Category Archives: Facility work

Rooftop Renovations

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Weather: 

  • Sky partially overcast
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 10-15 knots SW
  • Water rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Lots of things going on over the last days!
  • A work crew came out and replaced the roof on the boat house, tank shed, and crane control room.
  • The old shingles and tar paper are heavy! Removing them is messy work – but headway has been made. I think one more load taken away in Second Nature would deal with the leftovers.
  • Today Mara returned, catching a ride with a water delivery.

Ecological: 

  • Sea lions are taking over! Their numbers continue increasing.
  • I’ve seen young seagulls land in the shallow water by the jetty, only to have a sea lion come up under it and eat it whole.
  • The adult seagulls have started to chase and peck at their own young. I think this is probably to encourage their independence.

Finally, an Elephant Seal

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 SW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Choppy under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Not much visitors lately and not as many ecotours either, there are still a few out there though

Maintenance

  • A lot fo running the desalinator and pressure washing lately, trying to get some of the algae and lichen off the buildings and walkways

Ecological

  • Slightly less sea lions than last week
  • One little female elephant seal and possibly a bug guy out on one of the rocks but I can’t get a good enough look at him
  • A couple ravens flying around this morning
  • two entangles sea lions, I am in contact with marine rescue to see if its possible to get out here to help them before the sea lions leave

Entangled Sea Lions

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-30 NE
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Waves about a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours and fishing boats going by

Maintenance

  • ran the generator and the desalinator, now that we had a good rainfall the cistern is filling up, hopefully start pressure washing more soon
  • The fence hasn’t needed to be repaired in awhile but the sea lions are starting to gather more around the lighthouse which can be an issue

Ecological

  • unfortunately still no elephant seals, they should be showing up any day now
  • the snow goose is still around
  • there are two entangles sea lions, it doesn’t look like the usual plastic packing tape but this time looks like fishing line, two of them have it tightly wrapped around their heads, I have notified marine rescue and will keep an eye on these sea lions and hopefully we can help them out

Busy Week

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Calm to choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • the past week was CAS week at the college so I had two groups of students drop by, the first group were marine scientists that came for 5 days and helped out with cleaning up garbage, collecting driftwood, doing a daily census and stuff like that
  • the second group were divers that unfortunately did not get to dive while they were here but have been diving around race rocks before, they stayed for two nights

Maintenance

  • What a week, the fence had to be repaired quite a bit, the students helped me with it one day, and I did not properly show them how to repair the fence so the wire ended up being grounded which the sea lions took full advantage of and completely messed up the fence
  • The electric pump in the crane house is working but is kind of slow going, it also takes a lot of priming
  • the fire pump is out of commission at the moment, there were a lot fo issues with it probably due to the fact it is not a saltwater pump and has been sitting by the ocean for 3 years
  • the desalinator is not cooperating either, it will work for maybe an hour before it shuts itself off, I can restart it but again it will only run for another hour and only desalinates half the water it used to in the same amount of time

Ecological

  • I personally have seen about 8 humpback whales a day for the past week
  • there was also a pod of about 6 killerhwhales that one of the students saw from the lighthouse which we found out later were transients and were actually hunting sea lions
  • There have also been some interesting birds around, there was a robin here, which I don’t typically see and there was also a snow goose, which I personally have never seen here before, its been hanging out with the Canada geese other birds include oyster catchers, killdeer, ravens, and eagles
  • the neck banded sea lions seem to come and go, they are very difficult to keep track of, I believe there are two at the moment and I see them about once a week, since there are over 1000 sea lions at the moment they easily get lost in the crowd, even the group of students I had here only saw them once

Water pumps and whales

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Dense fog to partly cloudy
  • Water: Calm to choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours and fishing boats going by
  • Greg dropped by to help us sort out our water situation

Maintenance

  • Fence maintenance with the help of the students
  • The electric water pump in the crane shed is working to an extent, the issue is the hose doesn’t go out far enough, so I can’t pump water at low tide
  • The fire pump also needs some maintenance

Ecological

  • The students have been doing a daily census
  • Today they have spotted about 7 or 8 humpbacks and a pod of about 6 killer whales

CODAR installation for Race Rocks

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Juan de Fuca _CODAR_backgrounder

Today Guy drove me out to Race Rocks with Kevin Bartlett, Marine Equipment, Specialist with Ocean Networks Canada. They had installed equipment earlier in the year but had ro change the frequency of broadcasting before it is operational. Kevin was making repairs, one being fixing the conduit at the base of the tower which had been disturbed by sealions. When this equipment is fully operational it will give acurate current vectors for the eastern entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

 

 

Sample from a similar station now  in operation:

 see animation here

 

 

 

It was has been noticeable this year that instead of hauling out on the neighbouring islets of the Race Rocks Archipelago, the sealions are hauled out entirely on the main island of Great Race Rock. They have heavily impacted the vegetated areas .

ER Wardens Report, Sept.21

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Today, Guy Ouradou from Pearson College drove me out to Race Rocks Ecological reserve with David Obura, Pearson College alumni from Kenya year 10. The main change since I was there last was the predominance of California sea lions over most of the island. Northern sealions occupied a small portion of rock near the docks and the isthmus below the light tower. Each year the college has to put up an electric fence to prevent the sealions from invading the centre of the island which can result in damage to conduits, and facilities.

Laas adjusts the electric fence on the south side of the house.

A new fence system is being installed this year, which has so far proven to be very effective. Another aspect of the sealions being on the centre part of the island is that they have been damaging the structure of the rocks arranged in the areas of the aboriginal burial cairns. The big change in sealion distribution is that previously they have concentrated on West Race Rocks, North Race Rocks and the south Islands off the tower. This year there are none out on those islands  and they are all on the main island.

 

CODAR antenna and sealions

I also was able to observe the equipment installed by Oceans Network Canada for CODAR. Hopefully we can get a connection to the output of the data obtained from this equipment when we neet with Kevin Bartlett from Ocean Networks Canada next week on Sept 28.

Earlier this year, Lester Pearson College upgraded the solar batteries which have served for the past 11 years. New inverters were also installed.

Leaving the island we have to deal with a dock full of sealions which have returned since our arrival.

Blasting

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Flat Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a bit of boat traffic, many ecotours, fishing boats and sailboats
  • Guy came by, we junked out the generator room a bit and he gave me a training session on the winch, soon I should be able to take the whaler out by myself

Maintenance

  • Had to repair the fence a couple times today, hope to extend the fence all the way to the helicopter pad as soon as I get more stick and pegs

Ecological

  • The Geese were around today
  • no elephant seals in sight
  • the blasting from the DND base was scaring the sea lions
  • also there were quite a few killdeer puttering around

Census and so many sea lions

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Weather

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

Boats/Visitors

  • Guy, Greg and Travis came by to help finish putting up the fence and also fix a couple things in the house
  • Still a lot of ecotours cruising by each day

Maintenance

  • The fence is up and working better than the old fence for keeping the sea lions out of certain areas
  • the washer is now also working, which is great for me
  • had to run the generator quite a bit today, the batteries have been running low

Ecological

  • About a hundred more sea lions than there were last weak
  • also seems to be more gulls and harbour seals
  • havent see the geese around today
  • also a sea lion with garbage wrapped around its neck, will contact the right people and keep an eye on him

Census

  • California sea lion – 371
  • Stellar sea lion – 184
  • Harbour seal – 77
  • Elephant seal – 1 female , there was another female but she left a couple days ago
  • Cormorants – 30
  • Seagulls – 486
  • Black turnstones – 25
  • Fox sparrows – 12

More Sea Lions

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-20 SW
  • Sky: Cloudy
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Mostly ecotours going by
  • Guy and Travis also came by today to help me with the fence, which is almost completely set up

Maintenance

  • Had to run the generator for quite a while today, the batteries have been getting low with lack of solar input, its been pretty foggy on and off lately

Ecological

  • I will have a better idea tomorrow of how many sea lions there are but I would guess around 500 right now, about 100 more than last week
  • only one female elephant seal around today, havent seen the smaller one since last night