No sign of any leaving visible

July was an astonishingly beautiful, and swelteringly hot, month. I was completely taken by surprise by the heat and glorious sunshine. It's a peculiar experience to be striding about on a rocky headland, in shorts and tee shirt, reddening under the sun's burning rays, and also admiring icebergs slowly drifting by.
The spouts of whales burst the oceans' surface as they feed on the migrating capelin.
Along the trails wildflowers have exploded in a rush of colour - brilliant blue iris speckle the heaths, and groups of deep red pitcher plants populate the marshy bogs. Vivid yellow water lillies flower on the ponds, and are followed by blooms of a fluffy white variety.
In the cool of the evening, hoards of ravenous mosquitos appear. Everyone scrambles to find where they stored the window screens last Fall, and for a couple of nights my home on wheels is a movable feast for the mosquitos, until I too find a window screen solution.
The opening of Nicole's Cafe is a great success - the food is fabulous and beautiful, and the kitchen has been working at maximum capacity ever since. Word quickly spreads of the new dining experience, and the other fine restaurants - from the West of Newfoundland to St. Johns - come to sample the fine cuisine and atmosphere.
On several occasions we gorge ourselves at Pete and Margarets' house on the last of the seasons' crab and lobster, fresh off the boats, and very affordable. It proves impossible to stop eating the exquisite crustaceans until all that remains is a towering pile of shells on the table.
The 'Personal Food Fishery' for cod also opens for a few weeks, and many people take the opportunity to harvest and salt their allowance of five cod a day.
The summer music Festivals occur in July and August and the ferry lines grow as more and more visitors flock onto Fogo Island. There's lots of traditional music, as well as traditional foods such as Fish and Brewis, and Toutons, on offer.
The communities of Stag Harbour and Fogo have their 'Come Home Year' festival too this year, which makes for a bumper crowd. The 'Come Home Year' is a curiosity that can only exist in a place where so many people have been forced to leave. There are half a million Newfoundlanders that live in Newfoundland. But there are a million and a half that live outside the Province - forced or lured by higher paying jobs elsewhere. In each community there are many houses that are sadly empty, save for one or two weeks a year, when owners come back to visit family and friends.
The residents of Fogo Island may have rejected Joey Smallwoods call to burn their boats and resettle to the mainland in the 1950's, but since then the ever shrinking fishery has proved a more sinister and effective force in depleting the population of the Outport communities.
So the challenge now is how to create sustainable rural economic transformation?
How to create an outport economy that pays a living, competitive wage, allowing people to continue to live here, and encouraging others to move back?
That is the challenge the Shorefast Foundation has been created to meet.
Nicole's Cafe is part of the answer, as are the new farming and bakery initiatives, the professional Theatre production, and The Great Punt Race to There and Back.
The Punt race is a ten mile race, across open ocean, to Change Islands and back, for significant prize money. Last year, the first year, there were ten punts competing. This year there were twenty-one punts in the race, built by ten different builders, each with a crew of two, and it's a hard row too.
All the punts must be built on Fogo Island or Change Islands, and crewed by residents, the objective being to stimulate local boat building, and revive interest in the heritage of the wooden boat.
Every fisherman used to own a punt - most would build their own - and cod jigging with a one or two man crew was the way almost everyone made a living. Now the sight of twenty-one punts all moored on a collar in the harbour is a spectacle not seen for decades and it attracts a lot of attention.
Even the Lieutenant Governor, John C. Crosbie - the Queen's Representative - chose to attend this Punt Race rather than the Regatta in St. Johns this year. Despite dodgy weather the Race was a success, as well as a lot of work, and it's another step forward in establishing the new reputation of Fogo Island as the place to go for an unforgettable geotourism experience.
The play, Fighting Fire With Snow, is also a wonderful success. Performed outdoors by local people, in several different communities, the story explores the Resettlement issues of the 1960's and provokes a lot of discussion. Every performance receives a standing ovation.
By mid August the blueberries are ripe for picking, and seem to be in abundance everywhere, but the weather is fickle - changing from sunshine to torrential rain several times a day.
Karen has been back for a couple of weeks now, and the astute reader will have noticed there's been no talk of us driving home any time soon.
In fact it looks like we'll be volunteering here through the winter. The experience and opportunity is just too tempting to pass up.
And there will be moose meat to eat.