The signing of some papers, a trip to the bank and just like that, we officially became boat owners again a few days ago.

It’s hard to believe that gorgeous Island Packet 38 is ours, just sitting there in Mexico waiting for us to bring it home.

It doesn’t quite seem real yet. If the boat was in Seattle, we would have gone there after signing the papers, popped some champagne and headed out this weekend for her inaugural cruise in these waters.

We’re excited about so many aspects of this boat. We’ve been talking about where our first overnight trip will be (Blakely Harbor? Poulsbo? Blake Island?). I’m having fun shopping online for new bedding and upholstery for the cushions in the salon. We’re looking into options for a forced air heater, since the boat doesn’t have any non-electric heat and we plan to do a lot of sailing this winter.

Naturally, we’ve convinced ourselves that we need this boat, in the way the boat-obsessed tend to. There was a day in early summer, one of seemingly countless glorious, sunny Saturdays we’ve been blessed with this year, when it hit me that we couldn’t just head out on the boat for as we do most weekends during summer. A dark funk descended. I realized just how integral a part of our lives having a boat was, that I’d probably give up my house before I’d give up having a sailboat.

A friend who’s much more outdoorsy than I am told me the other day that I’m missing some of the most beautiful parts of Washington over my dislike for camping. It’s just not for me: the schlepping of a heavy pack, the sleeping in a tent (when is that ever comfortable?), the bugs, the outhouses. No thanks.

“Why would I want to camp when I could be out on a boat?” I asked her.

“Because there are so many amazing places to see,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “That’s what a boat is for.”

Beyond just wanting a boat for the transportive pleasure it provides, it’s seemed inauthentic and just, well, wrong to be running an online boating magazine without a boat. We can’t wait to get out in our floating newsroom to once again discover, report and write stories for Three Sheets Northwest. We think our coverage will be greatly enhanced for it.

The boat has a new name, since we had to change it when we signed the closing documents in order to file the paperwork needed for our Coast Guard documentation. Iola Anne is now Three Sheets. We tossed around a lot of names over the past month (thanks to friends and readers for your suggestions) but Three Sheets kept rising to the surface.

We couldn’t think of a name we liked better that was meaningful to both of us. It’s the name of our website and first business venture together. The word three connotes the boat’s three sails and its three-person crew, including Lily Winston Churchill, the official boat cat. The name has a nautical origin and speaks to the not-infrequent state of its owners, who will admit to drinking like sailors on occasion. It’s easy to say, easy to spell and easy to remember. So Three Sheets it is.

Of course, both of us want to drop everything, get on a plane, fly to San Carlos and see our new baby right now. But alas, life intervenes. We’re hoping Marty might be able to get away for a few days next month so we can go to Mexico, decommission the boat and oversee it being loaded onto a trailer and then moved to another one in Tucson.

That’s a possibility, assuming we decide to move it by truck instead of boat. We’re leaning toward truck shipping for reasons around costs and scheduling—if we transport it by boat, we’d either have to sail it a long distance down the coast to Manzanillo for a November sailing, or wait until December and move it to La Paz, about 200 miles across the Sea of Cortez.

Neither of us can stand the thought of waiting that long if we don’t have to. The summer of our discontent is coming to an end, both literally and figuratively. We want Three Sheets here as soon as possible. We can’t wait to really make her our own. We can’t wait to be out on the water again.