Water We Thinking

We had hoped to write about our entertainment system upgrade by now but the install has gone a little slower than expected.  Hopefully next week we will tell you all about Kevin's new pride and joy. A while back we wrote about our cute little alcohol burning fireplace  that kept us toasty through the very cold months.  We've had a bunch of people asking whether we are getting enough oxygen inside a boat since it's wrapped in glorified Saran.  The fully fueled fireplace burns about three hours and we usually only burn once in a 24 hour period.  We have not noticed any issues with oxygen on board this winter.  We were worried about other gasses like too much CO or CO2.  When we bought Cygnet in May 2014 there were three hardwired CO detectors that we believe to be original to the boat.  A commenter on our blog asked if we were using any other types of CO detectors since the lifespan is about 5 years on these.  It's something we thought about ...

The weather has broken and we are warming up nicely.  It's been a couple weeks since we had frigid temperatures in Chicago and we've even seen one day in the 70s.  If you're reading this in a warm climate and thinking 70 isn't that warm, let me tell you that after a winter in Chicago 70 is amazing! The sun is heating us up quite nicely during the day and the heaters are keeping us toasty at night. The first day we had over 50 was a sunny one and out of habit we left the heaters on when we went to work.  With the warm sun the wrap acted like a greenhouse and got the unheated rear deck up to 105! The interior of the boat was at 100, which we both agreed was a bit high. 1. Outside  2. Rear Deck  3. Engine Room  4. Interior Of course it's a bit early to take the wrap off the boat as the weather has gone back down to more seasonal levels this week.  We shut the heaters off on warm days and leave the zipper door open to the wrap to let in some fresh ai...

Hello and welcome! Many of you have come to check the blog after seeing the video on WGN or Facebook, and we're glad you did. Here is a LINK to the update video in case you missed it. Please explore the blog and check out the great information we have up. Feel free to ask questions, comment, tell us we are crazy or awesome, or whatever! Here are some links to posts we've written that you might find interesting: HERE  is a post about the cold and problems we've had this winter. HERE is a post about some of the updates we did to Cygnet when we first got her. HERE is a post about what is costs! HERE  is a poop ular blog we wrote about the problems we've had with marine plumbing. HERE  and HERE are posts that show a good idea of the type of problems and maintenance involved. HERE is an interview Colette did on Your Chicago Podcast. It's full of information if you have the hour to take a listen. There is more to see, so explore and have fun.  Ask...

LINK to WGN update story. http://wgntv.com/2015/03/04/update-on-couple-living-out-chicago-winter-on-a-boat/ It turns out the story Marcus LeShock did on WGN Morning News about us living aboard in the Chicago winter was quite a popular one.  If you haven't seen it, check it out HERE .  They have had viewers and even some of the staff of WGN asking Marcus to follow up and see how we survived the 3rd coldest Chicago February on record and the 5th largest blizzard in recorded history.  Regular readers here know we had some problems but if you want to see for yourself watch WGN News this Wednesday March 4, 2015 and you will get an update!  Marcus came out this morning and asked us questions about how we are making it, our marriage and how it's holding up, being local celebrities at the boat and RV show, and how Cygnet is doing. Marcus was able to get an interview with one of our favorite neighbors, Dr. Doug too, so you will see another perspective from someone doing...

Recently we were invited to be interviewed for a local podcast called Your Chicago.  Your Chicago showcases different people and organizations around our great city that make it the amazing place we all love to live in or visit.  They post an episode about every other week and today ours went live! They are currently only setup to interview one person at a time, so Kevin's handsome voice is missing from the show, but you get to hear from Co-captain Colette and hosts Arden Joy and Stefania. Followers of Your Chicago come solely by word of mouth, so head please spread the word after you listen to the show. Listen here.

When around boats you can always find something to fix.  There are many things that we want to replace, repair, upgrade, etc.  But often we have things that take priority, as you've read in this blog previously.  This time it's the water.  As we wrote in our "Power Hungry and All Wet"  post we had a leak at a T fitting that runs the fresh water throughout the boat.  We applied more and more epoxy to fix the leak since we couldn't reach it in the tiny space it was located.  We fixed the problem, or so we thought, until about 45 days ago. Colette is the thin one, so she gets this task. We noticed lately the fresh water pump running a bit more than it should so we investigated.  We're unsure if it's due to the pipes getting colder and shrinking or just due to age or pressure but our leak has reappeared.  Kevin tried to epoxy it again, but to no avail.  The T itself is about the size of two Sharpie markers intersecting (and the same co...

Let's face it, winter in Chicago isn't the greatest. Here we are about 40 days away from spring and it's a cold week with little end in sight. We've insulated and sealed as much as we can but it's still cooler than we wish inside Cygnet. We now have four space heaters running on two different circuits and the reverse cycle air conditioners are no longer effective. When we get a sunny day without much wind it can be 78 degrees inside! But when the wind kicks up over a couple cloudy days and the exterior temperature drops we have a less comfortable temperature.  Even after those sunny days it can be in the mid 60s in the salon of our boat by the next morning. We rarely get below 63 but there have been a couple very cold nights we've touched the 50s. We don't expect to be hot inside, we used to keep our house around 68 daytime and 62 nighttime, but we want to be comfortable.  We found a very interesting solution to those cold nights. We purchased a bioethanol...