Wind: 5-19 knots NE
Sea State: up to 1 m chop
Visibility: 15+ NM
Sky: 50% cloud cover with sunny patches throughout the days
Temperature: between 6 and 8 C
Atmospheric CO2: 411.99 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

It has been mostly quiet on the rock for the past two days, with the exception of the sea lions barking nonstop. It’s a mystery to me what they carry on about all night. Although, I will take that any night over the fog horn or the urban noises that are too far away for me to hear. The only visitors to the reserve were a few eco tour boats that lingered offshore in the late afternoons.

I had to quickly jump into action this morning, when I realized power had gone out just before I got out of bed. I ran the generator for several hours to make sure the batteries were fully charged. The solar panels helped a bit today, soaking up 3.7kWh of energy, which is a couple hours worth of the energy used on the island. There is lots of learning about off grid living.

Yesterday one of the juvenile males elephant seals left, bringing the population of elephant seals on the island from six to five.

A parcel of about 20 oystercatchers have been hanging out on the south side of the island. They mostly huddle on one leg with their beaks tucked into a wing.

The northeast winds have delivered presents in the form of free firewood to heat the ecoguardian’s house. Through some clumsy use of a pike pole and the tolerance of a nearby resting elephant seal, I managed to land a 6.5 metre log and drag it up the jetty ramp. I also gathered lots of smaller pieces. The wood will be left out in the rain for a while to wash off the salt, then chopped up into manageable pieces, and eventually put away to dry for next winter.