A Big First Step

“We bought a sailboat.”

“This is crazy. You know this is crazy right?”

“Do you think we can call her and tell her we changed our minds?”

“WE BOUGHT A SAILBOAT.”

“What was I thinking.”

“Babe, we own a sailboat.”

“This is crazy.”

And that was just Kadin.

We took a walk around the boat one more time, Kadin inspected some questionable spots with the Marina Owner and asked his opinion on repairs, while me, my mom and the boat owner, Heather, muddled around and made small talk. I think Heather was happy to be selling the boat to someone who really wanted to take care of it and make the best use of it as possible.

Once we got the contract signed, we saw Heather off, gathered our carefully packed lunches and then made our way up the ladder onto the boat. (You will notice the lovely stilts the boat sits on. It is in fact far sturdier than it looks.)

We settled in I started dishing out food onto our paper plates, and my mom and I sat and munched while Kadin exclaimed the above. It took much coercion to finally convince him to eat. That was his shock. Mine came later on the ride home when I realized how much I would miss trees once this endeavor was seen through. Saw through? Sometimes sentence structure and grammar are not my friends.

Anyway, before we finished eating it started to rain, so we took shelter inside our future home. Once Kadin’s initial shock had subsided, Mom went off to the car to nap while we began our work.

We threw out all kinds of things- soup bowls, insect repellant candles, bottles of things that we could no longer identify….Just plain old junk. Then we started the sweeping. With the amount of dirt in that pile we could build our own island (This boat has been sitting for ten years, mind you) and don’t get me started on the dirt/dead bugs/Unidentified substances that came out of the curtain fabric when I tore them down. In short, this thing needs a ton of TLC.

We took measurements of anything we thought was important to get done, like a new bed, which we decided afterwards would probably be the last thing that would go in because it’s so darn dirty in there.

At this point, I think we are still mentally preparing ourselves for the project we’ve taken on. It’s manageable, but its still pretty big. Especially when you consider that we have to travel 5 hours to get to it. But in the end, when we raise the sails for that first time and feel our sturdy vessel take on those cold ocean waves, I think every ounce of energy we put into this will be returned to us in tenfold.

We finished off the day with a farewell to our grounded boat, and took off to Norfolk where we stayed the night and reveled in our accomplishment. We’ve taken the first step in a huge adventure that sinks in a little more everyday.

We bought a sailboat.