Tag Archives: composting toilet

Gull Nests

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Ecological Notes:

  • 6 Elephant Seals in the main grass area and boat ramp, including a juvenile male (slightly larger than the largest female), and 1 male “pup” from this season. The tagged female”pup” that was in the east bay yesterday, appears to have left the island.
  • The Juvenile male was rather feisty today and bluff charged, even from quite a distance.
  • Glaucous Wing Gull nests are popping up all over! All but 1 that I observed had 1 egg in them, suggesting they were all laid today. Considering there are about 180 Gulls on the island, mostly in clear pairs, there should be a lot of nests soon!
  • This nest is right outside my door, and the birds barely pay attention as I walk by.

Facility Work:

  • “Out with the new, in with the old” …… Wait …….. what?
  • For various reasons, the existing composting toilet system was not performing as expected for the main house. It needed to be removed, and plans are in the works for a new system. In the mean time, a previous Natures Head compact composting toilet has been re-installed in the main house.
  • One advantage of being out here by yourself is that skipping a shower gives you water to clean your favorite viewing windows while you wait for more rain!

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • 2 private vessels, viewing wildlife

 Noted Infractions:

  • none

Weather Events:

  • Westerly 5 – 10 knot morning winds, shifting to Southerly 5 knot winds mid day. Continued to shift to Northeasterly winds at 5 – 10 knots in the afternoon. Calm seas, sunny with cloudy periods all day, overcast in the evening, hinting at possible showers.

 

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

 

Weather – Current:

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

 

Weather – Past:

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

Shift Changeover

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Wind: 0-20 knots NE
Sea State: 0.5 m chop
Visibility: 15+ NM
Sky: overcast clearing to sun in the late morning
Temperature: 8 C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.73 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

Yesterday, Laas’ shift ended after being on Race Rocks for the past two and half months and a big chunk of the past two and a half years. I came out to the island at noon on Second Nature with Guy, Corey, two students, a family visiting the college and a friend of Laas. It was great to share in the excitement of all on the boat. I also appreciated their help carrying my many bins of food. I always get excited when the boat rounds the corner out of Pedder Bay and the lighthouse comes into view. The cacuphony of seal lion barks and belches was overwhelming when the boat pulled up to the jetty. Thanks for the great welcome home, my pinniped pals. I had a run through of the energy systems with Laas, Guy and Corey, as the equipment has changed completely since I was here almost five years ago. It’s great to be back on the Rock. Thank you Laas for leaving the place so tidy. Best of luck on your new adventures.

After the group left, I climbed the 99 steps inside the lighthouse to get a bird’s-eye view of the island. I spend the rest of the day reacquainting myself with the place and unpacking. I welcomed the slow down, as I settled into the island that I will call home for the season, watching the changes as the days become longer. I will be here for all of winter and depart soon after the vernal equinox.

Today, I continued to check out more places and do the regular tasks like monitor the energy levels, wash the solar panels, turn the composting toilet and sample the salinity and temperature of the water at high tide. On one trip up the lighthouse, I counted 336 sea lions on the rocks. There are also six elephant seals on the main island: three large males spaced apart from each other, one pregnant looking female in the centre of the island and two juvenile males.

Approaching Race Rocks

Waving goodbye

Lighthouse and elephant seals

Climbing to the top of the lighthouse

A bird’s-eye view

Solar Panels charging the batteries on a sunny day

Elephant seals

Sunset from halfway up the lighthouse

Sunset over the Olympic Peninsula

 

Feb 11-12, derrick and toilet

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Feb 11:  Cloudy, NE 10 knot wind.  In the morning Courtney came out on Second Nature with Tristan (Pearson volunteer) and scaffolding.  We had already put up two sections (5′ tall each) of scaffold with what we have on station so we added two more sections of rented scaffold to build a tower around 22′ tall below the derrick.  We secured all four sides with lines tied to various anchor points on the ground.  Standing on the top of the tower, the top of the derrick was just above my head height.  I greased the pulley and pried the cable out from its lodging on the side of the pulley to get it back in its track. We led the derrick cable down through the centre of the scaffolding and Tristan and Courtney re-attached the weighted hook which keeps tension on the line. We took down the scaffolding and sent the rented parts back to the college.  Derrick is finally back in action after months of being out of service and we now have a better and safer method for fixing and servicing the unit.  Thanks Courtney, Tristan and Chris.

On another topic, my dislike for the new composting toilet is increasing proportionately with the rising smell of stagnant septic in the basement of the assistant house…

Feb 12: Cloudy, wind light, periods of rain. 1 Pedder Bay Marina rental boat in the reserve that left the reserve going over the speed limit. I called the marina and they were to follow up with the operator.speeding feb 12

After venting the guest house basement as much as possible, it still stank in there.  I took apart the vent pipe and re-installed it with a bypass drain for rain water and excess moisture.  The pipe size on the toilet is non conventional (it says its 2″ PVC but of course it is not and it does not union with standard size pipe) so I installed a rubber union with clamps in order to transition to the ABS vent pipe already installed through the roof.  I installed a transparent pipe on the bypass so that it will be visible when there is liquid accumulation.  With the new vent pipe installed I plugged in the toilet to start heating up the septic soup again so that it will hopefully actually evaporate this time.

Humpback Whales

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The wind blew at about 15 knots from the northeast for the daylight hours.  A swell with small whitecaps from the northeast died down at noon. The barometer dropped slightly from 1031 to 1029 hPa.  The sky was clear all day.

There were six whale watching boats seen in the reserve today.  The only other boat was the Race Rocks boat making a round trip to Pedder Bay at noon, for an Ecoguardian switchover.

Over the weekend, Jeff completed the installation of the new composting toilet in the Ecoguardian’s house.  It’s a big step up from the humanure system that was in place before.  The new waterless system has a unit in the basement, directly below the toilet, that decomposes the human waste and only needs to be emptied once a year.  An identical unit is going to be installed in the Marine Science Centre, once some minor wall demolition happens to accommodate unit in the basement.

At 14:00, there were two or three humpback whales within a few hundred metres of the northeast of Great Race Rocks.  They made their way to the south, diving for five minutes at a time and then resurfacing.  Two whale watching boats remained with them for about 45 minutes, sometimes very close to the whales.