Skip to main content

The Great Chicago Flood

Last night was stormy. Colette heard a little rain as she got up to turn the A/C off, but Kevin slept through it. It was early this morning that Kevin got up to use the bathroom and noticed something wasn't on the level.  Cygnet was listing to starboard.  The phone rang and our friend J.R. was on the line letting us know that Cygnet wasn't looking good.  Over the night, where parts of Chicago got almost FIVE inches of rain, the river rose significantly.  We were about four feet higher than normal, see the before and after below. Actually this normal photo is even a bit high but you get the idea.

Normal, notice the dock behind Cygnet

Cygnet's getting high

We've been instructed by our marina management company to tie to the white posts at our dock, not the cleats that boats normally tie to. We've been disobedient (so has almost every other boat in the marina) and have been ignoring that and tieing to the few cleats that are available. We still had one rope on a white post about 1/3 way down the boat. This rope didn't move up with the level of the river as the cleats on the dock do, so our boat was leaning a bit.

Looks like you got a flat tire

With a little wiggling and muscle Kevin was able to get the rope up enough to keep the boat level today and we don't have a problem.  We were lucky, as you can see in the two photos below. Two other boats in the marina that were tied to the poles are worse. One is listing quite a bit, the other is not doing well at all, it sank.

Too much Tequila

Too much water

So, what are we thinking about our night. Well, we learned a lesson and we won't repeat the same mistake again. We fared better than others and have no damage. Just wait until next week when we tell you about our power outage!





Comments

  1. Glad you guys made it through that storm.
    I'm a captain with TowboatUS and raised that boat with two of my coworkers.
    Trust me when I say it isn't fun diving in the Chicago River.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha! I remember watching you CopperMike when I came home later that day to check everything out. I remember thinking what a terrible job you had that day. I felt so bad for them, that family had spent an entire day cleaning that boat up just a week or two before. I highly respect what you do, I've towed and been towed in our last boat. If you ever are in the neighborhood stop by and say hello.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks! Will do.
    I'll be at the BoatUS booth all week. maybe I'll run into you guys.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome TV viewers! Yes, it's cold today.

Thanks for making the trip over to the blog today after watching the story on TV or online.  If you take a look around the blog there are lots of answers to some of the questions I'm sure a lot of you have.  We wrote a post about all the costs and I'm sure many of you will start there. Here is the video link in case you missed it. Knowing how cold it is outside this morning you may also want to know how we are doing. Yesterday when Marcus and cameraman Carlos came out it was 63 degrees inside the boat.  Well with the wind we had last night and the brutally cold temperatures it's a bit cooler inside now, about 54.  We have an alarm set if the temperature in the engine room goes below 40, which it did at 5AM.  We took one of the space heaters out of the living area and moved it down to the engine room to keep things comfortable down there.  Inside the engine room you obviously have the engines, which don't use antifreeze like a car, and can be damaged by...

What have you done!? We made it one year!

I came across this similar blog called Luv'n the Regal Life  which originally was written about a couple's adventures on their weekender Regal 3760 boat.  The blog is now about their life aboard a Carver a bit larger and quite a bit newer than ours.  They have just crossed the two year mark of life aboard and as we are at the one year mark we thought it was interesting that this couple who we don't know is experiencing many of the same things we are at nearly the same times.  They got a one year jump on us, but many of the experiences, frustrations, projects, and joys are the same as we have.  I find these folks interesting because judging only by a couple photos on the blog they seem to be about the same age as us (Kevin just crested the hill and Colette is a ways behind him).  You can find thousands of live aboards with silver (or no) hair but trying to find ones under the age of 50 isn't as easy.  Sure we are around, but it's not like we always run ...

You Live On a Boat? You Must Be RICH! Nope. Here is how to live aboard for cheap.

We've written before about how many people ask us private things just because we live on a boat. Since our lifestyle is a bit different than most  people there seems to be an idea that we want everyone knowing about our financial lives and personal habits.  Here are some questions we get: How much does it cost? What do you do in the winter? How do you heat/cool the boat? Do you ever leave the marina? Why are you doing this? Do you miss your house? How do you shower? How do you poop? Those last two come up a lot more often than you'd think.  Let's face it, most of us are a bit crude. Kevin has spent a lot of time with "proper" people, businesspersons, met many CEOs of large global companies or other folks you might think are high class.  Most of them turn into 14 year olds after a few cocktails.  That's when the real questions come out.  A lot of people are just curious, and their curiosity can overwhelm their sense of society, privacy, and poli...