Water We Thinking

Just want to say hello to all our loyal readers and let you all know we'll be at the boat show this weekend and would love to trade stories with you.  We will be at the River City Marina booth A121 on Saturday from 10-2.  Of course if you can't make it during those times but are curious about the life you can always stop by and talk to our neighbors in the booth at other times.  Plus after 2pm we'll be wandering around and checking out the great vessels and RVs.  We love this show and plan to spend the whole day there on Saturday so if you see us say hi! Details: Chicago Boat, RV & Strictly Sail Show Dates & Location Wednesday-Sunday , January 14-18, 2015   McCormick Place—South Building  - NEW LOCATION!!! 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive Chicago, Illinois 60616 Show Hours Wednesday:     2:00pm–9:00pm Thursday:        11:00am–9:00pm Friday:             11:00am–9:00pm Satu...

Not even 48 hours after we bragged on TV about how great it is to live on a boat in the winter in Chicago, Kevin arrived home to a powerless boat.  It was 38 degrees inside and there was no power to anything other than the A/C circuit.  If you read our previous blog Power Hungry and All Wet  you know we lost power earlier this year and we traced it to a faulty power inlet.  We have two power inlets on the boat, one that supplies our "Shore" power and runs the fridge, lights, battery charger, stove, and all the other accessories on the boat, and another input that is solely for the A/C units.  Our A/C units (which also do reverse cycle heating) were still operational.  Kevin tried messing with the electrical panel after noting the main breaker had been tripped.  He turned on the main, but whenever he switched on any individual circuit the main would trip again.  After inspecting all parts of the boat for a short of some kind it wasn't long before t...

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...

Now into our first winter living aboard we were invited to the annual River City Marina Rat Party. Every year in the beginning of December those of us brave or dumb enough to have a boat in the water through the winter (and some of the summer folks) are invited to a party in the marina to celebrate our curious way of life.  The party is more of a boat "crawl" where we start on one boat and visit all the others with a finish on the largest of the winter dwellings owned by Dr. Doug.  This year we had a great turnout, we invited a few non-boating friends to join and everyone had a great time. Night and Day  The evening started with a cocktail aboard Cygnet as our friends arrived, then we en-masse went to Castaways, owned by Captain Pat to join the rest of the crews.  On a calm and relatively mild early December evening it was packed.  Castaways is no little runabout, it's a big boat, about the same size as Cygnet, but it was packed to the gills with our nei...