Is something happening on the rock? Nothing. It ‘s what you could think from the tower top or from the seaplane that flies over almost everyday but at sea level it’s another story. Actually there is so much life by night and by day. Especially the nights are animated: We found 2 more dead chicken bodies, always at the same spot under the diesel tank, always killed the same way and left with all the guts fresh and bloody! Pretty disgusting! The Animal world is rough. We spotted some very violent attacks from adults gulls against chickens. The problem is when chicks run into a neighboring territory they get attacked and can be killed and now that they are trying to fly, they can’t control exactly where they land. When it’ s windy you can observe those flying practice everywhere. The wind helps them and some now manage to get 3 meters high in the air. 3 chicks spend all their day swimming in some shallow water, one parent checking from the rocks and there are there everyday but those are the only ones. Why not the others? Just a few Californian sea lions have landed on the main rock for now. The fence is ready anyway. We have been stock on Race rocks for a few days because of the wind but we kept busy and not bored. At 7:00PM we had 40knots but it slowed down at 26 knots at 8:00. Calm evening
Category Archives: weather notes
Geese on the rock
Like yesterday it has been foggy early in the morning so good for us:damp solar panel and quicker job. 4 Californian sea lions were on the jetty in the morning so we prepared the electricity gate and everything is now ready to work. The forecast was wind between 25 and 35 for the evening.
Many chicken have been practicing their flying exercises and it ‘s funny to see the oldest one closed to the youngest; maybe 3 weeks difference between the 2. We have a geese issue: I discovered 2 days ago that they were drinking in the water bucket under the solar panel. The problem is that we have found a real mess around the diesel tank even if the spot had been cleaned with water. And the worst it’s new geese arrived late in the afternoon. We wondered if those one were not the other family that was here in June? Any way maybe the brown bucket will be empty. Too bad we love those busy creatures!
34 knots around 7:30PM and the forecast for the 3rd: very windy. Interesting to have a look on the website: windyty .com
Very busy those rocks!
Forecast of gale warning going to 35 knots late in the afternoon. Choppy sea. Very foggy to 9:30AM.I think that we never had so much traffic around as today: More than 30 whale watching boats, 2 diving boats with 6 divers each time, 2 kayaks and a plane over and you could see a big number of fishing boats especially around Sooke .Guy changed the winch handle of the boat trailer and he went on filling up the seawater cistern for 5 hours.We were almost cold! Hard to believe that it was so warm off island when we went a day ago.The last elephant seal is still here sleeping or swimming around.
Blue moon: what a scenery from Race Rocks!
When we wake up at 5AM we had 10 miles of visibility on the Victoria side but a little foggy on the East Sooke side. At 6:30 fog was here and the horn ringed to 10Am. The forecast was gale warning to 25knots end of the afternoon. It’s exactly what happened but coming back from the college in the afternoon was easy: no current and wind around 23.
July 24th to 26th:Calm weekend
On Friday we had our first rainy day. When we came back from town the rocks were not so white. Everything around looked cleaner but the smell at around 50m from shore was the same unique strong mixture of crab shrimp and fish. On Saturday a nice and cool day many boats around 50 were fishing in the strait along the Canadian coast.
Those days the number of elephant seals on Race Rocks is not stable. The 2 big ones have been away since the 23rd and the 2 young females come and go. Maybe they will be all gone pretty soon. lately the 4 of them didn’t go far on the island and used to rest closed to the boat shed going often back and forth to the water.
No visitors.
July 22nd: Seawater needed for the desalination process
On the 22nd of July we had a pretty windy day coming like usual from West with a choppy sea and around 25 knots. No visitors but many watchers between 10 and 15 of them.
Guy began filling up the seawater cistern, a pretty big underground space. It’s now half full and ok for a while. It has been a long process .You need to wait for the high tide and check often to be sure that the pump is not reached by the flooding water and also you have to feel up the gas tank every hour. The whole thing took roughly 10 hours.
July 20th : A new resident
Just around 9 in the morning we saw a new female elephant seal. She was bigger than the small one already there. We were just pleased. It is so interesting to watch them. The sea lions are now closer. A dozen of them were on the south side of the Rock and some Californian one are on the middle Rocks. Many newborn harbor seals spend their energy playing in the water.
The wind never stopped rising from 33 knots around noon to almost 40 knots around 2PM. This situation kept us inside for the rest of the day.
Early in the morning we saw the big rescue boat going slowly. A few maybe 3 or 4 whale watchers came. It was a beautiful sunny day and the sea a gorgeous sight.
We were expecting visitors from the college but no way it was really too windy to tie to the dock.
July 17 to 19th : A calm week-end
It has been 3 beautiful and sunny days .The wind was light at the most 20 knots in daytime and 30 knots on Sunday night .The North wind from the morning became West in the afternoon. The water temperature was still around 12 degrees Celsius. The water salinity stayed around 31.5 and the air at 5 OOAM 10 degrees. The barometric pressure was 903.1 HPa and 1001.8 HPa the day after.
We had no visitors and around the Rocks around 15 whale watchers.
Now we can count around 25 chicks from the front window. Some are already half size of the adults one but a few one have been born only a week ago. At date we found just one body and a half broken egg with the dead chick inside.
We did a few maintenance jobs like the cleaning of the students’ house windows and tidying up the basement in the eco-guardians place. Guy took off the ladder at the jetty, which has to be repaired, or changed .He sanded part of the trailer boat and begin repainting it with some rust paint.
Gale warning forecast
We began the day with 32 knots and the wind never stopped rising to 40.7 knots around 8:00PM. What a pretty windy month!
All the birds were in the sheltered side away from the wind so it was easy to spot them. Before dusk we saw 10 Turnstones, 2 Western Sandpipers and 3or 4 Dunlins. They were not around a few days before. Exciting!
I even found a ladybug, a small one in the house. Another new species on this small rock
No whale watchers today …Thanks to the wind.
Day off !
It has been 10 days without leaving this nice place so it was good to have a little break even if coming back delighted us…
No wind, no current, flat sea.
The South, South West wind brought a very iodineic smell above the usual strong smell of the island at this time of the year!
We have noticed very high tides those days and especially on that day( full high tide in the night around 11PM).
When we came back around 6PM a pleasure boat was anchored just on the other side of the jetty. I will say 30 meters. They seemed not understand why they were not allowed to do so! And soon they got some problems ( had to dive ) because their anchor got stuck in the kelp or rocks! At least that we didn’t have to explain! for the rest they were gone …before we got the camera .
Around 9PM with the coming darkness and a lovely pearl colored sky, we had (first time that happened at that time of the day) the last watching boat of the day.