Sunny May Day on the Rock

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 0-5 knots NE, then S
  • Sky: clear and sunny!
  • Water: calm
  • Welcome springtime!

Ecological

  • The usual 15 elephant seals on Great Race today.
  • Thought I saw whales out West at sunset. I definitely saw something coming up for air and blowing jets of water.

Elephant seal salad

Maintenance

  • Wrote the April month end report today amongst the usual chores.

Boats

  • 5 eco-tours came by today.
  • Some of them appeared to be too close to the harbour seals on Turbine Rock.
  • The viewing distance for boats near marine mammal haul-outs has been accepted by the Ecotour community to be 100 metres.

Other

  • DND blasts at 10:14, 10:16, and 10:20.

Seawater Data April 30, 2016

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Station Race Rocks   Lightstation
Month: April Year: 2016
Observer:  Lester B. Pearson College   of the Pacific
Date Time Sea Jar Hydro-   meter   No. Observed Density YSI Salinity YSI Temp °C
Temp. Temp.
°C °C
1 6:00 31.2 9.4
2 7:00 31.3 9.3
3 9:06 31.4 9.4
4 11:20 29.3 9.4
5 12:42 31.7 9.4
6 13:43 32.0 9.6
7 14:48 32.0 9.8
8 15:48 32.3 9.5
9 16:53 32.4 9.6
10 18:00 32.3 9.6
11 19:00 32.3 9.5
12 20:00 31.8 9.4
13 6:00 32.1 9.3
14 6:20 32.1 9.2
15 5:55 9.4 9 10,802 1.036 32.1 9.2
16 9:35 31.9 9.6
17 11:20 31.9 10.1
18 12:45 31.8 10.2
19 13:55 31.9 10.4
20 14:23 31.9 10.7
21 17:30 31.9 10.2
22 16:25 31.9 10.2
23 18:50 31.9 10.2
24 19:55 32.1 9.6
25 20:45 32.1 9.5
26 21:45 32.1 9.6
27 20:15 31.8 10.0
28 20:15 31.6 10.0
29 21:35 31.8 9.7
30 6:15 31.6 9.7
 Submitted monthly to: Inst. Ocean Science, P.O. Box 6000, Sidney, B.C. V8L 4B2
Recorded by Race Rocks Ecological Reserve Guardian for Lester B. Pearson College

Last Day of the April Month

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind 0-5 knots most of the day, 15-20 West in the evening
  • Sky: sunny
  • Water: calm

Ecological

  • 15 elephant seals on Great Race today.
  • 10 of them were in the water playing at 6 AM.

E-seal rest time

Maintenance

  • Cleaned the windows of the eco-guardians house.
  • Entered the sea water data and sent it off to Peter Chandler.
  • More goose work.
  • Ran the desal.
  • Had to restart the communications in the tower after shutting off the generator.

Boats

  • 3 eco-tours came by today.
  • One black boat that looked like an eco-tour came by, but it only had one occupant,

Other

  • The mystery buoys are still appearing from time to time in Middle Channel.
  • However they don’t exclusively appear at low tides, so I am baffled.
  • Will have to get out there to remove them sometime.

No Boats Go

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 20-30 knots West
  • Sky: overcast in the morning, cleared up later
  • Water: 1′ chop

Ecological

  • 15 elephant seals on Great Race

Maintenance

  • Cleaned the solar panels
  • Started applying algicide to the building walls during a brief lull in the wind.
  • Didn’t go so well when the wind picked up again.
  • Scrubbed the walls after. Moderate improvement.

Boats

  • No boats in the reserve today.
  • A group of students were supposed to come out here, but Second Nature isn’t back from overhauls yet, and it was too windy for the smaller boats.

Windy Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 15-20 knots West in the morning, 25-30 after noon.
  • Sky: Sunny with clouds.
  • Water: 1′ chop
  • Expect the wind to keep it up for a while.

Ecological

  • Conducted a census today.
  • I suspect that the high winds have kept away certain species of birds, making today’s list less impressive.
  1. Harbour Seals: 91
  2. Northern Sea Lions: 47
  3. California Sea Lions: 27
  4. Elephant Seals: 19 (15 on Great Race, 4 on Middle Rock)
  5. Seagulls: 314
  6. Pigeon Guillemots: 108
  7. Surfbirds: 39
  8. Canada Geese: 18
  9. Black Turnstones: 14
  10. Black Oystercatchers: 10
  11. Rock Sandpipers: 3
  12. Bald Eagles: 3 (2 adult, 1 immature)
  13. Savannah Sparrows: 2
  14. Harlequin Ducks: 2 (1 male, 1 female)
  15. Cormorant: 1 (one seen on Turbine Rock)

Maintenance

  • Intended to spray algicide on various building walls, but too windy to ensure accuracy. Perhaps tomorrow if the wind dies down.
  • Started investigating the paint stock.
  • Some goose work.

Boats

  • No boats in the reserve today.

Cruise Ship and Sea Lions

Het Nieuw Amsterdam

Het Nieuw Amsterdam

New hashtag for #racerocks

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I have just started a twitter hashtag for our the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve  #racerocks  You are welcome to use this in your twitter feed to provide links to significant new news-worthy events concerning the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.

There is also a new one for British Columbia Ecological Reserves: #ecoreserves

GF

Battery Water Top Up

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 10-20 knots West
  • Sky: overcast in the morning, rather cleared up later
  • Water: rippled

Ecological

  • 14 elephant seals on Great Race

Maintenance

  • Kyle, Guy, and I topped up the water in the battery bank.
  • Cleaned the solar panels.
  • Lots of goose related work today.

Boats

  • Kyle and Guy came to the island at about 8:30.
  • They departed just before 10:00.
  • One fishing boat passed through the south channel, which is too narrow for boats to safely pass through when animals are present.
  • The boat also seemed to be going too fast.

9 eco-tours

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 5-10 W, in the evening up to 20 W
  • Sky: clear, later cloudy
  • Water: 1′ chop

Ecological

  • 14 elephant seals on Great Race
  • 2 that I could see on Middle Rock
  • The sea lions were surprisingly calm today considering how many boats seemed to be too close.
  • The injured California sea lion was near the derrick again.

The injured cali sea lion

the elephant seals

Boats

  • 9 eco-tours came by today. I guess there was a big backlog of tourists after several days of high winds.
  • I think 8/9 of the boats today looked to be too close. Certainly the boats that viewed the sea lions near the derrick were the closest I have ever seen.
  • The viewing distance for boats near marine mammal haul-outs has been accepted by the Ecotour community to be 100 metres.

Other

  • One DND blast at 10:02.
  • Another one at 11:12.

Another Windy Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-35 knots West
  • Water: 2′ chop
  • Sky: Partly cloudy

Ecological

  • 13 elephant seals on Great Race today.
  • In the morning there was a lone California Sea Lion on Great Race fairly far from shore.

Maintenance

  • More goose work.
  • Cleaned the solar panels.
  • My coat now needs to be cleaned for the same reasons as the solar panels.

Boats

  • One pleasure craft passed through Middle Channel today.
  • Spied an attractive blue and white fishing boat to the north of the reserve.

Pleasure craft near jetty

Cute fishing boat

Other

  • 6 loud DND blasts today.
  • 10:40, 10:42, 11:50, 11:52, 13:57, 13:59

Windy Day, Frisky Elephant Seals

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-35 knots West
  • Water: 2′ chop
  • Sky: Overcast with showers, cleared up in the late evening

Ecological

  • The broken Canada Goose eggs from last night were still on the grass.
  • 13 elephant seals on Great Race.
  • 5 on Middle Rock.
  • The elephant seals just outside the house were in a frenzy all morning.
  • Some of them play fought for hours, whilst others tried to mate.
  • Inevitably they all ended up in a big pile of flailing bodies.
  • Saw an injured California sea lion on the derrick rocks.
  • It appears as though it had part of a flipper torn off.
  • Boat motor or predator?
  • There was a tiny harbour seal on the east part of Great Race.
  • It was farther from water then I had ever seen one.

Maintenance

  • Ran the desalinator.
  • Again unfavourable conditions to run the fire pump.

Boats

  • No boats in the reserve.
  • A couple sail boats farther out.