The 9 o'clock gun

Every evening both Emma and I get a terrible fright. Because at 9pm every day the Stanley Park gun is fired and its bang shudders across the whole of Vancouver... and every night we forget about it.

It's a historic thing. Apparently it used to be fired at 6pm every day as a way of alerting the fisherman that the days fishing was over. For a reason I didn't catch, it was moved to 9pm where it has been ever since.  These days it is fired remotely with flashing lights warning anyone nearby that it is about to fire.

While I wasn't quick enough to get a photo of it firing, you can see the smoke from it in the centre of this picture. Despite being close enough in our apartment to take a photo, we hear the bang about 2 seconds after it is fired.  Now if I remember from physics, the speed of sound is 340 m/s, so we must be about 680 m away.  Seems about right.

I'll try and do some clock watching to see if I can work out which exact second it is fired on and get a photo of it. After all it's not like I have anything better to do...