I woke up quite early this morning (not difficult when the seagulls keep jumping around on your roof, and the sea lions continuously bark at one another…!), and was rewarded with the most astonishing full moon:

The moon (!), the stars, and Race Rocks Lighthouse

The clear night translated into a beautiful sunny morning, so I headed up the ladder to the roof of the generator room to give the solar panels a good scrub and maximise energy generation…

Everyone’s favourite task…

… and duly managed to run the desalinator purely off solar power from just before noon until around 3:30, when the clouds started to fall in.

Generation eventually went as high as 5kw!

Ecological Notes: 

• The juvenile male elephant seal continues to hang out on the island, whereas I didn’t spot either of the females all day.
  

  Always keeping a watchful eye in between snoozes…

• Sea lion numbers continue to increase steadily: it’ll be interesting what tomorrow’s census yields

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

Facility Work:

• Solar Panel clean
• Stagnant Water removal and Anti-Algae Treatment of Generator Room roof to ensure it doesn’t become treacherous to work up there
• Topped up generator fuel
• Hoisted new flag

Noted Vessel Traffic:

• No visits to the reserve
• Extensive coastguard exercises on both sides of the Strait

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?