The Chores before the Storm

Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles (Mt. Baker clearly visible!)
  • Wind: 15-20 NW in the morning, then down to 5 SE.
  • Sky: clear
  • Water: 1′ chop
  • Storm warning for Wednesday night thru to Sunday.
  • Expecting winds of over 40 knots and as much as 8″ of rainfall.

Ecological

  • The sea lions have been mostly absent from the NE part of the island for a few days now.
  • This makes sleeping much easier.
  • The 6 elephant seals were in the middle of the island today.
  • Heard the Pacificr wren somewhere in the lantern room, but could not see it.

6-elephant-seals-11-10

Maintenance

  • Finally able to fix the electric fence near the generator with the elephant seals elsewhere.
  • Ran the desalinator in the afternoon.
  • Put the new end piece onto the salt water hose.
  • Took note of what needs to be dealt with before the storm.
  • Cleaned the student house windows as best I could.
  • Swept the main floor of said house in preparation for tomorrow’s Advancement Team meeting.

Boats

  • A few boats today.

Indian Summer?

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

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

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.

 

 

 

Visitors : 1st year students came for the first time

Weather

On this beginning of the week we had a calm weather,light wind and clear days with a pretty good visibility.most of the time. Air and water temperature are going down to 15 degrees on Thursday and the barometric pressure is moving down a little ,now around 101.5 .We got some very welcome rain.

Ecological

Rain cleaned the rocks a little and the marigold came back nicely. It’s still a smelling place but a better one.We count now 23 dead birds and the last found ones from territorial fights.

Visitors

This is the highlight of the week.The students came from all around the world . What a pleasure for us to introduce them to this magical world…and guess what: happened the non expected :When a group of them was here, some Orcas, 3 of them came around and inside the passage. They jumped like never before  and even the whale watchers vessels had to stay outside (they did) . Our students  were the only one present for a true show. Just amazing! We managed to get some pictures but they were already far from the rock.DSC_0252DSC_0259DSC_0268DSC_0280DSC_0287

Maintenance

Wood all organized for Winter. Water sampling house deeply cleaned and new carpet put in. Bathroom window locker changed.Electrical line repaired.

Boats

Many whale watchers around even before the sunset and the night.Plane over 2 times.

A very windy Saturday: 43 knots

Weather

It has been a very windy day  on the 27th ,so surprising in August and after a few calm weeks. Anyway if it was windy it was sunny too and the spectacle around was just stunning!DSC_0080

At 7:30AM the wind was already at 37 knots . It went down later in the morning to 28 knots but picked up soon to 41 and 43 knots before 5:00PM and stayed strong late in the evening 35.5knots at 8:20 PM when I went for the water sampling.

Ecological

If you look at the solar panels condition every morning those days, you must deduct that the waters around are really fishy…they are so sticky and dirty! and actually you can spot flocks of white birds on the sea.We have more and more sea lions on Main and around . they are almost everywhere. Not so many birds steady on the rocks . Almost all young one are flying but  some are still dependant of their adult parents .No more elephant seal. no more Pigeon -guillemots but many turnstones…We cannot go anymore in the intertidal zone …it’s the sea lions territory. When I went to do the water sampling I had the surprise to find a “Bernard l’hermite “swimming in the jar. I bring it back to the ocean ! 2 more bodies of gulls for a total of around 20.

Maintenance 

Guy need to reorganize the electrical lines 2 times a day at least . They destroyed everything ,especially around the jettyDSC_0207DSC_0211

This week we had some problem with the generator . New one is coming soon.

Other

Always many whale watcher and a specific one is speeding all the time ! Frustrating situation! and  a plane was over.

Busy week

Weather

The whole week we had a very light wind , a flat and calm sea . Perfect hot Summer days…Almost no wind,sometimes from east. and a very good visibility from 15 to 30 miles

Ecological

Census

Sea lions :320

Harbour seals:82

Seashore birds:15

Eagles:0

River otters:1 ( dead chicken found)

Elephant seals:0

Geese :16(quickly gone )

Pigeon-guillemots:0

Oystercatchers :2

Cormorants :1 seen around North Rock

 

We saw some branded Sea lions :8101 and 2 others and I spot one with a huge swollen eye !

Maintenance

We had some problem with the inverter 2 which went off and gave as a consequence no electricity in the guest house so no more phone and internet on the Rock . Guy uninstalled the whole system and Kyle came early before a meeting at the college and they reinstalled the whole thing.The generator and desalinator have been on. the soft water tank filled up to full.and Guy chopped more wood.  He needs to reinstalled the electrical line almost everyday especially the one close to the main house . The Sea lions fight so much to get the good spots in the evening that they fall on each other and on the lines  Otherwise the system is working well

Visitor

Evan Guy who was working at the college since June went to spend his last night on the rocks

Other

We have been off island a lot because of some mandatory and interesting meetings at the college before the beginning of the school year. Next week we will go back the routine and will welcome the new first year students for their first visit of the rock! exciting!