Tag Archives: DND blasting

Full Power Restored

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Wind: yesterday 0-34 knots from N to W, today 18-36 knots from W
Sea State: yesterday calm in morning changing up to 1m chop, today chop up to 1 m
Visibility: yesterday 5-10 NM, today 10-15NM
Sky: yesterday overcast and rain, today clear changing to rain in evening
Temperature: yesterday 5-8 °C, today 6-7 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.81 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

After twenty-five days with backup power, there is now full power on the island. The replacement part for the generator head was installed today. Thanks goes to the team who spent six hours on the island today, hauling the 450 lbs unit from the boat to the generator room, doing the installation and other needed upgrades. It was a busy day here for Greg, Alex, Lawrence, Stephane from Frontier Power, Ric and his apprentice Stephane. Lots of other staff at Pearson College made it possible for this fix and temporary power to be successful.

With full power restored, there is now enough power to more quickly top up the batteries and operate all the equipment on the island without draining the batteries too much. A few important pieces are now running again: the desalinator, Ocean Networks Canada’s CODAR, UVIC’s Davis weather station and both live cameras.

There are still four male elephant seals and three pups on the island. There was some fighting amongst the males last night, evident by the fresh cuts on the backs of three of the males and near the eye of the youngest female pup.

The number of sea lions on the rocks has decreased in the past two days. It could be related to the strong west winds that blow into some of their favourite haul out spots.

There was one tour boat seen in the ecological reserve today.

DND was conducting demolition training on nearby Bentinck Island today.

January 28 and 29

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Wind: yesterday 5-15 knots from N to NE, today 6-36 knots from E to W
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today rippled in the morning and up to 1 m chop beginning late morning
Visibility: yesterday and today between 5-15 NM
Sky: yesterday overcast, today rain in morning and sunny in afternoon
Temperature: yesterday 7-9 °C, today 8-12 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.67 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The blasting at nearby Bentinck Island wrapped up this morning, after three days and about 25 blasts. The sea lions left the jetty completely this morning after a few loud blasts. It sounded louder this morning because the northerly wind, coming from the direction of Bentinck Island.

Since the power issues began last week, the Environment Canada weather station at the top of the tower has not been reporting the hourly weather conditions for Race Rocks Lightstation. Replacement communication equipment is being sent out, so hopefully the weather will be recorded again within the next few days.

Two eco tour boats were in the reserve over the past two days. The only visitors to the island were Greg and Alex, a Year 39 Pearson student, who came by yesterday to drop off jerry cans of gas for the back up generator. Alex was reminiscing about visiting Race Rocks and SCUBA diving as a student.

See the photos below for sights from the past two days:

DND Blasting

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Wind: yesterday 0-10 knots from E, today 0-46 knots from NE to E
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today rippled in the morning and up to 2 m chop in the late afternoon and evening
Visibility: yesterday and today between 10-15 NM
Sky: yesterday sun, today mostly sunny with rain in evening
Temperature: both days 6-10 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.96 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

For most of the past two days it has been sunny with calm winds. A storm warning is materializing this evening that is bringing rain and strong winds of up to 45 knots from the east.

Today, the Department of National Defence was conducting blasting training at nearby Bentinck Island. I heard ten blasts today that shook Race Rocks. See the photo and video below.

Video clips of two blasts that occurred this morning. It takes a few seconds for the sound to reach the island and the sea lions to react. The sounds of gulls and bald eagles can also be heard.

Weekly Census

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Wind: yesterday 8-33 knots S to W, today 2-24 knots W to NE
Sea State: rippled
Visibility: 10-15 NM
Sky: both days mixture of sun and clouds
Temperature: yesterday 3 to 8 °C, today 2 to 4 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.63 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The snow is melting quickly, bringing puddles and mud.

The one day old elephant seal pup appears to be doing well and nursing a lot. It’s moving around and wiggling more than the other two did in their first couple days. The alpha male has been mating numerous times with the mother of the oldest pup.

In the early afternoon, I wandered around the island and peered out from the top of the tower to count the mammals and birds. There were some notable omissions in this fourth week of conducting the census. I didn’t see any geese today. The only sign of the honking birds was a lot of poop and tracks in the snow. I also did not see any black oystercatchers. It is possible the birds were scared off by the loud explosions. The Armed Forces were blasting yesterday and today at the Department of National Defence land-based demolition range on Bentinck Island, the closest land to Race Rocks. Directly after each blast, I witnessed sea lions stampeding into the water and birds taking flight. According to a 2017 article On the firing line with the navy, in the Victoria newspaper Times Colonist, the detonation range is used for training members of the Canadian Navy on how to use explosives. The navy has apparently made efforts to lessen the effects on marine life.

Results of the weekly megafauna and bird census:
10 elephant seals (4 females, 4 males, 2 pups)
200 steller sea lions
242 california sea lions
107 harbour seals
8 bald eagles (7 adult, 1 juvenile)
56 brandt’s cormorants
124 pelagic cormorants
43 double-crested cormorants
178 Thayer’s gulls
12 harlequin ducks
9 black turnstones
1 snow bunting

A Quiet Week

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Weather: 

  • 15 miles visibility
  • Skies clear with some clouds
  • 40+ kn wind
  • Rolling waves up to 1/2 m breaking into whitecaps

Boats/Visitors: 

The boats at Pearson are in for annual maintenance so we have not had any college visitors. The wind conditions have limited all boat traffic.

Ecological:

There are have been no sea lions over the past few days. The gosling that appeared to be injured has not been spotted in a while. The large male elephant seals are clearly moulting now and have been fighting over the best sleeping spots. The seagulls have become more aggressive and will now fly towards us even if we keep a distance from their eggs.

There has been DND blasting nearby almost every day lately. The birds take flight and the mammals are visibly disturbed.

Census: 

  • 30 harbour seals
  • 5 elephant seals, all moulting. 4 male 1 female
  • Roughly 200 seagulls
  • Two families of geese, minus one missing gosling
  • Two barn swallows nesting in our rafters

An Injured Gosling

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Weather: 

  • Clear Skies
  • 15mi visibility
  • 10kn NE wind
  • Calm water

Boats/Visitors: 

There have been lots of whale watching boats over the last few days, most coming within 25m of greater Race Rocks. Greg has came from the college a few times to resupply diesel (today) and water (yesterday).

Ecological:

There are three large elephant seals here, and today they were all resting in the water at the end of the boat ramp. One of the goslings from the younger family of geese appears to have injured its food or leg. It has separated from the rest of them over the last few days, and can be seen limping and moving slowly, it is unable to keep up with the rest.

The DND has been blasting, it is very loud and sometimes occurs four to five times in a day. It startles all of the animals, and the birds take flight.

We have noticed some barn swallows flying around out front window. On closer inspection, they appear to be nesting under our eves where a soffit panel has blown out of place.

Maintenance:

We have replaced the hinges on both doors of the water tank shed, and removed old hinges fasted or corroded to the doorframe. Opening and closing the doors is easy now, and with a touch of anti-seize paste on the hinge pins it should stay that way.

We cleaned the solar panels for the first time in a while. The desalinator being out of commission means pressure washing is too resource intensive – we found an old hand pump sprayer, and found it to be very helpful for cleaning while conserving water.

Census:

  • 5 elephant seals
  • 12 geese
  • 2 seal lions
  • 190 seagulls
  • 8 oystercatchers
  • 2 barn swallows

Jumping Into the Deep End

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Weather 

Visibility: 5-10 miles

Wind: Less than one knot

Sky: Overcast with lots of fog

Water: Calm

 

Boats/Visitors: 

This morning students from the college took a dive into the deep end and swam from our jetty back to Pearson’s dock. Along with the swimmers, early this morning we greeted their coach, a team of Pearson staff supporting them in multiple vessels, as well as a team of kayakers to accompany them and a military college vessel.

We have observed very few whale watching boats over the past few days. It has been very foggy.

Over the past few days we have had groups of students visit with their families and a couple of outside groups as well.

Swimmers, safety boat, and accompanying kayakers.

Quite a few kayakers started their journey to rack rocks at 05:30 this morning, just in time to be greeted by the sea lions waking up.

 

Ecological: 

The two families of geese are still on Race Rocks, with the older gaggle starting to learn how to swim! The nest outside our door appears to have been abandoned after the seagulls cracked the eggs last week.

The elephant seals are starting to leave, only 4 were counted these past couple of days, two moulting. The larger elephant seal with one cloudy eye is gone.

Fewer sea lions lately, but with a lot of visitors it seems that most of them moved to the SE side of the island, away from the busy jetty. As well, there has been some very loud DND blasting.

We spotted an oyster catcher nest on the NE side of the main residence. Currently there are two eggs but one appears to be cracked.

Oyster catcher nest nestled in the rocks.

 

Still haven’t seen any seagull eggs, although they continue to seem less and less afraid of us as they build their nests.

Census Report:

115 seagulls

9 sea lions

7 geese, 12 goslings

2 seals

4 oyster catchers

Protective Father Elephant Seal

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 knots NW
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw two ecotour boats go by
  • No visitors

Ecological

  • Bernard was keeping an eye out for the pups today, looking up from his sleep every time one of them would cry out, which is less frequent and high pitched now too as they continue to grow. Having a father elephant seal protect it’s pups like this after the mother has left is not ordinary behaviour so this has been very interesting to watch.
  • Lots of Canada Geese landed on the island today, around 6-10 pairs that are very territorial with each other. I assume they’re getting ready for nesting season as that generally starts around March.
  • Still a decent number of cormorants, black oyster catchers and black turnstones around too.

Notes

  • DND blasting has started up again with several loud explosions going off each day for the past few days.

Elephant Seal Duo

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Weather

  • Visibility: mostly clear in the day with fog and a bit of snow in the evening
  • Wind: Light gusts throughout the day
  • Sky: Cloudy with sunny periods
  • Water: a bit rough, 1 meter swells at times

Boats/Visitors

  • had the usual ‘4 ever wild’ whale watching boat go by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Still a decent amount of sea lions on and around the island.
  • The two big male elephant seals have been mostly keeping their distance from each other but today Bernard, the larger of the two, asserted a bit of dominance by moving closer inland towards Big George, the smaller of the two.

Other

  • DND blasting has taken a break for the past few weeks which has been nice.

A Break From the Blasts

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Weather

  • Visibility: Clear throughout the day
  • Wind: Light breezes throughout the day with strong gusts up to 40 knots overnight
  • Sky: Cloudy with sunny break
  • Water: a bit choppy, one foot swells in the morning

Boats/Visitors

  • Boat traffic was pretty minimum today, whale watching boat cruised by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Not much has changed in terms of wildlife on the island in the last few days. Consistent number of gulls, sea lions, eagles, black turnstones, canada geese and cormorants with one or large two male elephant seals.
  • Haven’t seen any whales of any kind yet unfortunately.

Other

  • DND blasting has taken a break for the past week which has been nice.