Category Archives: Facility work

Elephant Seals

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New elephant seals show up almost daily. Today Mystery is hanging out with a large female, while the teenage male does his best to get out of the way of the Beachmaster. He has some surface wounds indicating his neglect in clearing the path for the big guy. I’ll post some pics tomorrow. I have several student coming for a visit and need to prep the house and launch the boat…

Erik was out yesterday to clean the underwater camera and remove and old fridge. Good to see this place getting cleaner, leaner and greener…

Visitors and Projects

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Julia taking daily seawater salinity measurement

Jake and Julia left yesterday after 6 days on the island.  They helped with several projects while they were here.  Work projects over the past few days have included:

-Scraping, cleaning and painting the basement floor of the Science Center

-Topping up water level of the batteries and coating some of the battery terminals with anti-corossion paste

-Electronic data entry of visitor log

-Making new template for engine room log

-Transfering diesel to furnace tank

Jake painting the basement floor

-Pumping salt water to cistern and test filling the sand filter box

-Detangling new cable for camera 5 and sorting out existing conduit/cable situation

-Cleaning out gutters for rainwater harvesting system and chiselling out concrete lip to cistern filter box

-Organizing in the tank room

Erik came out yesterday to pick them up and dropped off my parents and my sister for an early christmas lunch.  I brought them back to the college in the afternoon.

Misery delays boat launch

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Julia and Jake cleaning solar panels

Yesterday I left the island around noon to go to campus and returned around 16:00 hrs with Jake.  Erik brought out Julia, Jeanie and Mark in Second Nature. I took Jeanie and Mark back to campus today around 15:00 hrs, it was great to have them out here for a visit. Julia and Jake will be staying out here for a few more days.  They did a great job scrubbing the solar panels today and carried several containers of deionized water across the island to the battery room.  I did some cleaning in the battery room this afternoon.

The eco tour vessel Five Star Fast Cat came into the reserve this morning around 10:30.

Misery left Great Race yesterday around noon, taking his time on the boat ramp while I waited to launch the whaler, and is back on Middle Rock with the ladies.  There were around 10 Sealions on South Rocks today and over 40 cormorants observed on South Rocks, Middle Rocks and the SW side of Great Race.

Misery taking his time on the boat ramp

Facility Work

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Facility work over the past few days has included:

-plumbing and burying the rainwater harvesting line

-changing oil in HP  pump in desalinator unit

-installing new fuel connector in station whaler

-rebuilding a broken bed frame in the main house so there are now two guest beds/rooms available

-removing a faulty fan on composting toilet

-working on plans for a new composting container system

Also, the weather data on race rocks.com has been offline for several days and we have not been able to diagnose the problem yet.

Breakfast

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There was a freshly killed seagull on the NE side of the island this morning. Soon after I had inspected it, a juvenile Bald Eagle came in to continue to deplume and consume it. The Eagle eventually flew off with the carcass to finish it off on Middle Rocks.

Misery was back on Great Race this morning, he has been behind the boat house all day.

For most of the afternoon there two dive boats near Middle Rocks.

I worked on a de-clogging a stubborn sink drain in the bathroom of the main house this morning.

A North wind peaked around 20 knots this morning and dropped to less than 5 knots for most of the rest of the day.

Bald Eagles

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Bald Eagles on Middle Rocks, image captured on tower webcam.

There were several bald eagles on the rocks and chasing seagulls this morning.  At around noon I counted a total of 8 bald eagles: 4 on Middle Rocks, 2 on North Rock and 2 on South Rocks.

Misery and female elephant seals have remained on Middle Rocks yesterday and today.

It has been a pretty calm, quiet, grey day. I worked on connecting a second roof downspout to the rainwater tank.  The whole South side of the roof is now hooked in, just need a good rain to test it out.

water line

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Misery has been on middle rocks along with 3 females today. The image above was captured from the remote webcam in the tower this morning.  There have been around 40 Pigeon Guillemots with winter plumage around the jetty the past couple days. The cormorants were mainly on Middle Rock today.

I laid the 1.5″ line in the trench from the blue tank to the cistern access and cemented the 3″ down pipe and clean-out to the blue tank inlet.  The trench follows a previously impacted route along-side the edge of the cistern.

At  around 13:15 hrs a Prince Of Whales whale watching boat was in the reserve.

Misery and Plumbing

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Misery next to diesel line box, in the background North profile of both blocks of tilted solar panels on roof of energy building.

Misery was next to the diesel line box mid morning. This box is 6′ wide and just over 4′ tall so the previous estimate of him being about 12′ long seems pretty accurate.  He moved over towards the fresh water tank in the afternoon and was lying behind a rock wall near where I was working on the rainwater plumbing. Around sunset he headed back to the pathway and down the boat ramp.  He crashed through a pile of logs that had been left by the receding tide.  Once in the water he spent about 20 mins blowing into the water and rolling around.  It would be interesting to hear him underwater.  He left the jetty and resurfaced on the West side of the island.  A few minutes later he was accompanied by the small female elephant seal, whom he proceeded to chase and bite until she hauled out on some rocks out of his reach.

There were about 10 black oyster catchers off the SW side of engine room and 6 Harlequin ducks in the water off the SE side, lots of cormorants on South rocks and on West side.

Worked on rainwater plumbing this afternoon.  Have got the tank inlet and down pipe clean-out hooked up.

Cormorants, Elephant Seals, Fuel Line, Plumbing Parts

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This morning I counted over 200 cormorants on the South Rocks and saw a pair of Harlequin ducks by the jetty.

The female elephant 6360 went  back in the water before noon.  Misery was near the centre of the island at sunset.

I went off island to campus around noon.   I brought some scientific instruments back to campus and went into Langford to pick up plumbing parts and other supplies.  Erik worked on the whaler’s fuel line over the afternoon and got it fixed up.  I got back out to the island as the sun was setting on the lowest tide I have ever landed on out here, the boat ramp was longer than usual.

 

 

Pearson College Students at Race Rocks

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Jake and Aaron installing tilt kit on a second block of solar PV panels

On Friday afternoon Chris brought a group of 5 students and Jake to stay on the island for the weekend.   The group was a big help with several projects including installing a second solar PV tilt kit on the roof of the Engine Room, helping build a rainwater capture system, relocating construction materials, and transferring diesel for heating.

On Saturday Danie made marine life observations on the South side of the island, she counted 5 sealions, 40 Cormorants, 10 gulls, and 7 Black Oyster catchers. Also on Saturday Julie did a Marine Sciences research experiment on the relationship between ocean current strength and depth.  While conducting the experiment we had some trouble with the outboard engine fuel line on the Whaler so Chris came out in Second Nature to get us going again.

Today around 11:00 hrs Chris came back out to the island to take them all back to campus. It has been another great weekend with students at Race Rocks, big thanks for all the help and good times.  Also. thanks to Jake for taking the lead on the tilt kit and to Chris for providing support and transportation on the weekend.

Chris taking students back to campus in Second Nature