July 9, 2013 ~ Ganges

Just another beautiful day in paradise.  We stayed put for today, with a few excursions into town for this and that.  There was a ‘Tuesday Market’ set up in the town park, but it was pretty small compared to their Saturday Market – this was just a dozen or so booths with mostly organic produce and other local island produced stuff.

I did do one tinkering chore today, with our washing machine.  It is embedded in the cabinetry of our state room, so I first had to get it pulled out.  Some years ago Ray made a sturdy box of 3/4” plywood that we used for maneuvering our refrigerator into place in the galley.  It was just the right height to slide it into place.  It’s not quite the right height for maneuvering the washing machine out of its lair, but it’s close enough.  While Erin went into town this morning, I pulled the machine out and opened up the back.  The instructions I had found called for unplugging all the connections from the control circuit board, powering it up, then unplug and reconnect everything.  This I did, and although nothing lit up as described with the board unplugged, I then put it back together and ran a test cycle with it empty.  When it misfired back when we ended up having to bail it out, so I did this with a bit of trepidation.  But, amazingly enough, it worked!  I’m glad, because the last sentence in the reset instructions said that if it didn’t work, look for a new machine on Ebay.  It’s amazing how many fixes for stuff one can find with Google.

We’ve now run a couple loads through it, and have our clothesline deployed on the aft deck.  The unit is a combo washer/dryer, but we seldom use the dryer capability.  It’s a ventless dryer, and can only handle about half a load if you want your clothes dried in a reasonable amount of time, so it’s easier to just hang them out to dry.

I also headed over to Mouat’s, the local “everything” store, to pick up a fishing license.  Just as in Washington now, we need the fishing license for shell fish as well.  We plan on doing a lot of crabbing during our stay here in Canada, and will probably do some bottom fishing as well from time to time.  I arrived at the store about 10 or 15 minutes before closing time, but they had already shut down their computer.  “No problem”, said the clerk, “you can just buy it online with your computer”.  When I explained that I didn’t have a printer with me, she then added I could bring the computer to the store tomorrow and they’d print the license for me.  I told her I’d just come in the morning and buy the license.

I did take a rules and regulations booklet, and browsing through I saw that the non-resident annual license for ages 17-64 was $101.  There was a separate column for seniors, which left me momentarily hopeful of a break, but the senior rate for a non-resident annual license is $101 as well.  The time period structure is such that you just about need the annual license, as the only other options are for 1, 3, or 5 days.  We will be sure to harvest our money’s worth of Dungeness crab over the next several weeks.

Not sure what our plans are for tomorrow yet, other than if we head out, it’ll be northward…