steller sea lion population on the northern rocks. There’s at least one really massive sea lion. I’ll get an accurate count later this weekend.
  • The injured seal that showed up a few days ago with predator marks and molting fur, returned to the island today and seemed to be more injured. I think it is a female. I’ll keep an eye on it.
  • Possible humpbacks far south of the island – too far to see the whales, but there was a gathering of whale watching boats in the spot where the humpbacks like to hang out.

Southeast winds, more work on the electric grid and ollie!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-20 SE in the morning, 5-10 N in the evening (quite unusual)
  • Sky: partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Kyle again brought several technicians from PTTP to do further work on the energy systems. They were able to connect the system to the internet which now allows them to remotely monitor solar input and usage. I also helped them lift the new batteries off the floor and place them on to an insulated rack.
  • Noticed an ecotour boat from the United States going around the reserve, and I’ve never seen this boat before. Maybe it was a 4th of July special?

Birds

  • Most seagull eggs have hatched, but some still remain whole. The seagulls are extremely aggressive now, and hard hats are a must for any visitors at this point.
  • A couple of juvenile bald eagles are making the rounds on the island – I initially mistook them for golden eagles, but Kyle explained they were simply juveniles.

Marine mammals

  • Kyle and I went to grab some photos of Ollie the sea otter that lives in a kelp patch near turbine rock.
  • We also spotted a humpack’s blow but by the time we got close it was gone.

Seagull Eggs have hatched!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 25-30 knts W
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: small white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Just a few ecotour boats in the area today
  • Kyle came by to drop off some food supplies for me, but because of the dropping tide he wasn’t able to stay long enough to come ashore.

Birds

  • The seagull eggs have started to hatch! I estimate about 20 babies as of this morning. It’s hard to get a count of them as the seagulls are now at their most aggressive – I got hit on the head a few times, but thankfully I had my hard hat on.
  • Spotted some more oystercatcher chicks, but again they were gone by the time I got close. They are REALLY hard to photograph.

Marine mammals

  • Yet another day of no sea lions
  • Elephant seal count remains the same – one of the adult males got all the way up to the base of the lighthouse today!

Search and Rescue Operations Underway

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Weather

  • Visibility: 1 – 5 miles
  • Wind: 25-35 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps
  • 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.

Several boating violations and Orcas (far away)!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps
  • Slight fog south and west of the island

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • 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.

Person in row boat

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Weather

  • Visibility: 14 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • An average number of ecotour 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).

A whole flock of Pelicans!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Not too many ecotour boats around today.
  • 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.