August 19 – Fog

Wind: W 4-23 knots
Sea State: rippled
Visibility: 0-15 NM
Sky: fog in morning, clear in late morning, partly cloudy in afternoon, then light rain in evening
Temperature: 12-17 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.58 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The fog began to roll in after sunset yesterday. In the early hours of the morning just before 3:00, the fog got thick enough for the sensor part way up the tower to trigger the fog signal. Three high pitch blasts sounded every minute until 11:20, then the fog gave way to a clear sky.

The steller sea lion with the flasher from yesterday still has it hooked to its mouth and is still on Middle Rock, hanging out with a bunch of other sea lions. I spotted it through the partial fog this morning, but wasn’t able to get a good photo. This afternoon, it was facing away from the main island.

Greg came out in the late afternoon to deliver diesel. We are filling the various storage tanks around the island for the furnaces and generator, in anticipation for the cooler and darker months ahead. There will be more fuel delivered over the coming days, taking advantage of the calm seas.

Other maintenance tasks included trimming the plants growing over parts of the paths, cleaning the solar panels and using the chainsaw to buck up more firewood. I finally cut up a 15 metre log that I saw wash up in a winter storm. It was propped up on rocks in the East Bay.

See the photos below for sights from today:

More Snow and Elephant Seals

Wind: yesterday 10-29 knots N, today 16-63 knots N switching to E in the afternoon
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today up to 3 m waves from E
Visibility: yesterday and today 1-10 NM
Sky: both days fog, blowing snow, cloudy and patches of sun
Temperature: yesterday -1 to -4 °C, today -4 to 3 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.38 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The snow has continued to fall, creating large snowdrifts against buildings, paths and rocks. I have enjoyed watching the elephant seals move through the snow and appear to play in it. The snowdrifts have changed my routes around the island, finding the path of least resistance that doesn’t disturb the ground or engulf me into a metre of snow or a hidden puddle. It’s not all fun and games here, there have also been some fights amongst the elephant seals. The beta males have been chasing each other around the island and sinking their teeth into each other. There are once again four adult males on the island. The alpha male continues to be with the pups and females. A new pregnant female elephant seal arrived yesterday morning as I was waiting for Greg to arrive in the boat with a food delivery. She made her way up the boat ramp to the centre of the island with the others. That brings the current elephant seal count to ten. Perhaps two more pups will arrive soon.

Since the snow and strong winds came, the sea lions are still mostly in the water, floating in large groups. Today, a few california sea lions huddled on the jetty. A smaller number of birds have been seen in the ecological reserve. Stay tuned for the post in two days with the results of the weekly census.

See the photos below for some recent snowy, windy and wavy views.

Video clips of a few elephant seals interacting with the snow:

Wind, Fog, and Eggs!

Weather: 

  • Visibility varied today. This evening visibility is excellent, 10-13 miles. This afternoon we were surrounded by fog and could not see even nearby north rock (less than 1 mile).
  • Wind this evening is blowing 30-40 knots. This morning was calmer, 12 knots.
  • Sky clear. This was interrupted mid afternoon by thick fog.
  • Water white capping and breaking into spindrift.

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Today was fairly quiet, with only a few whale watching boats in the morning which seemed to mostly keep a good distance. Greg visited this afternoon to deliver water as we are still waiting for the new desalinator. A former student visited as well.
  • The swiftsure international sailing race passed Race Rocks on Saturday, so we have been seeing the boats trickle back towards Victoria over the past couple of days.
  • Yesterday we spotted a rental boat from Pedder Bay Marina attempt to pass through the channel between our main island and the south islands.
  • Lately whale watching boats have been present viewing the elephant seals and sea lions. Many have appeared to be well within the 100m distance from sea lions required by DFO.

Whale watching boat disturbs sea lions on jetty

Whale watching boat approaches sea lions on rocks

Ecological: 

  • Two evenings past we noticed the first seagull eggs of the season. We noticed that one nest was missing its egg the next morning. The seagulls have become quite aggressive towards us but only if we get too close to their nest by accident.
  • There are still four elephant seals on the island, two moulting, the juvenile male from this past spring, and an older female.
  • The sea lions have remained on the SE side of the island, although fewer than what we were seeing before surrounding our jetty. They have been enjoying surfing the waves periodically.
  • Another oyster catcher nest spotted on the SW side.
  • We have been finding dead seagulls presumably killed by the bald eagles that have been hanging around. They especially like to sit on top of camera three.

Seagull guarding its egg and nest.

Other: 

  • Except for in the occasional presence of fog, we have been able to operate the island completely with solar on clear days.
  • We were in need of batteries so missed a few days of salinity/temperature data collection.

A foggy 48 hours

Weather

  • Visibility: <1 mile
  • Wind: 20-30 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Ripply
  • The island has been shrouded in dense fog for the last 48 hours and the fog horn has been going off continuously

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • The fog has reduced the number of whale watching boats in the area, or at least I cannot see many due to the fog.

Marine mammals

  • The harbour seals have really taken to liking the little rocky beach on the southeast side of the island. These days you can spot about 20 of them on the rocks there, including the pups – although I have only seen one pup over the last few days, not sure where the second one went.

Sun and Fog

Weather

  • Visibility: 0 Miles this morning, the fog horn was going off for a good portion of the morning but I am getting a very clear and beautiful sunset now
  • Wind:  10-15 SW which went up and down slightly throughout the day but around 10ish knots
  • Sky: thick fog for a bit and then it cleared right up in the afternoon
  • Water: pretty flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a few ecotours came by today

Ecological

  • The unspecified birds are still around and I have determined them to be black turnstones, however it is weird to see such a high number of them at once so it is possible there are some other species of surfbird mixed in there too

Notes

  • Had some power issues today, hopefully get everything fixed tomorrow and the dryer won’t die on me halfway through drying my laundry