Di-Enid joined us over her X-Mas vacation, a huge moment in realizing the dream. Despite having seen -literally- hundreds of photos of the boat, she had never stepped on board "Enfin".
We both had settled on a Nordhavn 40 a couple years ago when we visited one in Florida and realized it hit all the marks, all the "must haves" and so many of the "nice to have" as well. Still, seeing her boat for the first time was a momentous event, and it was great to see her just settle down naturally on board.
The whole month of December had been atrocious in Blaine, with front after front bringing rain and winds unto us, culminating in the "20th December Storm".
The rest of the month, and the X-Mas vacations looked compromised, when -miracles of miracles- a small weather window opened.
If things went well, we'd have a day to go out to the Islands, and then we'd have to hide and seek from shifting winds over the next few days before being able to make our way back.
The weather Gods decided to be on our side, and we left on the first beautiful sunny and calm day of the month, arriving at Sucia Islands early afternoon.
We found the bays and islands totally deserted, and had our pick of moorage balls.
The boat performed flawlessly all along, cocooning us in warm comfort from the Hurricane II heater keeping us nice and toasty despite the cold winds. Another advantage of our furnace is virtually unlimited hot showers, especially combined with our 400 Gallons per Day water maker.
At least twice a day we'd take Princess ashore for a big long walk. Huskies are so energetic that they need to walk and exercise a lot to burn that energy. A great thing for us, as it "forces" us to exercise with her. We got to raise and lower the tender every time we took her out, first because it's good for us to learn to do it, and second because I like having the tender on board if we need to leave in a hurry for any reason.
We had the State Park to ourselves, quite an amazing feeling when you compare to the crowded summers.
We looked for fossils (in Fossil Bay of course) and we found a huge T-Rex. Or maybe it was just a big rock! Who knows? As long as you're having fun looking, it's all good. We wouldn't recognize a fossil if one landed on our head.
Coming back to Blaine with plenty of safety time to make sure I could get Di-Enid back to her plane, we had huge grins on our faces.
The boat had performed well. We had a great time, and this first peek into what we would soon be able to do full time proved our choices were right.
Until next time....