Living on the Farallon Island means no grocery stores, no post office, no Target, no newspaper boy, no PG&E, no DMV, and no chinese takeout. To restock on food & propane, to take off trash & recycling, and to switch out personnel, the Farallon Islands depend on the “Farallon Patrol”. The Farallon Patrol are a group of volunteers that sign up to bring people and gear to and from the island, a run of which happens every other Saturday. They generously give us their time and expertise and the use of their boat for a chance to set foot on the island and essentially help us do what we do.
Today was the first time I have experienced a Farallon Patrol run as a resident of the island. On Saturdays we also do all the house chores, so we all got up early to get our chores done so that we would have time to still get all our work done, and for Russ and Annie, to have time to pack for their two weeks off.
I signed up for dealing with trash and doing house laundry. We pre-sort our garbage into compost, recyclable, burnable, and non-either. The recyclables and non-either get packed into action packers that go on the boat back to the mainland, and the burnables (paper, cardboard, used toilet paper [since our plumbing cant really handle that]) get burned. This is the brick pit I burned the burnable trash in. The compost goes in a big compost box behind the house.
Also, we’re almost entirely powered by solar energy! The only time we use the generator is when we have to use the crane.
Then I went to the Murre Blind to continue to try to confirm breeding sites for X plot (like everyday), when the boat arrived a little before noon – more than 2 hours early! I rushed back to East Landing, where the crane is, to help unload stuff and help with the landing. Jessie and I learned how to operate the crane.
Jessie got to operate the crane a little today, since Pete had to drive the safe boat to take Russ and Annie out to the boat. Today’s skipper was Al Divittorio. Thanks for volunteering Al!
This is Jessie at the switchboard, and in the background is Zach from US Fish and Wildlife, on his cell phone. He must have Nextel because that’s the only cell phone coverage we get out here.
The boat brought us 4 people! Interns Katrina Olthoff and Michelle Goh have returned from a 2 week vacation (they had been here for 6-8 weeks previously) and we’ll all be working closely together. The boat also brought Kevin and Cathy from US Fish and Wildlife, who are analyzing Cassins Auklet eggs for contaminants (they’ll be collecting samples from the fully-feathered chicks tomorrow when we do our daily checks to compare contaminats from the mother versus contaminants from the environment – they are good at chemistry). They’ll only be staying for a 2 days, though, and leaving on a Coast Guard boat ( i think ).
After the landing of our new residents and departure of Russ and Annie, we put away all the groceries and mail they brought with them, had a quick lunch, and headed right back to work (including Katrina and Michelle). Today, I had my daily Cassin’s Auklet check, and helped Michelle and Jessie do their Brandt’s Cormorant (BRCO) breeding site check at the Corm Blind. As I’ll be doing more of this in the future I’ll elaborate in the future.
Anyway, today was quite busy and I was glad to get mail! My mom sent me a new rainjacket (since the one I have here is a quite large) and some tubes of hydrocortisone to help soothe the millions of flea bites I’m getting from the gull fleas. I also received a fabulous post card from my friends Zack Mattler and Zan Gutowski! Getting mail is GREAT!
Well, tomorrow is the first day of diet watch, and Michelle, Pete, and I have the 7am – 9am shift, so I need to study up on my juvenile fish and get some rest! Katrina and Michelle are wayyy passed out. They had to get up around 3 am today.. yikes!
More tomorrow!
Love, Kristina