Dec 19th and 20th

Ecological

  • Wind has continued to shift between predominantly West and South East reaching a peak of over 30 knots Sunday afternoon
  • Both male elephant seals have remained mainly on Great Race. Saturday morning there were signs of fresh wounds on the smaller male’s back.
  • Pelagic cormorants, with iridescent green and purple tinted black plumage,  were clearly distinguishable in the sunlight Saturday morning
  • A california sealion with brand number 8240 was seen Sunday afternoon

Marine Vessels

  • Saturday afternoon two ecotour vessels were seen in the reserve. They entered from around West Rock and proceeded up middle channel against a ~4 knot ebb while there were sealions hauled out on the West side of the Great Race.
    Traveling against the current as well as within 100 meters of marine mammals are both careless and unprofessional.
  • Sunday afternoon a group of sailing yachts circumnavigated race rocks passing inside the reserve occasionally.  They were out when windspeed was peaking at 30 knots.

Maintenance

  • Assessed wood stove and contacted supplier to get prices on replacement parts, two baffle tubes are burnt out, bottom brick liner is broken into several pieces and baffle is a bit worn.
  • Worked on generator fuel transfer, had some problems with transfer pump over loading filling pipe and backing up with fuel.  Spoke with Jeff about it and locating fuel gauge on day tank (its on the South side, against the wall).  Transferred one barrel of diesel to tidy tank then filled up day tank.
  • Sunday battery voltage was bellow 48V at 2 pm so started generator early and ran desalinator for 8 hours.
  • Oil level on desalinator high pressure pump was above fill line so drained some out before starting up.

Other

  • Went off island Sunday morning for some supplies and returned around noon.  Picked up a plug in watt meter to measure energy loads of appliances and re-stocked on newspaper for fire starting.