(Photo: Steph et Steve - Falaises de Normandie - 14 sep 10)

Finally, we are underway on our European adventure! Stephanie arrived in Heuqueville at our friends Pierre's and Marianne's house several days ago , having bounced around France for the better part of three weeks from friend to friend, this after a three-and-a-half week summer camp in Munich, Germany. I arrived in France the day before yesterday, and Judy and Marine followed yesterday to complete the family reunion.

Yesterday, Pierre and Marianne took Steph and me on a hike along the cliffs between Le Havre and Etretat. These are spectacular limestone cliffs, some with arches carved out by the ocean, punctuated here and there by small towns such as Etretat and Fécamp that are nestled in the ravines that descend to the English Cannel.

We can finally relax a bit now that the panic of pre-trip preparations are over. Our house is rented out until the end of December, turnover of work files is complete, Semper Vivens is now out of the water and covered for the winter, Judy bought another rental property the day before she left Halifax, and hopefully we can deal with any loose ends from over here.

Our hosts are Pierre and Marianne, good friends whom we met when Pierre brought his sailboat Morgengrey into Hlaifax some years ago, returning from his adventures at Cape Horn and points north. Pierre and Marianne are living in a beautifully rebuilt manoir, complete with a colombier that was originally built in the 1600s when the property was owned by nobility.

This morning finds us all getting our feet under us, and getting some homework done. While I work on the first blog entry, Steph and Marine are doing schoolwork ("Already?!?") and Judy is finishing her Royal Yachting Association offshore cruising instructor assignments, having completed the at sea practical phase in Semper Vivens last week, which already seems like last year.

Tomorrow we will pick up a rental car and spend the next few days exploring Normandie and Bretagne, visiting more sailing friends, afterwhich we will head east to Belgium and then to Lille, where we will turn in the rental car and take the train to Amsterdam to visit our Dutch sailing friends and then to pick up a rental campervan which will serve as our mobile home away from home for the next couple of months or so, until we figure out what the plan will be. The only timing we have to make is Riga, Latvia before the end of October to visit our Armdale neighbour Ieva, who has a commercial/residential building in Riga, and who will be in Riga when we arrive! Other than that, the plan is quite rough and flexible!