10 days later...

Sometimes I truly can't believe just how quickly time goes by. For the past 2 weeks more or less I've been super motivated by work and to work. All I want to do to some degree is just get things moving. I must admit, there is something about a sense of accomplishment that just adds somewhat of a rose tint to your glasses! It's not easy every day to feel motivated to sit indoors starring at a screen all day - especially when the weather has consistently been sunny of late and the temperature ranging in the 20s. That being said it is a nice treat to be able to go and sit in the sunshine for a brief while, take in the rays and read a book at lunch time ... before getting back to it.

Last week I had been working on entering much of my Caribbean Marine Protected Areas (MPA) data into MPAGlobal - a database compiling the most up to date data of Marine Protected Areas worldwide. The project itself is the PhD thesis of a good friend of mine and colleague Louisa Wood at the Fisheries Centre. We work a fair bit together and it's been nice to be able to collaborate on the Caribbean portion as it were of the data.

The other bits of my time have mainly been taken up by (i) finishing putting together a report for UNEP Caribbean office on lessons learned from a number of activities implemented at various MPAs in the region: Sian Ka'an in Mexico, Hol Chan in Belize, Bonaire in the Netherland Antilles and Soufriere in St Lucia; (ii) trying to put together an abstract for a presentation and/or poster at the upcoming sea turtle symposium in Loreto, Mexico; and (iii) getting all the data I have for Kaloko Honokohau marine park together so i can start putting it all together for my ecological model.

I did manage to escape not this past weekend but the one before that though. Neil, two of his friends and I all hiked up to Brandywine meadows close to Squamish. The weather was very soggy which also made for very very muddy trails.... but despite the rain and the goo it was wonderful to be outdoors :O) ..and there actually is something quite special and mystical even about hiking when it's foggy and quite damp out. The forest smells different and you somehow feel like you're being hugged by the forest's cocoon. Once we got to the top we got greeted by an amasing view of the meadows full of wildflowers. The rain kindly stopped whilst we were setting up the tents, but it only meant that the bugs came out in full force!!! before dinner time we all decided to go for a walk ... which we kind of broke short because I landed 40m away from a grizzly bear!!!!!!! bot really noticing it was there as I was too focused on where I was putting my feet (the ground was basically slush). Somewhat nervous we all hiked back to the camping spot, only to discover the bear was about 100m away... eventually though he moved away. never to be seen again... apart from his paw + claw prints along the footpath going back down the next morning! Quite the spectacle!
What saved our dinner and made for general pleasantness of the evening and morning was Josh's tarp!!!! It allowed us to huddle and keep both warm and dry - a definite wise investment I say!

I am not too sure what this weekend will bring - with several deadlines looming ominously over me I know I'll want to work most of it ... but the sun will know how to tempt me out ;o)