July 14-16

Weather for July 14:
Wind: W 15 to 30 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 3′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-13 C

Weather for July 15:
Wind: W 12 to 35 knots
Visibility: <1 to 10 NM
Sky: Fog for most of the day, with some patches of Partly Cloudy in afternoon
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 4′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 10-15 C

Weather for July 16:
Wind: W 19 to 38 knots
Visibility: 10-15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: 2′ chop in morning, up to 4′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-17 C

Maintenance:
When the solar panels were producing a lot of power on July 14 and 15, I used the desalinator to make a total of 700 litres of water. The output of the desalinator is 1.25 L per minute. It takes about 2.6 kW of energy to run the desalinator, on top of the regular 1.2 kW load of the island.

Today I lowered the boat into the water to grease the boat trailer wheels as well as finish installing and testing the new boat GPS and sonar.

Photo highlights from the past three days:

July 11, 12, 13, and Weekly Census

Weather for July 11:
Wind: W 11 to 27 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 2′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 12-14 C

Weather for July 12:
Wind: W 18 to 35 knots
Visibility: 10 to 15 NM
Sky: Cloudy in morning, partly cloudy in afternoon
Sea: 1’ chop in morning, up to 4′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-15 C

Weather for July 13:
Wind: W 16 to 33 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 2′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-15 C

DND Blasting:
There was one DND blast at 14:05 on July 12 at nearby Rocky Point.

Visitors:
Greg and Bruce visited this afternoon to deliver 1,400 L of freshwater and a new first aid kit.

Maintenance:
I did the routine tasks of cleaning the solar panels and house windows, topping up the water in the 24 deep cycle batteries, fixing the electric fence, tidying, and maintaining the freshwater system.

Ecological notes:
There have been a lot of humpback whale activity over the past few days to the west, south, and east of Race Rocks. The whale watching boats have been active in the area. From what I hear on the VHF radio, they have been very pleased with the humpback viewing. I have not seen any whales swim through the ecological reserve.

I heard back about the tagged elephant seal, from the researcher at Año Nuevo Natural Reserve, in California. The juvenile seal, tagged H999 and K646, is a male who was born in January 2022. He was previously observed here and reported to the researchers on April 1, 2023. He has been moulting here for at least the past several weeks. He appears to be almost complete the moulting process, so he might be moving on soon to feed in the deep waters.

Weekly Census observed on July 13:
elephant seal: 1 juvenile (tagged H999, K646)
Steller sea lion: 3
harbour seal: 79
bald eagle: 2 adults, 1 juvenile
raven: 1
cormorant: 7
black oystercatcher: 6 adults, 1 chick (that I could spot today)
pigeon guillemot: 148
glaucous-winged gull: 387 adults, 120 chicks
surfbird: 12
killdeer: 4
western sandpiper: 3
barn swallow: 3

Photo highlights from the past three days:

Back on the Rocks!

I am back on Race Rocks for the next two weeks, having been away since August. Greg drove me out yesterday afternoon in the boat Second Nature, arriving at 15:30. After unloading my gear and food, I reacquainted myself with the island’s building, systems, and other species.

There are two elephant seals on the island. One sub adult hauled out on the boat ramp has two green hind flipper tags labelled H999 and K646. They mentioned by Derek on the April 1, 2023 census: https://racerocks.ca/animal-census-31/. Green tags usually signify the seal was tagged as a pup at Ano Nuevo Reserve, near Santa Cruz, California. I have put in a request with the researchers there to find out about the sighting history of the seal. The other seal here right now is a female adult, who has been hauled out near the bushes on the centre of the island and made some trips to the water, was probably one of the mothers from the winter breeding season.

The most populous birds right now are the few hundred nesting glaucous-winged gulls and chicks. There are still many nests with eggs yet to hatch. The pigeon guillemots are active in a few places around the island: near the jetty, blasted rocks north and west of the helicopter pad, and the south side of the island. I have yet to see any oystercatcher chicks or the barn swallows that have been seen recently.

Weather for July 7 afternoon and evening:
Wind: W 32 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Clear
Sea: 3′ chop
Air temperature: 14 C

Weather for July 8:
Wind: W between 10 and 31 knots
Visibility: 10-15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 3′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 12-15 C

I gave the solar panels a good scrub this morning to get off the built up gull guano. I have also been monitoring the freshwater levels after a couple recent leaks that have been fixed.

Here are some photos from the past two days: