Four trips to Race Rocks in three days

All three first year Marine Science classes made it out to Race Rocks on Wednesday 10 October. We saw many, many, many California and Northern sea lions.

And most students were also fortunate enough to see humpback whales feeding off the south and west sides of Great Race Rock. (Terrible photos of humpbacks below followed by a decent photo of whale watching students!)

The newly minted Coastal Biodiversity CAS also had the opportunity to visit Race Rocks with Garry Fletcher on Friday afternoon.

During that visit we saw a necklaced sea lion and we came across a dead Northern sea lion.

We also had a reunion of two Year 38 students, Laas, the current Ecoguardian at Race Rocks, and Helen, who is back at Pearson College for a two week visit. Incidentally these were the two artists who painted my VW van!!

Wonderfully impressive experience overall!!

What a day for mammals!

During a second year Marine Science class discussion of human impacts on the mudflats, a student shouted “there’s a bear!”

So much for the mudflats… all the students rushed down on to the dock to watch the TWO bears run towards the spiritual centre.

Later in the day, a first year class was welcomed ashore at Great Race Island by the usual suspects, California sea lions, Stellar sea lions and a Northern elephant seal.

The two highlights of the trip to Race Rocks for me (and the students) though were the humpback whale that was feeding just west of reserve and the sea otter that was frolicking in the kelp on the east side of the island. I took a few terrible photos (worse than the bear photos above), but please see Anne’s photos on the Race Rocks blog (humpback fluke and sea otter).

Oceanographic expeditions 2014

The three first year marine Science classes endeavoured to describe and explain the pattern of temperature and salinity in Pedder Bay on Monday 24 November (C block) and Tuesday 25 November (D and F blocks).

Many abiotic factors were measured…

including, of course, temperature and salinity…

…air temperature and relative humidity…

…Secchi depth…

…and wind speed.

F block students also sampled at 30 m using a Niskin bottle and messenger.

Data were recorded and subsequently analysed back on solid ground.

I suspect that the highlight for the two classes on Tuesday was not that the temperature and salinity were unchanging from the surface to depth at the more distant sites, but the humpback whale(s) that were sighted!!

Thanks to Alana and Ali for photos.

 

Beached humpback whale in White Rock, BC

Ariana (PC 38, BC) went to a sandy beach in White Rock (south of Vancouver) where a humpback whale was beached today.  She sent the photos below and the information that Vancouver Aquarium staff have suggested that the whale was entangled in fishing gear and likely starved to death. A very sad story.

CBC news story “Whale beaches and dies south of Vancouver”