the past week was CAS week at the college so I had two groups of students drop by, the first group were marine scientists that came for 5 days and helped out with cleaning up garbage, collecting driftwood, doing a daily census and stuff like that
the second group were divers that unfortunately did not get to dive while they were here but have been diving around race rocks before, they stayed for two nights
Maintenance
What a week, the fence had to be repaired quite a bit, the students helped me with it one day, and I did not properly show them how to repair the fence so the wire ended up being grounded which the sea lions took full advantage of and completely messed up the fence
The electric pump in the crane house is working but is kind of slow going, it also takes a lot of priming
the fire pump is out of commission at the moment, there were a lot fo issues with it probably due to the fact it is not a saltwater pump and has been sitting by the ocean for 3 years
the desalinator is not cooperating either, it will work for maybe an hour before it shuts itself off, I can restart it but again it will only run for another hour and only desalinates half the water it used to in the same amount of time
Ecological
I personally have seen about 8 humpback whales a day for the past week
there was also a pod of about 6 killerhwhales that one of the students saw from the lighthouse which we found out later were transients and were actually hunting sea lions
There have also been some interesting birds around, there was a robin here, which I don’t typically see and there was also a snow goose, which I personally have never seen here before, its been hanging out with the Canada geese other birds include oyster catchers, killdeer, ravens, and eagles
the neck banded sea lions seem to come and go, they are very difficult to keep track of, I believe there are two at the moment and I see them about once a week, since there are over 1000 sea lions at the moment they easily get lost in the crowd, even the group of students I had here only saw them once
Still quite a few humpbacks around counted about 6 today
haven’t seen the sea lion pups today but I’m sure they are around
There was a boreal owl that made an appearance last night but I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo of it and I haven’t seen it again but hopefully it makes another appearance
Guy came by with a little tour group this morning and then again in the afternoon with a group of students that will be spending their CAS week here
Maintenance
Fence maintenance, some pressure washing
Ecological
Counted at least 8 humpbacks throughout the day
there is a big dead stellar on the south west part of the island, I don’t usually go down there so I havent seen it until now
There are also about a dozen oyster catchers near the generator room
The sea lion pup is back and i got some great photos of it, even got some shots of it nursing which is very unusual to have such a young pup on the island
Laura’s marine science came by yesterday to see all the different species we have on the island and off the island we were lucky to see quite a few humpbacks around
Maintenance
Very minimal fence repairs which is a nice surprise, the sea lions are starting to avoid it more
Some pressure washing around the guest house, should be getting students for overnight trips soon
Ecological
I counted about 8 different humpbacks around yesterday, also saw about 4 today
Quite a bit of boat traffic, most of it being whale watching tours
Guy came by with a couple more boat loads of students to give them a tour around the island
Maintenance
Didn’t have to do any pressure washing today thanks to the rain although I did have to run the generator a bit to make up for not getting any solar energy today
Ecological
An elephant seal showed up yesterday and she is still around today, so thats exciting
also there have been a few humpback whale sightings and Guy said he saw some killer whales on the way over here but I missed them unfortunately
plenty of sea lions, seems like there is more everyday
not as many gulls as last week and I haven’t seen any cormorants on the outer rocks today
