Anybody reading this blog might not know it, but we actually do sail the boat sometimes. The "Livaboard Life" has its drawbacks, because it does seem to prevent you from sailing in the stormy months. When we had a house, we thought nothing of jumping in the boat and heading off for a winter adventure of 25 knots plus winds, sleeting rain, and four layers of foulies. When we got back, we went home and jumped in the hot tub…..Now, it really seems to be a bit more hassle to go out for a day or an overnight. I tell myself its just pleasure sailing – that it’s much more important to install that watermaker, finish the wind generator or Skymate project – or splice the line necessary to deploy the para anchor. Nah – its raining, much better to have another martini, turn on the heater, and slip another disk of "Have Gun Wll Travel" our current favorite 50’s TV western- http://www.hgwt.com/hgwt0.htm – into the DVD player.
From talking to our livaboard friends, we do seem to keep the boat ready to sail better than most – we both believe the we may have to get out of here quickly sometime, from fire, earthquake, tsunami, rampaging seagulls (think "Birds") or devout Republicans coming to burn us at the stake. We try and keep full loads of food, fuel, and booze on board, to be ready to set sail in about an hour, but it is a real push.
But we did go to Poulsbo for the Thanksgiving holiday. http://www.poulsbo.net/ A wonderful 20 mile sail completely downwind – extremely rare in Puget Sound, since this required a westerly wind. We got to the anchorage, and surprise upon surprise, we were the only boat anchored out – no wonder, since it was about 37 degrees out. 
This boat came in the next morning and anchored off the entrance to the marina. We don’t like to go to marinas when we sail, because we live in one all of the time!
The propane chief cooked up a turkey, oyster stuffing, gravy, yams, rum cranberry chutney, and pecan pie for thanksgiving – (good thing there were only two of us, or he would have had to cook more food!) The next morning, it was a little dryer, and we had a fine late fall sunrise at about 7.45 am.
Who says the sun does not shine up here at 48 degrees north.
Later on – we sailed over to one of our favorite anchorages – this is Illahee State park – it has five mooring buoys – which are never occupied.
We were treated to a swarm of jellyfish swimming by – this swarm lasted for about 20 minutes.
While doing all of this motoring, I discovered the problem with the wires overheating from the alternator output- a problem discussed in the prior post "A tail of two wires". Once we found out about this problem, we had to shut the heater down – this resulted in some additional lying around, as we had to conserve energy……
"Hey propane chief – what’s for dinner? – and did you know – its COLD in here!"
We returned to the marina – landed in the typical 20 knots of cross wind, to find our faithful seagull – Mooch – waiting for a handout…… 
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