Category Archives: Facility work

the storm never came

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Weather

Looking at the forecast we were expecting a gust (to 40knots)on the 17th but it stayed pretty calm .Just a big swell came from East. When we had a look on the website Windyty the wind was on the West coast outside and on Victoria and the North of Vancouver Island. The sky has been very cloudy with a dark sea  and rain never far.The air temperature was a higher and the water too( around 7 degrees Celsius.) In the morning of the 18th in a gloomy atmosphere the flag was hanging like a stick for a while and like the day before keeps changing its direction all the time . The tides are really high. never saw them like that before

Ecological

Everything is fine in the nursery .The big male spend his days closed to the females and babies ,waiting for his turn and sometimes trying to get one or the other but to now without success. We got the visit of a few eagles and some geese .

Maintenance

More wood split and stacked. The desalinator and generator are on almost everyday . Guy hauled up with the crane a very long log around 30feet. The last 200 liters of gas oil have been transfered to the yellow tank.We have now 7 barrels empty ready to be filled up and 2 Propane bottles. The barrels bottoms have been got rid of rust  and repainted.

Vessels

One watching boat almost everyday

 

Boat shed roof repaired

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Weather

Very nice weather 15 to 20 knots East wind . calm day

Ecological

Now every 2 hours  the baby got fed and everything looked fine. the baby was not moving easily  and was crying a lot maybe from frustration or to get attention. It was really nice to see everything from the window .

Maintenance

Kyle came with his wife and helped Guy on the boat shed roof. it badly needed repairs and patches of shingles before the heavy rainy days expected next week.

Marine activity

One whale watcher boats with freezing people ! and a plane above in the afternoon

 

Census and calm day

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Weather

Wind :went down around 10:00AM to 13knots

Sky: Nice and sunny and cold day

Census

Gulls:136

Cormorants:60

Elephant Seals:2 (1 female in the evening + the boss)

Sea lions:65

Harbour seals:34

Geese:4

Harlequin Ducks:14

Black turn Stones:10

Raven:2

Eagles :4

Maintenance

Camera 5 cleaned,battery in the crane house put in charge,desalinator and generator on

Boats

1whale Watcher vessel

 

Indian Summer?

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Weather 

Fall to stay…I said that a few days ago so it may be an earlier indian Summer! The sea this end of week was flat like never before with no wind . An exception for Saturday which was beautiful with a gust to 30 knots at the end of the afternoon. for Friday a summary:Wind 6 knots at 7:00AM,Visibility beyond 20 miles,South wind,Temperature: 10 deg.celsius, Barometric pressure:102.7KPA clear to cloudy and foggy for a while from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM .For Saturday: 15 knots in the morning ,West wind,calm ,Visibility :30 miles Pressure:102.7KPA, Wind was expected :30 knots in the afternoon and we got it from 7:00 to 8:00PM with a gust at 34 knots.Sunday a mirror the whole day and sunny and clear.

Ecological 

The sea lions are everywhere on the rocks and now we can see more and more beautiful and some huge Steelers.We even saw an entangled Californian : 1rst one this year : very sad!.Geese are back between 5 and 13 depending and some Pelagic Cormorants too. Gulls with young ones are almost all gone .

Census 

Sea Lions:550 to 600(with the swimming ones)

Gulls : 420

Oystercatchers:2

Geese: 13 seen

Eagles :0

Pigeon-guillemots: 0

Elephant-Seals:2 seen this week on Main

Black Turnstones: 40

River Otters:1(seen this week)

Pelagic Cormorants :20( seen this week)

Eagles:0

 

Maintenance

Guy and Kyle finished installing the Seawater pump . Some hoses were still missing and now it works well and easy.

We had an interesting experience coming back with the water bucket for the daily sample. When we went we had to make jump around 40 sea lions on the jetty .They all went but on our way back ,a pretty big one managed to come back and didn’t want to go or move and was aggressive . So we had to wait for a few minutes and finally we throw the bucket and the water and at that point he went! So now we have found the trick : A broom  If you have a broom they are afraid so we take a broom with us,even when we go ashore for when we come back .

Other

Usual plane and watching boats …many fishing vessels closed to the entrance of Pedder Bay and Sooke

 

Fall definitely here to stay

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Weather

For this beginning of the month we have mainly calm days but the temperature of water and air dropped and the sky is cloudy grey with rain almost everyday.We already can see the effect of this soft water on main Rock: flowers,greener moss and rocks not so white.Fall is here to stay. Foggy night on the 6th: fog horn honked + sea lions shouting= Noisy place !dsc_0179dsc_0157

Ecological

With this cooler days we saw some species coming back:Around 20 pelagic cormorants on Turbine Rock and 2 on main.and 2 Elephant Seals has spent some time on Main (one older female and one juvenile). It is a challenge and a lot of fun at the same time to do the water sampling : so many sea lions on the jetty!. We saw a river otter 2 days ago and 11 geese yesterdaydsc_0022dsc_0061dsc_0162dsc_0038

 

Maintenance

A new sea water pump has been installed in the derrick house by Kyle and Guy with 4 new hoses and a 5th one is needed to reach the guesthouse.Kyle brought back the empty gazoil barrels and brought them back full.The desalinator has been working the 2 last days and the tank is now full.. End of the month report done and sent .

DND

A few blasts yesterday and Today and a few ones pretty strong.

Other

1 plane yesterday and Today above and one helicopter(coast guards)

Fishing gulls everywhere

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Weather

Very calm days almost the whole week:with a flat sea ,mild wind ,sky with sun and some clouds. The temperature dropped to 13 celsius in the morning and definitively Fall is coming with the first rains. To 5:45 AM it’s pretty dark so now we do the contact with Pedder Bay around 6:00AM.

Maintenance

We sent the end of the month report to Kyle and like usual the sea waters datas recorded in August. On Friday the electrician came back: he changed a box between the Solar panels and the batteries and calibrated the inverters. We had to struggle a little bit in the evening to get the phone and internet back.We got some new fire pump hoses. Also we took some samples of our soft water and it has been sent to a lab to be sure everything is fine.

Ecological

More and more Seal lions to welcome us on the jetty when we are back to the rocks.They are really everywhere and managed to destroy the line closed to the students house for the first time. The most interesting fact at this end of the week is the large number of Seagulls in our waters all busy fishing. North Rock is all white and we actually had a count of 1265 birds on the 1st it is even more crowded on the 3rd.