There is a growing level of insanity in the Three Sheets household.

I’m reasonably certain that sane people of modest means don’t get in airplanes and fly around in search of the perfect sailboat. Yet that is the affliction we’re beset with. There will be no peace until the boat is found, purchased and happily nestled into a slip somewhere in Seattle.

If only we liked new cars instead of sailboats. It would be so much easier. A short drive to a dealership and we’d be set, contentedly tooling around in our new vehicle, maybe even that same afternoon.

Instead, we drive cars most college students would be mortified by. I still have the same car I bought 17 years ago when I graduated from university, a bottom rung 1991 Honda without power steering, air conditioning or even a rear-view mirror on the passenger side. The antenna is broken off and the driver’s side door was keyed by a Lexus-driving jackass (that’s another story). By comparison, Marty’s 1994 Ford Ranger pickup is a swank ride.

I used to think about buying a new car, before I met Marty. (A piece of advice for the single women out there: if you meet a man who tells you he’s passionate about boating, run. Run away fast. It’s too late for him, but you can still save yourself.)

You can probably guess that we’re not buying either of the boats in Michigan and Vallejo. Marty went to Michigan and had that boat surveyed, which turned up some unforeseen and potentially costly issues (sound familiar?). Since the previous owner is no longer alive and the family doesn’t know very much about the boat, Marty wasn’t able to get answers to some critical questions that would have helped determine whether it would be a wise purchase or not.

There were signs that the boat might not have been properly winterized to protect it against Michigan’s harsh weather, and therefore the possibility of larger problems. Also, the sails weren’t new as we’d been told, which was disappointing. At the very least, it would have required a substantial amount of sweat equity and considerable cost to get it in cruising condition.

In the end, after a night tossing and turning, Marty went with his gut, which told him to walk away. I firmly believe that ignoring those instincts invites doom and I trust his judgment and knowledge of boats, so that was that. Cost of the survey, flight and hotel room: about $1,000. Potential cost of unforeseen repairs needed: Untold thousands.

The Vallejo boat was a contender, but had more wear and tear than was evident in the photos, and the price was a little high. While we were thinking it over, Marty found another Island Packet 38, the same model and layout as the other two. It’s listed at a much lower price and is extensively and recently outfitted for offshore cruising—radar, weather fax, satellite phone, single sideband radio, life raft, sea anchor, watermaker, solar panels, extra-heavy rigging, etc. The lightly used sails are only five years old and it has air conditioning, which makes me happy.

Marty had a long phone conversation with the owner, who sounds about as anal—err, fastidious—about his boat as Marty is. He told Marty he enjoys vacuuming the boat’s engine, that his wife likes to use toothpicks to clean out small crevices. When Marty commented on the gleaming teak in the photos, the man said he gets irked if someone in the marina has a shinier boat than his.

He also said he named the boat after his mother-in-law because he “wanted to put her name on something’s ass end.” I like him already. Marty hung up the phone convinced the owner is his real father, separated at birth.

So we’re going on a little holiday. To Mexico. That’s where the boat is. I said the lunacy barometer is rising, didn’t I?

It seems a bit ridiculous to suggest in the midst of a recession, while people are losing their homes and their jobs and misery abounds, that we need a boat. But I can justify it as a possible second home in case the economy goes further down the toilet or Armageddon is imminent and we need to make a hasty exit.

And a boat is necessary to write the types of stories we envisioned when we launched Three Sheets, stories about great cruising locations, the people we meet sailing, what we see and do along the way. Driving to those places and writing about them is like penning a travel piece based on information gleaned through a Google search. It’s inauthentic and nowhere close to the real thing.

So we’re heading south in a few weeks and hoping for the best. The average water temperature at that time in San Carlos, where the boat is moored, is 89 degrees. We’ll have the boat surveyed and do a sea trial while we’re there, and I’ll finally be able to fulfill my fantasy about diving off a sailboat into warm water.

I’m booking us the least expensive room at a hotel with a poolside bar. If nothing else, we’ll be able to get some sun and do a little swimming—and if the boat is a letdown, we can always drown our sorrows in margaritas.