Now that we were relaxed, we got ourselves ready and decided to take some photos on the beach. We bought yellow poncho's for the occasion. Organizing that many people for photos can sometimes be frustrating, but this was actually fun and quite entertaining.
We bought the rain poncho's to take photos in, but what we didn't foresee was that they were practical and came in handy. We used them for getting on and off the ferry because there was a lite rain that came and went all weekend long. Phew.
Cheers,
Charysse
I woke up to the sound of the ocean and the question of what would our surroundings really look like (up to this point I had only enjoyed the house at night and in the dark). Opening the curtain I saw the exact scene I had looked at online for months previous. And yes, it was better in person. However to fully take in the view required coffee, Baileys and a few well dressed friends.
One thing that made this weekend even more special is we had matching pyjama's from the Hudson's Bay Co. Eventually we all arrived in the main house, one-by-one, in our matching jammies. My girlfriend sabered a bottle of champagne (pictured below) while the guests of honour made us a delicious breakfast.
After breakfast, the girls took a walk down the beach and the boys entertained themselves, as boys love to do. Surprisingly, none of them got hurt (pictured below).
I can't imagine a better start to a day.
Cheers,
Charysse
The first question you might have about Hat Island is, "Where is it?" Hat Island is a 35 minute ferry ride from Everett WA, across from Whidbey Island. The only way to get there, if you don't own your own boat, is by foot passenger ferry. This can prove to be a little more work, lugging everything you will need for your whole trip, but as you will see it is definitely worth it. And yes you need to bring just about everything (there is no general store on the island).
The house is divided into 2 separate parts. The main house and the bedroom wing. I really enjoyed this concept. There were 4 couples all staying together, and yet you felt a perfect degree apart. In the morning people who wanted to get up could do so, listen to music - done, be as loud as they wish - fine, all without without waking anyone up.
The main house is an open layout. A wood-burning fireplace and exposed wood really add to the coziness. The patio sliding doors open completely to bring the outside in. We experimented with this open-air concept on the Saturday afternoon when the sun came out.
I'm not sure if many of you can handle this, so try and get ready for it...no cable and no internet! I'm not going to lie, it felt good to not check twitter and email and text messages and the never ending stream of messages. None of it. You can fully relax.
We got to Hat Island at around 7pm on a Friday and within 20 minutes felt settled and ready for a fun intimate night with friends. We drank champagne, sipped scotch by the fire-place and got up close and personal with our good friend and food supplier Trader Joe. It was delightful.
Cheers,
Charysse
For the last six months, two of my girlfriends and I have been planning a ten year anniversary getaway for close friends of ours. We travelled to Hat Island in Washington for two nights. It started with telling them we were going to "Seattle" at the pre-party. Below are some little things we did to make the pre-party special for them.
They were dropping by for drinks before attending The Asteroids Galaxy Tour concert. So that, of course, was our theme. We had a limited budget because we wanted to save most of our money for Hat Island. I soaked off the labels of some bottles of Cava and made custom labels (pictured below). Talk to your printers if you are interested in doing that. They print them on sticker paper and cut down to size.
I also put the projector on and played a BBC Planets documentary for some background ambiance.
Two weeks later, we left for Hat Island. The next blog posts will be on our time spent there.
Cheers,
Charysse
