What's in her name?

What's in her name (Salish Aire)?

Salish
from her new home the Salish Sea

Aire as in a melody of song.

Salish + Aire = The melody of the Salish Sea.

Salish Sea:
In the late 1700's Captain George Vancouver wandered around the waters of what are now known as British Columbia, Canada and Washington State, USA. He did the usual 1700's explorer thing and put names he chose on everything he saw. The names stuck and are recognized and used to this day.

New lines were added to Captain Vancouver's charts in 1872 (after a near war with Great Britain over a pig) which made waters on one side of the line Canadian and those on the other side of the line American.

It wasn't until 1988 (officiated in 2009) that someone finally realized that fish and various critters, (to say nothing of the water itself) were never involved in the boundary treaties and really ignored them completely. (This is best illustrated by the problems that Homeland Security has with Canadian Canada Geese and American Canadian Geese - it seems they refuse to carry passports and have been known to poop on the head of any border patrol person who tries to challenge their right to cross the border when and where they choose!) In reality the waters from Olympia to the well up the East side of Vancouver Island are pretty much one ecosystem.

The Coast Salish are the indigenous peoples who live in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington state along the Salish Sea and share a common linguistic and cultural origin. The Salish Sea is named in honor of the earliest recorded peoples who plied her waters and learned to live in harmony with her.


Monday, March 20, 2017

A dive trip to the Caribbean island of Bonaire

We returned home yesterday to Salish Aire after flying to the island of Bonaire north of Venezuela (it's the "B" of the ABC islands - Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao). We believe this is our fourth trip there as it is one of our very favorite dive destinations.  The weather was wonderful with the air temperature in the low 80s (F) and the water a consistent 78 degrees (F). 

We understand that while we were gone it rained "buckets" here in the PNW and our daughter (whom we had invited to come down!) got to "enjoy" 20 cm of snow in Ontario. 

We will let the photos tell the story:

We stayed, as always, at the Carib Inn where Bruce and Co. made sure we had a great time ( https://www.caribinn.com/ )

The view looking North from the Carib Inn dock.
Bonaire still has a major salt industry.

Slave huts remind us that collecting salt was not always done by machine.
I'm a big fan of flamingos that hang out in the national park at the north end of the island.



Diving the windward side of the island is supposed to be spectacular but only done when the trade winds are quiet. Maybe next time.






Finally - Norman loves gadgets and Norman loves fresh orange juice.  We ran into this machine in the local supermarket and Norman had to get a video to share:





Thursday, March 2, 2017

Getting the final preparation projects done

We've had a list of final-year-projects (stuff we want to do before we retire and leave the dock) only now it is a final-few-months project list.

We've been checking into health insurance. Today Norman was issued an Alaska RN license in case we need / want some extra income or (more likely) he gets cabin (boat) fever and needs to be active by periodically doing the work he has done for many years. We won't need to buy any more car tabs as our son plans to buy our only vehicle before the tabs expire but we will need to pay for our state and federal yearly fees on the boat.  Both employers have been given verbal notice that we plan to leave (since Clarice works in a department of 5 people - they will need to plan for the loss of 20% of their trained labor force and 100% of their RN staff).  Norman's loss will be felt (he keeps telling people he would rather be missed than his departure cheered) but not as acutely.  We still need to arrange for mail handling and making sure our elderly parents can reach us if they need to.  And so the list goes on.

Yesterday we took our life raft in to get serviced.  It is often recommended that folks go along and see what is in the raft when it is opened up before it gets used in an emergency.  Rollie at Westpac Marine in Tacoma made sure we knew how to launch the raft and what to expect once it was in the water, how to right it if it inflated upside down, etc..

This is a "6 person" raft - We hope we don't even have to use it for 2 persons.

We thought Nancy had left graffiti - turns out the company builds the rafts to order and writes the new owners name so they can track the orders while they are built.   

Clarice had also wanted to have our water-maker checked by a professional and I wanted to learn if there was anything more I needed to be doing to/for it.  The boat next to us was getting a new water-maker and the installer offered to come and look at ours.  He gave it a clean bill of health and explained some of things we should watch for and do to maintain it. Since getting to the water-maker meant pulling all of the spare parts out from under the Owner's Berth in the bow of the boat it motivated me to continue with my project of changing out older hoses and fittings.  I had dreaded this section of the boat as a lot of the plumbing was in the bilge under the floor under the bed.  This also meant that the plumbing was hard to check visually and even harder to maintain and the neglect showed.  It took about 1 1/2 days but in the end I feel much more secure that the plumbing below the water line is less likely to fail and the common failure parts are now above the floor so they are easier to maintain.

Standing on the floor under the bed looking down into the bilge access  prior to starting the re-plumbing.


Under the Owner's Berth after re-plumbing - notice that the sea strainer and hoses are now above the floor
Finally - we still take time to enjoy living on the water.  Jarvis and I took a walk around Smith Island and I took this photo.

Snohomish River from Smith Island Trail