Back to Seattle

We are currently on the train from Vancouver, BC, back to Seattle. We had a great time visiting with my cousin, Bari, and husband, Bob. They picked us up at the train station late on Wednesday and despite it being an arrival late in the evening we talked to the wee hours in the morning. During our time in Vancouver we waked around Yaletown and stopped for 'small bites' at a restaurant with tables on the sidewalk and visited the market at Granville Island for fresh ingredients for dinner.

Bari and Bob checking out the tomatoes

 

On Friday, Bob and Bari drove us out to Port Coquilam to the Force10 distributor. We have a Force10, 3 burner Gimbaled stove with oven on Windarra that we installed during our refit in 2000. It has served us well but we have been having problems with broiler and the oven temperature control. Rich had talked to them on the phone in the past but the answer of just replace the entire unit is not practical for us, especially sine the boat is now in Ecuador. Rich was able to talk to someone knowledgable about our unit and our experience /problem face to face. We learned what size thumb drills to use to clean the orifcies to maximize the flow of gas, to use some WD40 to help with the temperature control and how to remove the broiler to clean it. Unfortunately the oven/broiler temperature control is not a replaceable unit so if it fails we may indeed have to replace the entire stove. We hope this doesn't happen but now we are more knowledgeable at least. This itself made the drive worth the time for us.

In 2010, Rich and I sailed to Haida Gwaii on Windarra. You may look back through the blog and see our entrees. We enjoy the visit and learning about the Haida. Many of the artifacts such as totem poles, lodge poles, bent wood boxes and other items at housed at the Museum of Anthropology on the University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver. The four of us went to the museum on Saturday. We saw carvings and jewelry by Bill Reid, a famous and talented Haida artist. One feels a little mixed about seeing all the items at the museum. Yes, they are being preserved and enjoyed by a larger audience here in Vancouver but I also thought that some of the items belong in Haida Gwaii.

 

The museum also had artifacts from another indigenous people's from Canada and around the world. There was an exhibit of Iranian and Iraqi art that was very thought provoking, as well as an exhibit of ceramics from Europe, including stove tiles, delfware, and porcelain. I learned that Bellamine jugs from Germany engraved with the face of an old man with a beard, was a derogatory reference to a Cardinal Bellarmine, who was strongly opposed to the reformation in Germany by Martin Luther and others. In Tacoma, where I grew up there was a Catholic boys school, named Bellarmine. It has since gone Co-Ed.

We want to thank Bob and Bari for their hospitality and for being such great hosts.

Sent from SV Windarra iPad