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, July 29, 2019

Vacation from the boat


July 29, 2019

I’m sitting in a friend’s house in Everett, Washington where we are house and dog sitting as we near the end of our 1 month vacation from boating.

We ended the last blog post in Puerto Penasco  where we were prepping the boat to be hauled out and stored on-the-hard while we travelled. We figured we would take care of some bottom work that could only be done out of the water, get our insurance survey done (that required the boat to be out of the water), and could leave the boat without worry that it would be covered in sea life when we returned. The boat was lifted and blocked a few days before we were scheduled to fly out of Phoenix and we went to work on re-bedding some of our through-hull fittings, switching to a different style prop on the wing engine, and doing some general bottom cleaning/housekeeping.   The surveyor arrived from Phoenix and could not have been more complimentary – we’ll share a few excerpts from the report but two verbal comments I liked were; “Obviously this boat hasn’t been worked on by an armature as everything is clearly professionally maintained” (We do ALL of the work on the boat); and “This boat is in as good of condition as many 2 year old boats I see.” (Salish Aire was constructed in 1996.)
Some of his written comments:
Vessel shows much newer than its actual age and the owners have equipped and maintained the vessel to top quality standards. Owners appear very knowledgeable about their boat. This is one of the best oceangoing yachts I have seen. A rarity.
Present Value: $428,800 [Our estimate of the current value was between $350,000 and $400,000] Replacement: $1,195,900 [We understand that the N46 mold no longer exists so direct replacement with a new boat is not an option.]

The boatyard can only lift 2 - 3 boats in a tide cycle as the loading basin empties when the tide drops 13 ft

Hull #50 (Salish Aire) and hull #53 (Venture Forth) likely spent time
 in the yard in TaShing while they were being fitted out, they get
to meet again in Puerto Penasco, Mexico

On July 1st we were met by a shuttle (after fumigating the boat as we closed it up to try to convince a few cockroaches that had stowed away that it was not a welcome place to build a nest) and taken to the Phoenix airport.  Jarvis, as usual, took the shuttle ride, walk through US customs, walk through TSA, and ride on the airplane completely in stride.  The great thing is that after years of court battles the airport in Everett where Boeing assembles all of its twin aisle jets if finally open to commercial air traffic so we were able to bypass the Seattle airport madhouse and freeway traffic!

Good Dog Jarvis waits patiently for our flight in Phoenix

Jarvis seems very curious about the whole "airport thing"

Clarice had scheduled our first two days full with family get togethers and physician visits, eye doctor visits, etc.  All went well except that my PSA (a very non-specific blood test for prostate cancer) has continued to climb so I spent a lot of the vacation worrying that I was going to have to go through a biopsy or worse before returning to the boat (last week a urology consultant (MD) and I agreed that reasonable plan at this point is that I will get my PSA rechecked in Mexico or the USA in 3 months and then send it back to her before we choose the next step.)

On July 3rd we drove to Tacoma and had lunch with my sister (it was her birthday) her husband and my nephew and his S.O. at the new Tacoma McMenamin’s .  The McMenamin brothers have a chain of facilities (hotels, meeting venues, bars, and restaurants) that are historic buildings that they have restored and repurposed.  The Tacoma McMenamin’s was a long abandoned Elks social club building.  Our excitement was because our nephew, Jeremy N. Gregory, did a significant amount of the artwork in the building and has apparently gotten himself in with the McMenamin’s team for future assignments (no longer do we refer to him as the “family starving artist”). 

As soon as we left the family get-together we headed north to our cross country odyssey.  Our goal was to visit our daughter and her family in Ontario Canada after viewing Canada and (on the return trip) the USA from the ground level.  We had rented a Dodge Caravan mini-van with disappearing seats to use as an “RV” (it wasn’t as comfortable as a regular RN but was thousands cheaper to rent and much more comfortable than a tent).  We often put over 500 miles a day on the odometer but got to enjoy the scenery as we drove through the Canadian Rockies and over the Canadian plain provinces.   The plains we in full glory with greens of growing crops, yellows of blooming plants, and miles of golden grains ripening for harvest.  We were pretty tired of driving every night but we enjoyed every mile of the scenery as we drove past.  The only issue we encountered was thick smoke blowing our way from forest fires until with passed Winnipeg and pretty much didn’t see it in the 1 mile of visibility.  We had seen the Rockies in the past so we weren’t too upset that they were covered in low clouds and misty rain (which seemed a bit comforting as a welcome back to our native climate after months of no rain).  Alberta had rolling hills with miles of farmland between periodic small towns and occasional farm houses.  Buy the time we reached Manitoba the land was still covered with miles and miles of crops but had become really really flat. Finally we entered Ontario (which is really really really BIG) and the farmlands had given way to rolling hills, short forests (they don’t have much in the way of soil after the ice-age pushed the surface dirt south), and many many lakes and swamps.  We looked for (and saw) moose and bear but what really kept our interest was the rocks.  The colors of the marbles and granites were quite beautiful. Finally we reached the shores of the Great Lakes and followed them to near Niagara Falls where our daughter lives with her children (and husband when he is home from his work at Microsoft in Seattle).

In rural Canada some electric companies still use single
 wire distribution systems (the Earth acts as the second wire)

First night in the Canadian prairies

Alberta prairie

Saying "goodbye" to the Rockies in the distance

Classic prairie farm scene

Natural grasslands

Many colors of Manatoba prairie

Finally we reach Ontario (with smoky skies in the background)
still 2 days from Erin's house

Our first glimpse of the Great Lakes

One of many rivers and streams in Ontario along the lakes

One of many rivers and streams in Ontario along the lakes

We had a great time visiting our daughter and 3 grandchildren.  After camping in the van it was nice to have a real bed for a few days.  We hiked with the family and watched the kids ride bikes and show off their swimming and tennis skills.  The oldest son is now taller than Clarice and his voice may be as low as mine before long.  Our granddaughter and Clarice are both July birthdays so we celebrated at a place that served really good Midwest beef and I bought this matching necklaces with ruby like stones (Clarice had to explain to Valerie about birthstones – she was pretty excited to match her grandmother!)  

July birthday girls got "ruby" necklaces 

Valerie birthday moose antlers and ice cream

Clarice birthday moose antlers while Carter looks on
Below Niagara Falls

Niagara River

Taking a cool break in the Niagara River before climbing back out of the canyon

Jet boats on the Niagara River

Valerie and her partner at tennis lessons


Hiking to an Ontario falls

Ontario stream

Next we headed south and spent a day with a couple of our “adopted grandchildren” that we met in Belize in 2004.  At one point in their lives they needed some stand-in parents to help them along and we were the ones they were comfortable reaching out to.  Since then we have kept in touch and were very excited to see their new home in Ohio (a state that neither of us had ever visited before). 
From Ohio we headed pretty much east.  We camped on the shores of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and then explored the Bad Lands of South Dakota and on into the Black Hills to see Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.  After that we moved on to see parts of Yellowstone we had never visited before and took time to look at the trees that had grown up since we last visited in about 1986 when there were active fires as we passed through.  We have to say that Jarvis was pretty cool and calm as he and a couple of bull elk eyed each other from a fairly close distance (a small herd has set of camp in the campground so trying to avoid them is near impossible).  From Yellowstone we passed through southern Idaho where my brother-in-law grew up in a “three digit” (town with fewer than 1000 people) town.  We got to see the tiny town that boasts it was the first atomically powered town in the world (they forget to mention that the reactor also had the world’s first meltdown!)  We stopped to watch a tug and barge load lock past Bonneville Dam (just because that’s what boat people do) on our way through the Cascade Mountains via the Columbia Gorge. 

Sun sets over the Mississippi River

The Mississippi River was quite high so lots of water released over the dams

Badlands National Park

Prairie Dogs in Badlands National Park

Selfie at Mount Rushmore

Crazy Horse Memorial now has a finished face

On our way to the East entrance of Yellowstone NP

On our way to the East entrance of Yellowstone NP

On our way to the East entrance of Yellowstone NP

Yellowstone River in Yellowstone NP

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone [River]

Lower Yellowstone Falls

Elk Yellowstone NP

Old Faithful Geyser Yellowstone NP

Yellowstone NP

Grand Prismatic Pool Yellowstone NP

Elk in campground Yellowstone NP

Bison in campground Yellowstone NP
Jarvis snuggled down in his sweater at our feet every night in the van 

Coming out of the Gorge we arrived in Beaverton where we spent time with our Grandson’s Mother  and our son with his new wife. Finally from there we headed north and stopped one more time at my 92 year old mother’s house and then on to Everett to complete the circle.

Now I have had my urology follow-up and new glasses made. Jarvis got a clean bill of health and a Rabies update. Clarice has new contacts and we both have some new cloths to replace those that show the strain of living outside with limited wardrobes.  Finally if we can get a box of parts and supplies that were mailed to Phoenix across the border with minimal hassle and the my replacement cell phone replaced (long story but it seems that Apple made more than one model of the SE and they aren’t quite the same) we will be ready to get back to our home and get her back in the water where she belongs.


Jarvis is the last one to make his doctor visit before heading back


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