The post last week was all about my sister and her move to St. Thomas. If you have been paying close attention to our blog over the last few years, you’ll remember this is the same sister who is restoring the 40’ Morgan sailboat with her husband.  Her husband, Matt, and the boat, Errant, are still back in Maryland. The Errants’ refit still needs to be completed and it will take a few more months. The idea is that after the boat is finished Matt will put her in the water in the Chesapeake Bay and then sail down the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a 3,000-mile inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States. You can travel it all the way from Boston to Florida and even up the west coast of Florida along the gulf coast to Brownsville, Texas.  The waterway is composed of canals, sounds, and bays. The idea is that you never need to travel into the open ocean to get down the Eastern Seaboard.

I will then fly down to Florida and meet him at a harbor near Fort Lauderdale and help guide the Errant across the Gulf Stream, through the Bahamas, past the Dominican Republic, around Puerto Rico, and finally into Charlotte Amalie Harbor on St. Thomas.

You should see my shopping cart on Amazon. The cost of this trip in just books, maps, and tools is near $200 and it isn’t even complete yet. We will, of course, get years of use out of the reference material. I have spent hours watching videos, reading books and asking every sailor I can about the passage. I’m even doing fuel calculations based on the average burn rate of diesel fuel at 2,500 rpm (avg. 1hr:1gal), although we won’t really know until Errant is in the water. The point is the planning for the trip is underway in earnest.

I am really looking forward to this trip as a way to prove myself as a captain and a navigator. We hope to shove off in December. We’ll keep you updated on this journey.

If you want updates on the progress of the Errant and its dingy, the Comma, tune into their YouTube channel: Errant Comma.