November 11, 2011
Chris and Erica on board their first sailboat.
We bought a boat today! How wonderfully auspicious that we closed on 11/11/11! I just want to drive up to Essex right now and visit her! Thank you, boat, for finding us. Take care of us on our journey.
another journal entry:
October 18, 2011
We’ve started telling people about our plans. It is going well. Almost everyone is surprised, but excited. The questions mostly revolve around safety, if we know how to sail, and how Chris will continue to work while we are gone. I am surprised that we haven’t had any strong negative reactions. The worst of it is that most people say quickly that it isn’t something they would ever want to do. And some people are surprised that we would want to spend that much time with our children.
Sharing the news with Dad and Kathy, who were thrilled and ready to book a flight to visit us on an island somewhere!
I have been writing this journal in Word, since we weren’t ready to go public with our plans. But now I have started to publish our conwaysailors blog to my old personal blog, although that only gets seen by a whopping 11 people. I have been trying to catch up on journaling the rest of our BVI trip and the trip this summer in New England.
We are getting ready to close on the boat, probably Monday. Chris is working on planning the delivery trip from Essex, CT to Haverstraw, NY.
Here’s another post from our journal. Finally proofed and ready to share:
October 5, 2011
We may have bought a boat today. We keep saying it, but we just can’t believe that our dream is one step closer to coming true. And it’s a big, giant step.
We put in an offer on our first choice boat on Monday. We had two boats that would fill most of our needs, but boats, like cars and houses, are never perfect, and the first choice boat was just slightly better suited for us. The negotiating went smoothly and the owners of Glenn Louis, a 2006 Beneteau 473, were great about the whole thing. Our boat broker worked hard to make everyone happy and, today, we ended up with an agreement that we all think is fair.
The next step is getting the boat surveyed, so we’re not in the clear just yet. But our hopes are starting to soar!