Category Archives: Energy

Branded sealion, desalinating water with sunshine, Good bye Race Rocks

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They all came to wave goodbye

Eco-guardian cross over day. I arrived here barely over a bout of sciatica. I wasn’t sure if I should cancel my week but thought I could do all the absolutely necessary tasks, even if I had to crawl to take the water samples! As it turned out I was able to clean the solar panels, top up the batteries, collect enough wood to keep the house warm, clean the house, start a thorough cleaning of the fuel shed, scrub the walkways in the rain and do the necessary tasks. It was difficult though not to carry out the tasks I enjoy, like carrying a bucket of water to clean the lamp room or splitting wood.

I love the challenge at Race Rocks of living with a small environmental foot print. The abundant life here, that I deeply care about, inspires me to decrease my fuel consumption. This visit I did not need  to use the house furnace and heated my hot water on the woodstove. I even used this method of heating water for “Thai” showers. Cleaning the solar panels when they have dew on them and the walkways in the rain helps too. If I didn’t love my coffee first thing in the morning I could probably cook on the woodstove too. Maybe next time!

heating water

 

Observations

The 2 moulting elephant seals are still by the jetty. One is looking very good, all open sores are healed over. The other one is still panting away and shivering. I sent a video and have heard back from Candice at marine mammal rescue at the Vancouver Aquarium  and she would like to be kept informed if his status changes (rescue@vanaqua.org). Still no luck getting his tag #. I should note that I have not seen any infant seals this visit. I have scanned the rocks. My usual visit is in late April and there are often nursing pups.

The branded sealion 1191 below has been reported and we await back information.

Finally the two immature bald eagles are on the island at the same time and I believe they are the same age, less than a year. Do you agree?

Visitors

Greg is bringing out several classes for low tonight today

Vessels

Several tour boats have gone by already today (13:00 hours)

Facility work

Cleaned the solar panels

cleaned the house so it is ready for Ilka and Alan Olsen the next eco-guardians

wood to house

I am currently running the desalinator on sunshine! Amazing.

This is the screen we live by on Race Rocks. It tells how how much energy we are using and how much we are producing. Right now the sun is producing 4.88 kw and we are consuming 3.8 kilowatts while running the desalinator.

Weather

The day started out with thick cloud cover. The sun broke through around 1400 hrs. The wind is currently 13 knot SE. Scattered clouds.

The two immature Bald eagles

Race Rocks Ecological Reserve #97 Wardens Report December 2023

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Wardens Report by Garry Fletcher.. December 13, 2023

Past Wardens reports may be accessed at https://racerocks.ca/category/er-warden-report/

I got a ride out on the Second Nature vessel of Lester Pearson College. Greg and Cedrick were taking out two technicians to deal with problems with the Solar panels and the diesel engine. 

A herd of California Sea lions who have become accustomed to boats landing at the docks greeted us at the docks.

On the North side of the island there were mainly California sealions. 

The Northern sealions predominated on the south side of the island Their distinctive growl and larger size sets them apart from the California Sea lions 

For the several hours that the technicians were busy in the engine room I could  check out the whole island. Additional solar panels have been added to the array shown in the video below taken from the roof of the energy building/engine room. In the winter the diesel engine has to run for a few hours to help charge the batteries. 

 

From the helicopter pad I observed a very nervous mixed herd of California and Northern sealions that were occupying the area on the West side of the island, preventing me from going in that direction to check out the tidepools. 

Race Rocks must be one of the few outdoor locations in British Columbia where flowers bloom year round because of the surrounding waters never dropping below 8 degrees C which moderates the temperature.

There were many Black turnstones around the island. They are found here year round although they are not known to nest here.

 

 

There has been a high number of gull mortalities this past year. This one is missing the breasts indicating it was a meal for the Bald Eagles. They now patrol the area regularly and this has probably contributed to the low number of overwintering gulls.

The absence in overwintering seagulls at this time of of year  was very obvious. Ined some years they have number in the thousands. The south-west corner which usually is heavily populated only had a dozen of probably brants cormorants, and a small flock of less than 100 gulls was on the north-east corner of the island

While I was there , Greg and Cedrick from Pearson College helped in cleaning gutters, definitely a two-man job for safety reasons, and hauling up some of the logs in the harbour by the slipway for cutting up for firewood. 

SOME WORK YET TO BE DONE: 

Managing a former light station and an Ecological Reserve can be a large job.  Pearson College does an admirable job in fundraising to keep the place going. It is after all the only Ecological Reserve in the province which has human dwellings and a full time Ecoguardian paid for by Pearson College. Since 1997 Pearson College has taken on the role of management of these facilities which require constant upkeep in a very demanding physical and biological environment. I will point out several items below that are needing attention. 

 

This is the last of the old storage tanks used by the coastguard. They await removal. It is just a matter of time until the salty environment encouraging the rust could cause further problems. 

 

Below are some suggestions I would like to make about things that are not urgent but to which attention may be paid in the future. 

The rock wall which was eroded by the hurricane in 2006 Is still in a partly fallen state, contributing to bare soil and erosion.  It wouldn’t take much effort to repair this to improve the stability of the area. ( maybe a student project week item?)

 

At one time the area under these artifacts was covered  with bricks from the original engine room. The bricks are still there but they are now overgrown with grass. Removal of the overburden would improve the appearance of the area. 

 

 

California Sealion

 

 

Knowledgeable Visitor

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My solitude has been broken,
Yesterday Garry Fletcher,a former Pearson College teacher and current ecological reserve  warden, came to the island to spend the night.  He was taking advantage of the last weekday low tide for the next 8 days to get some pictures of the intertidal life.  I sure am glad that he did!

Facility Work:
His stay started with an oil change of the diesel generator that is on the island.  This has to be done every 200 hours.

Greg giving me a quick rundown before he has to head back to the college

Cleaning of solar panels (daily)
Cleaning of windows (as needed)
Cleaning interior of secondary residence

The next morning we attacked the reason for his visit first thing in the morning while the tide was still dropping

Here I am paying out the tape  on peg 15 to then take pictures of the intertidal life at low tide.   Garry was collecting this data to compare with baseline photo transects taken many years ago.

Ecological Notes:
Several Orcas were sighted in Race Passage.

Garry also took this video of a sea otter passing us when we were working in the intertidal area.off the North East corner of Great Race Island.

noted Western X Glaucous-winged Gull  hybrid by helicopter pad

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

Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Environment Canada forecast:

https://weather.gc.ca/marine/region_e.html?mapID=02

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

Boating violations and power trouble

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors

  • The calm weather attracted several ecotour boats as well as many private boats
  • I witnessed several boating violations:
    • 2 marina boats were getting really close to the sea lions. I had to call the marina and report the boats.
    • A private small boat tried to enter the ramp area near the jetty. I went up to the jetty and asked them to reverse out of that area.
    • A whale watching boat almost entered the lighthouse island and the south islands, but stopped short when I went outside and made myself visible.

Technical

  • Over the last 48 hours, for some reason, the batteries were draining faster than usual and even running the generator for 2+ hours daily wasn’t enough. This morning the batteries came to a critical low of 18%. I got in touch with Guy over IM and we troubleshooted the cause to be excess power consumption from the student house. After closing a few switches and unplugging some machines, I ran the generator for 4 hours and was able to bring the batteries back up to 100%. The bright sun all day today definitely also helped juice the batteries up faster.

Ecological

  • Noticed several more seagull eggs today. None hatched so far
  • Fewer elephant seals on the shore today

Helicopter Generator Swap

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 5-10 knots North
  • Sky: mostly overcast, some rain in the evening.
  • Water: calm

Ecological

  • There were eight elephant seals on Great Race today.
  • That is the most I have seen out here during this current shift.
  • Three of the younger males enjoyed a spirited bout or two.
  • The rest of them snoozed off in pairs or alone.
  • The birds and sea lions were definitely disrupted by the helicopter.

Maintenance

  • Kyle and four men from the Coast Guard removed the old Generator B.
  • A Coast Guard helicopter then dropped off a new generator, and took away the old one.
  • They then placed the new generator in its spot.
  • I helped out with various auxiliary tasks, but mostly just took photographs.
  • Tidied up loose tools after everyone had departed.

Boats

  • Second Nature.
  • A few eco-tours.

Visitors

  • Kyle, the four Coast Guard men, and Ian and Stephen.
  • They all departed in the early afternoon.

Other

  • Coast Guard helicopter overflight.

 

Last snow

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Weather

When we wake up it was white all around but at 9:00 green again. North West wind ,10 knots,2.8degrees at 8:oo. cloudy to overcast,5miles of visibility,very low tide in the eveningDSC_0056

Ecological

the geese (around 10) are everywhere to be seen ,busy ,noisy and defensive … coupling coming soon…DSC_0035DSC_0115DSC_0111

Maintenance

The soft water tank has been filled again since the Student’s stay.The light level is not big these days,but despites that, we got 25 Amps by hour ..It is very good and this because  all the solars panels are functioning (Since last Summer). We see the difference. We finished to stack the wood in the main house for next Winter and we are getting ready for our coming departure on Monday 13Th

Other

1 Helicopter going towards Sooke. Only 1 watching boat

Environment Canada for the weather station on the rock

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Maintenance

A team from  Environment Canada in Richmond  came to repair the weather Station which has not been working well since this Summer. They spent at least 3 hours and fixed the system.DSC_0772DSC_0785

Kyle with Second Nature came and bring 600 hundred litters of oil and we filled up 3 barrels of 200 each,3 more are coming soon. Guy and Kyle changed the pressured water pump in the student house.DSC_0788DSC_0794DSC_0796

Ecological

Each elephant Seal has been in his own spot even the new young male and we appreciated some quiet time! The injured pup was still moving but stayed around the crane, behind it. It is painful to see him in a so bad condition…We see what will happen in the coming days.

Noticeably Darker Day

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Today was more of a fall day with cooler temperatures and a threat of rain in the air. Light levels were way down too. The barometer rose to 1014 hPA from a low of 1010 yesterday and it has just started to fall again. Rain and east winds of up to 25 knots are predicted to bring tomorrow’s forecasted rain, with a cool, wet outlook for the week ahead.

Thirteen visits to the protected area, by whale watching vessels, were observed today. Only one pleasure craft was noted.

There was a lot of cetacean action in and around Race Rocks for most of the day. It started with two big, bull, Biggs Killer Whales (Transients), travelling in from the west on the Rosedale side. They were later spotted in Race Passage and not long after an adult female Killer Whale was seen well inside the reserve by Turbine Rock. There were two Humpback Whales, one feeding just east of Race Rocks that moved west through Race Passage. It had a definite white splotch on the right fluke. The other one was feeding just west and had dark flukes, the same one, I think, that has been around for a while. There was also a Minke Whale feeding just to the south of Race Rocks.

Accumulated solar radiation levels today were less than half of what they have been for the last few days, 150 versus 300 to 350 Langleys and the days are getting noticeably shorter, faster now. Migrant species are moving through the reserve daily with hundreds of Surf Scoters moving through from west to east every day. All three species of cormorants are using the rocks here as roosts now and feeding in the multi-species flocks that surround the reserve with much commotion. This change into autumn not only impacts the biodiversity of the reserve but also has an impact on practical things like power generation.

Solar power has been producing over 90% of the power needed to run everything on the island and that amount will change over the next few months. Right now the shortfall is made up with a diesel generator but the plan is to move to cleaner burning propane in the near future. A great deal of progress has been made in reducing the amount of fuel stored and used here, from the days of the Coast Guard when there were six giant diesel tanks dominated the rock and the generators ran 24/7. A big shout goes out to Pearson College, for both reducing the ecological footprint in terms of CO2 and for reducing the risk of a spill.

A noisy place

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It has been a lovely day with westerly wind rising from 2knots to 22knots in the evening. The desalinator has been working those last 2days but thanks to the solar panels no need of generator for 10 days. We have some issues with the desalinator in the sense that we have to wait 25 to 45 minutes before reaching the good level of salinity. It looks like we will have to change the big filter pretty soon (once a year). Guy changed the connector of the seawater pump that was broken.
An eagle this morning tried to fly by the island but no way the seagull army was ready. At date we found 3 eggs never hatched and 5 chicks bodies (one was floating in a kelp bed in the water). The bird I identified as a solitary sandpiper was in fact a whimbrel. (No doubt after checking the photograph I took). A seaplane flew over, not directly across the main rocks but over the South rocks. The island those last days and nights became a very noisy place maybe because of the full moon. We can’t tell which are the noisier ,gulls or sea lions? I tell you it’s a pretty amazing concert!