Hi everyone, I have returned!
I spent a great week at my parents' place in Calgary, a week of madness. My Turkish friends came to visit from Edmonton, my brother and his friend joined us from Winnipeg, and my husband flew in from St. John's for a few days to make it a full house. There was much merriment, eating, and drinking - a typical Spanu family get-together.
Then I spent three weeks sitting in a boat on the Fraser river (near, but not in, Vancouver), watching salmon run upstream, both on the surface (incredible!) and with our sonars. We were testing out some new equipment, and the salmon migration on the Fraser is well-studied, which provided a perfect lab for our work, in case anyone asks why we travelled 7300 km (4500 miles) to watch fish swim!
While on the river, we saw salmon jumping - hundreds per day - as well as seals, herons, vultures, grebes, ospreys, and uncountable numbers of seagulls - mostly feasting on dead salmon - yuck! My supervisor saw a six-foot sturgeon jump (I missed that one). We amused ourselves listening to the tugboat operators on the VHF radios. We also took some day trips into Vancouver itself and ate great food - Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Indian - all the things which you can't find in St. John's. Of course, there was also lots and lots of traffic, people hurrying to be somewhere else, and too much smog. And, of course, the World Trade Centre disaster, which left an indelible mark on our trip.
So I'm glad to be back in St. John's, where life is a little slower, the people are a lot friendlier, and the longest it can take you to get from one end of town to the other is 15 minutes. It may take me a while to get back in the swing of things on the Board, because I have tons of work awaiting me. But I'm glad to be home!
