I have always been in love with sailing. I think we might have mentioned that once or twice in past blog posts. We have taken every opportunity to get out on the water when we travel. We’ve booked sailing adventures out of St. Mary’s, Maryland; St. Thomas, USVI; and Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. I’ve even gone on a very slow overnight sail with my brother-in-law on his 22’ Catalina and enjoyed every moment of it. I remember being a child and having mason jar on my dresser with a picture of a sailboat drawn in crayon on it filled with change “to by my own sailboat.” The dream of a sailboat, like many dreams you have as a child, are dreams deferred. I am happy to announce that a sailboat is a dream deferred no longer.

My brother-in-law, Matt, and my sister Andi approached us with an offer about a year ago. They were selling the Catalina (and no, we didn’t buy it). Andi and Matt wanted us to partner with them in buying a much larger boat, a 40-foot Morgan Ketch. I was nervous in approaching Amanda with this offer, but it didn’t take too much convincing before she was a yes vote. We had to do a bit of research and make sure the diesel engine worked before we wrote a check, but it hummed along just fine. The boat is a ketch-rigged Morgan, it has the masts, rigging and sails and could go into the water immediately. Just one problem: the interior is nonexistent.

We had the boat — dubbed “Errant,” as in a wandering knight — towed from New Jersey to my parents’ place in Maryland. We will then commence the work of building out the interior. I am sure that we will make mistakes and learn a lot along the way, but when we finally take that first plunge into crystal clear water the Caribbean we will know it was worth it.

If you’d like to follow along on this adventure, you can check out The Adventures of the Errant Comma — their blog detailing the work in progress.

The Morgan trailered in New Jersey. We have a long way to go in the refit.