Category Archives: Facility work

Work in Progress + A New Visitor

Posted on by

There has been lots going on out here on the Rocks lately! The new generator part arrived and was brought over yesterday, thank goodness for the landing craft! The diesel generator will hopefully be back up and running by next week which is awesome. Richard was over last week and we set up the lift so that should make things easier as well. Once that’s fixed we can get back to using the desalinator regularly. The back up generator mixed with shorter days has not allowed for much water desalination so I’ve been extra careful with water usage.

The plumber was out yesterday to service our propane water heater and replace a pump since the hot water had been super finicky lately. When we went to turn the water heater back on the handle broke clean off! One thing about living in a marine environment is that eventually the salt gets to everything…Thankfully they were able to put an express order on a new heater and come back out today to replace it. Now we have a new pump, and a propane heater and I am very excited about it!

There are lots of projects on the go and it’s so exciting to see things happening around here and all the improvements being made. The new electric fence system is awesome, and if it’s down in the morning it takes about two seconds to put it back together. I’ve been slowly pulling weeds and overgrown grass out of the bricks around the wheels, there isn’t much dirt between the bricks so I’m trying to not uproot the bricks themselves in the possible. They might need some sand or something to fill the cracks at some point.

On to the animals…

Sea lion numbers are still down, I’m very curious to see what my Saturday census numbers will be. The forecast is calling for rain so I’d imagine they’ll be even lower if that’s the case. A few humpbacks here and there but nothing crazy, and we still have the young female elephant seal.

Lastly, I had a new visitor and one that I’ve never seen here thanks to Ollie the otter and his patrolling…a river otter! It’s popped up a couple times under the decking where we chop wood so I wonder if he’ll be sticking around. As much as I do love animals, river otters can cause quite the ruckus and destruction and we don’t need that around here!

I’m having trouble uploading photos, so those will come later!

A Busy and Beautiful Day!

Posted on by

Today was the definition of perfect! Not even the smallest amount of wind, clear skies, and animals everywhere!

Tomorrow is supposed to be quite windy so I took full advantage of the good weather and barely spent any time inside.

I also got a visit from the Coast Guard helicopter when they came to check in on a few things, that’s always a fun visit! And because it’s a small world, I just so happened to know the pilot!

Animal Notes:

  • The Red-footed booby is still here! Has most recently decided to hangout on the main island, just in front of the house.
  • I did not see the sea otter or the fur seal today but I did manage to get some better photos of the otter, well…at least photos where you can tell it’s actually an otter!
  • Still plenty of humpbacks around but not as many as I’ve had previously.
  • I saw a heron today, not exactly a rare bird but I haven’t seen them here before, and never standing on a kelp bed! I also saw a kingfisher yesterday but it was much too fast for a photo!

Our recently disentangled sea lion looking GREAT.

 

The new sea otter in town…I’ve been calling him Oswald.

Facility Work:

  • Cleaned main house windows
  • Topped up batteries
  • Cleaned algae off side of main house
  • Fence repair

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 11
  • Private: 3

DND Blasts:

  • 4 throughout the day, animals alert but minimal disturbance

Marine Mammal Rescue!

Posted on by

It has been a fantastic few days out here! The team from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Mammal Rescue Society came out with DFO to disentangle the California sea lion that I first spotted last October.

He was sleeping up high on the boat launch with made landing at the jetty tricky because we didn’t want to scare the sea lions and risk him going in the water. Instead, DFO dropped the rescue team off the south side of the island. The current was strong so we weren’t sure it would be possible, but they were able to safely nose the rhib into the rocks behind the generator building and the team came up the rocks. This ended up being great because we could approach the entangled sea lion without scaring him, and there are significantly less sea lions on the south side lately, so the disturbance was minimal.

For those who don’t already know, when I’m not at the lighthouse, I work full time as a Registered Veterinary Technologist with the Marine Mammal Rescue Society. This was my team coming out, and disentanglements are one of my favourite parts of the job. Doing this work at Race Rocks is especially meaningful: I can help save an animal, and I’m often the person who finds and monitors them, coordinates with the team, and supports the rescue. Afterward, I’m able to continue monitoring the animal in the following days, which is incredibly rewarding.

The rescue itself was straight forward, Dr. Haulena darted the entangled sea lion with a sedation protocol that allows us to approach and work with the animal, but doesn’t sedate them so deeply that if they end up going into the water they won’t drown. Thankfully, after the initial shock of the dart, the sea lion only moved a few feet before settling back down on the ramp. The sedation takes about 12 minutes to take effect, at which time we moved in. We quickly discovered that the entanglement material was a thick industrial rubber band, these bands have a wide variety of uses in the marine field and can often be found on commercial crab traps or used in other pot fisheries. Once the band was removed, we place a flipper tag on each of his fore flippers, these are not satellite tags, but they can help us identify the animals in future sightings.

A great example of this is the animal Eva helped us with in August. He is still here and I was able to determine that by taking a photo of his tags and then comparing them to our spreadsheet. Each tag has a unique number on it that allows to ID the animal when resighted. I’ll insert a photo of the animal we rescued in August below:

Once we were done, we gave him an injection to reverse the sedation and then we watched from the top of the of the boat launch as he woke up, stretched out, and then entered the water and swam off. He later hauled back out on the rocks to the left of the jetty and is currently still there as I write this. I can’t imagine the relief he must be feeling and I’m already excited to see him here again next year!

You can watch the rescue video here: https://youtu.be/EJJ7pKWvKIY?si=JR4Ft_c99E8h6POc

 

The team was gone by 12:30, and with them they took my dad whose been here this first week with me. It’s been so special having him here and spending time with him, he is the one who taught me my love for the ocean and he enjoys it out here just as much as I do!

Aside from the excitement of the disentanglement, things have been quite calm around here. The weather has been incredible, glassy seas and no wind, full sun and whales everywhere! Today is supposed to reach 40 knot winds (close to 80km/hr) and raining, so today I’ve be battening the hatches and making sure everything is securely put away and I have everything I need in the house. The generator is being run manually at the moment so I will need to make a couple outside treks to turn that on and off but other than that my plans include a fire and storm watching from inside. I’m very curious to see how that affects Saturday’s census!

And lastly, we have a young female elephant seal back at Race Rocks! She has been hanging out with the Stellers on the South rocks but hopefully she comes up to the grass soon!

Facility work for the past couple days:

  • Ran the generator
  • Cleaned main house windows
  • Topped up batteries
  • Fixed the main house kitchen sink (thanks dad!)
  • Lots of fence repair
  • Cleaned solar panels
  • Storm prep: lowered the flag, secured the electric fence as best as possible, general site clean-up.
  • Oil change in Honda generator
  • Ran the last remaining line of electric fence tape behind the main house

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: average of 15 per day
  • Private: average of 4 per day

Visitors:

  • DFO team: 4 people
  • VAMMR team: 6 people
  • Greg/Richard for supply drop off.

Lonely Little Steller Pup

Posted on by

The red-footed booby was here bright and early his morning, seems to be going back and forth between the western rocks and the southeast side. It also seems to have quite the fan club of boats coming out to check it out.

Came across another sea lion with an entanglement scar, bringing the total to 5, plus the one that still has an active entanglement.

Active entanglement, unsure what the material is.

Another wildlife note – there is a small Steller sea lion pup that I have yet to see with a mom in the 3 days I’ve been here. He is underweight but not terribly so and is still bright and alert. He spends his time chasing the male California sea lions and today decided to try and eat a small rock. Will see if he sticks around, and hopefully mom comes back for him!

Facility work:

  • Ran generator
  • Topped up battery electrolytes
  • Cleaned main house windows

Vessels:

  • Paddleboard: 2
  • Private: 4
  • Eco: 12

A Red-Footed Booby!? Here?!

Posted on by

Beautiful day today, cloudy but flat calm seas. Only a few minor repairs for the fence today, the new system is pretty sleek!

As per usual most of my notes are wildlife related. I found 4 sea lions with entanglement scars today, two are untagged so were likely able to free themselves. Two were tagged, one was the CSL the team at VAMMR disentangled in August about a month ago, and the other one took me a bit longer to track down the story.

Entanglement scar, no tag.

Entanglement scar and tagged, this one was rescued in August thanks to Eva’s great tracking and reporting.

As it turns out, he was disentangled by a NOAA team in 2021 on San Miguel Island when he was only a couple of years old. It’s wild that he’s come so far, but he looks great!

Later in the day I got a call over the radio from one of the eco-tourism boats in the area to let me now a few transients were coming by. They passed quickly but were awesome to see, and for the first time in my LIFE I actually stopped photographing killer whales to photograph…a bird!!!

But not just any bird, it was a red-footed booby! It was first sighted around Race Rocks a few weeks ago and was apparently hanging around but I really didn’t think I’d get to see it. My photos aren’t great so hopefully he’ll stick around for some better ones!

 

 

Facility work:

  • Fence repairs
  • Ran the generator

Vessels:

  • Paddleboard: 1
  • Private: 2
  • Eco tourism: 15

A New Moon

Posted on by

Last night’s full moon and near-complete eclipse was certainly a sight to see! Alas it was a tricky business getting a clear photo in the wind.

It’s my last night on the ecological reserve. Before leaving to come here, a friend asked how I could bear to live alone for such a long time. I jokingly replied, “I won’t be alone, I’ll have more than a thousand neighbours out there!”

And truly, this has been one of the liveliest neighbourhoods I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of. Whether watching the chicks grow from wobble-kneed balls of down to crazy crash pilots, seeing a sea lion stuck so long in a painful bind finally be freed, or learning to notice and know the whales that pass by- every day has been filled with hard work and wonder. Over the past month I’ve learned so much, from fixing facilities while dodging the liquid assaults of protective gull parents, to wildlife photography and the daily curiosities of marine mammals.

Without taking up too much space on the log, I’d like to express my gratitude to everyone at Pearson College, the ecoguardians, researchers, sponsors, supporters and all those who lend their time, talent and treasure to make this space possible, and the peoples of the Salish coast, long stewards of this land.

 

Wildlife Notes

Discarded down from the fledgelings has settled all over the island. Not even the strong winds have been enough to sweep them all away yet! Their white summer snow is dotted here and there with stray tufts of fur from the molting sea lions.

On a slightly less fun note, I noticed this sea gull chick didn’t seem too wary of my presence when I stepped back to take a photo of the new jetty fence configuration. It was definitely alive, but not running away even though I was only a few feet away at the time. When I came back around after a few minutes, it had died. I don’t believe that any of the adults nearby came to attack, and I wonder what may have caused its death- I’ve heard mention of widespread die-offs previously when the gulls were unable to find enough fish and were feeding their chicks with contaminated garbage. I hope this is not a repeating trend.

 

Facility Notes

  • Cleaned panels
  • Refueled Generator / oil check
  • Final deep clean of main house
  • Reconfigured jetty electric fence

 

Weather

Cloudy, with periods of clear skies. Winds mostly West by Northwesterly, from 15 to 26 knots. Temperatures from 13 to 17 degrees.

 

Vessels Observed

Ecotourism: 16

Private: 2

Cloudy day on the rocks

Posted on by

Another whale sighting this morning! There’s been so much activity in the area lately. It was hard to tell from the distance, but I’m pretty sure it was the humpbacks again.

Facility Notes

  • Cleaned panels
  • Repaired fence
  • Tidied up main house
  • Pantry inventory

Last night’s winds did a number on the perimeter fence- I was using the old materials and patching them with wire for most of the repairs to conserve the new strands for the September reconfigurations. One or two less carefully secured patches gave out, and there were some sections that just needed replacing altogether. Time to retire some of the older wire and put in new strands for the season.

 Weather

Intermittent clouds, West-by-Southwesterly winds between 11 and 21 knots. Temperature from 13 to 16 degrees.

Vessels Observed

Ecotourism: 21

Private: 2

Small projects

Posted on by

Wildlife

Nothing out of the ordinary, today was filled with the usual shenanigans of newly fledged gulls crashing about and quickly taking off from surrounding nesting sites and sea lions wrestling around the outer edges of the rocks. The gulls that have found themselves suddenly sharing their space with much larger, equally vocal neighbours seem to be tolerating the change of scene as best they can. Every once in awhile, I’ll catch sight of a disgruntled exchange between a sea lion and the gull that has been forced to land on its back for lack of any bare rock around.

 

Facility notes

  • Washed panels
  • Greg and Richard came by to refuel tank in shed, install a buffer at the end of the jetty to prevent lines getting chewed by the concrete when tied up. My first time drilling into concrete- what a fun learning experience!
  • Weeded walkways and removed small driftwood debris from jetty entrance

Weather

Sunny, hazy skies. Shifting winds from WSW to NNE, from 9 to 25 knots. Temperatures from 13 to 16 degrees.

Ramping up

Posted on by

Wildlife
There’s a seagull chick I’ve named “Phelps” due to its tendency to escape into the water next to the jetty every time someone approaches from the path- I have watched this little one sprint to the water and hop right in at least once a day. It’s down has slowly given way to progressively more feathers, and Phelps is noticeably bigger since my arrival, but still far from big enough to take on a whole lineup of California Sea Lions!
This is becoming an issue. Now my path down to the end of the jetty involves a sort of sideways sneak-around, to avoid scaring Phelps off the side of the jetty into the busy waters below. This is complicated by the crowd gathered on either side of the raised concrete pathway, which set the nesting parents and chick itself much more on edge than before. I hope this little one survives the increasing popularity of its shoreline nesting site.

Facility notes
– Cleaned panels
– Cleaned main+ student house windows
– Finished student house kitchen inventory/ food storage
– Topped up batteries

Visitors
Greg and Richard came by to troubleshoot and fix up the jetty fence; we’re operating at pretty much full power now. A friend from the College came with, taking the opportunity to spend an hour or so away from the hustle and bustle of the UWC reunions and pre-term prep. Little did she know just how much hustle and bustle there is here with all the seagull chicks!

Weather
Sunny, dry, clouds. Strong Westerlies from 19 to 29 knots. Daytime temperatures from 12 to 18 degrees.

Vessels
Ecotourism: 12
Private: 1

Whale, Whale, Whale

Posted on by

Wildlife
This morning’s climb to the panels was punctuated by the joy of catching a humpback’s tail flip out of the corner of my eye. Later in the afternoon, a pod of 40 or so resident orcas passed by the west side of the rocks!
A flock of whale watching and eco-tourism vessels came to share in the wonder. It’s tricky to balance my feelings about this industry; knowing on one hand that the tangible experience of the coast’s wild beauty is becoming accessible to greater numbers, while acknowledging the risks to its inhabitants posed by the constant traffic like collisions and harmful noise levels.

Our California sea lion is still hanging out. Spotted the banded gull who typically hangs out by the energy building, closely supervising the cleaning of the panels.

Facility notes
– Cleaned panels
– Cleaned windows
– Lifted up section of electric fence across walkway

Weather
Sunny, but hazy. A massive bank of wildfire smoke rolled in later in the evening, giving the sunset an otherworldly tint.
Winds mostly westerly, from 11 to 33 knots. Temperature from 10 to 12.5 degrees.

Vessels
Ecotourism: 21
Private: 6
Visitors: Grocery delivery! No one disembarked, but there was a small group of UWC Pearson alumni from about a decade ago aboard.