Water We Thinking

In mid January we had a special visitor to Cygnet. Colette's brother Jackson came in from San Francisco to stay with us and see Chicago. He's visited before, once for our wedding reception, and another time just for fun, but this is the first time he's been here with us living on Cygnet. Jackson and Colette had the same mother but different fathers and they didn't grow up together beyond the first few years but we've visited him in San Francisco and he's been here so we aren't strangers. This time he came for just under two weeks and while in town he spent a lot of time going to and performing at local comedy clubs. Jackson has been working as a comedian for years in San Francisco and we in Chicago were lucky to experience his entertaining and slightly askew show a few times. Unfortunately his late night stand up comedy and our regular hour jobs don't mix all that well so he ventured out without us a few nights and killed it without us as witnesses. ...

Winter is in full swing and it's been pretty good so far. This coming week is supposed to get cold, possibly down to single digits at night (-12C for our foreign readers) despite what AccuWeather has predicted for February. The weather prognosticators may have messed that one up a couple weeks ago when they said we'd have an above average month, but we are ready and already made it through some cold days and nights last month. It's still a huge improvement over last year's Polar Vortex. Wrapped and ready for the cold One problem we have this year which we didn't really have last year is condensation. We have a much tighter seal this year on Cygnet including taping the air vents for the engine compartment, taping or plugging up the bathroom fan vents, and better sealing the windows. Because of this there are areas of the boat where the warm and moist air from the interior is meeting cold areas of the fiberglass that touch or come very close to touching the wat...

December 31, 2015 was the first time Chicago had any official New Years Eve event in our lifetimes. This year the city decided to host  Chi-town Rising on the south branch of the Chicago River and we were not going to let this one pass by unnoticed.  Sure the name is kinda dumb, and they originally said it would be free to everyone and at the last minute decide $150 per person was better than free, but we decided we'd avoid all the hubbub and take Cygnet for a ride. The star, pre-assention This year, knowing El Niño was coming, we decided to wrap the boat late and prep her for a cruise on New Years Eve.  So with 19 people aboard we fired up the generator and twin 454s and headed down river to the area between Michigan Ave. and Columbus where the event was centered.  We putted around a bit and finally talked to the CPD and CFD boats and found that as long as we stayed west of Michigan Ave. we could hang out and watch from there.  The event had a fireworks ...

First of all, we are very sorry for taking so long between posts.  We won't bore you with the details, but just know it has been a very busy and difficult couple months in our work and personal lives.  So again, sorry. ______ Oh shit it's winter again!  Well, at least it seemed that way this past weekend when we got our first snow of the year.  After learning so much last winter we are doing some things differently this year, not everything, but some things.  We aren't wrapping the boat until January.  That has the most to do with the fact that we want to take Cygnet out for New Year's Eve.  You see, this year, Chicago is premiering a  New Year's Eve  shindig like NYC.  It just so happens that it is based on both sides of the river near Michigan Ave. which is a short ride from our marina.  Hopefully the weather holds up and we can have a front row seat for the "star ascension" without dealing with any crowds. Once we wrap we wi...

The previous weekend was the Chicago Scene Boat Party  but we aren't much into hanging with a bunch of Douchebags with SeaRays rafted 10 wide feeding drunk girls cocaine and ecstasy.  We know it's not all that, but it does have that reputation.  So we avoided it.  The one thing we never miss is the Chicago Air & Water Show  however because 'Merica! Blue Angels rise above. On Saturday we fired up Cygnet and left about 11AM for the 45 minute trip from the marina to the lake.  We just missed the lock so we had to wait but once inside you realize how many boaters really have no clue how to drive their boat.  Some people are absolutely clueless, including a hired captain we saw piloting a pontoon from our marina.  The girls aboard definitely looked scared and the guy was messing it up for everyone else.  Eventually we made it out to the lake and found a relatively open area among the sea of boats.  We were anchored in the southeaste...

We've been living aboard for just over a year now and there are still some questions we get fairly often.  It's starting to get old - answering the same questions over and over, but when you meet someone new and they find out you live on a boat in the middle of Chicago you have to put on the happy face and indulge them.  There are a lot of the same questions you have to answer but every once in a while you get something new.  If you, dear reader, are not a live aboard and are curious about what it's like to live day after day on the water this post might help you. Sunset We lead somewhat different lives than many of the other liveaboards that we know about.  Many of the liveaboards we know of are retired, lots of them in Florida or the Caribbean living out their golden (or at least silver) years in paradise.  We are not those people.  To anyone who meets us you would think that we have a completely "normal" life and live in a "normal" place like an...

It's f-ing 2015 and we shouldn't have to write this post, but we don't live a "normal" life so... The internet has come to River City Marina!  It's such a glorious thing, this connectivity.  The ability to live like everyone else in modern society is splendid.  You see, for the last year we've been living without internet.  Sure the management company told us we could use the wifi that was in the marina but we couldn't really get a good signal, and when we did it was about as fast as a snail on a tortoise's shell.  Sometimes it was too slow to even check email. Another beautiful night When we moved in we knew the internet was an issue so Kevin had Comcast, AT&T, and RCN all come out to run internet to our slip.  None of them would do it, they said it was too far for them to go (about 300 feet total) or they couldn't get access to the building so they just wouldn't do it.  Basically all three services sent their guys out to do a r...