Wind: yesterday 3-53 knots W, today 9-34 knots N
Sea State: yesterday 2 m waves from W, today up to 1 m waves from N
Visibility: yesterday 2 to 10 NM, today 1 to 2 NM
Sky: yesterday sunny with cloudy patches, today fog and snow
Temperature: yesterday 7 to -1 °C, today -1 to -4 °C with windchill as low as -14 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.15 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)
Yesterday brought many gifts from the sun: rainbows, warmth and solar power for the batteries. In the afternoon, I spotted an unusual sight for this time of year. A sea otter was being tossed around in the waves near the jetty. I grabbed the camera and did my best to capture some photos as it swam around the northeast side of the island, got out briefly on the rocks near the house, then swam back to the waves of the north side, before it floated northeast past the east side of the North Rocks. The wind was over 40 knots, which made it hard to hold the camera steady and take photos. I managed to get a few photos (see below) that show a slightly blurry sea otter in action.
Last night, the temperature dipped below O °C. I prepared the buildings from getting too cold by turning on heat in the evening. Throughout the night, the fog horn sounded and the snow accumulated. Judging by the snow on the relatively sheltered ground mounted solar panels, there was about 8 cm of snow overnight and into the early afternoon. On the rest of the island, the tracks of sea lions, birds and slide marks of elephant seals showed the few movements of a quiet island. A smaller than usual group of gulls and cormorants were hunkered down on the southwest side of the island. Most of the sea lions were rafting in the water, which was observed this afternoon at 7.7 °C, much warmer than the -4 °C air temperature.
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- Elephant seals basking in the relative warmth on Sunday morning
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- Sea otter floating in the lee of the island
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- Sea otter briefly crawling up onto the rocks behind the house
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- Sea otter floating in the choppy water
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- Elephant seals in cooler times on Monday morning. What a difference a day can make. The orange snow makes it easy to track where the seals have travelled.
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- When I went to check on the temperature of the guest house, through the window I saw the fresh flipper prints of a group of california sea lions taking shelter from the wind.
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- Usually I remove bird poop from the solar panels. Today I brushed 8 cm of snow off the 44 panels. These are the 12 ground mounted panels. On the roof of the energy building, there are 32 more. The red horns coming out of the building are the old foghorns before they were replaced with an electronic system at the base of the lighthouse.
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- Looking north from the entryway of the lighthouse, one of the beta male elephant seals is seen in the foreground.
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- The older pup in the middle was covered in much more snow than the other seals.
A video of the two beta male elephant seals fighting at the base of the lighthouse. They move very fast when they are motivated. After they disappeared behind the tower, they chased each other around the island and into the water by the jetty, causing a stampede of some nearby sea lions.
A video of the snowy views and windy sounds of the islands.