Water We Thinking

We are getting there.  We have a lot of projects going on as we mentioned in the last blog and now a couple are finally complete!  Yesterday we had S Squared Cabinetry & Remodeling aboard Cygnet finishing the multiple jobs we had for them.  Our dishwasher install, our lower helm removal, our new bar cabinet, and the shoe cabinet.  Let's take a look at what they did. We are now living in the 20th century!  Cygnet has two bathrooms with showers, a washer/dryer, a full size fridge, but no dishwasher.  The rationale we suppose was that you often use disposable plates and utensils when out for a day on the boat.  We do use disposables when we have a party (our inner tree huggers cry a little) but on a day to day basis we use real plates, silverware, and glasses.  For the last two years we've been washing by hand, something Kevin hates after slicing his right index finger open washing a glass eight years ago, and it seems like there is always a pi...

Two years ago today we brought Cygnet home to River City and began living aboard.  It was such an exciting time for us, being able to change your lifestyle while maintaining it at the same time, if that makes sense.  In the spring of 2014 we both had good jobs, we had a house, a couple nice cars and we were happy.  But one thing led to another and a few months later we were living on a boat in the Chicago river.  It's the best thing we've done.  We love coming home (like last night) and sitting outside on the aft deck and watching the world go by, talking for hours.  We love taking our home out on the water and entertaining friends and family in a unique way.  Think about the last time you had a party, your guests probably thanked you and left.  When you live on a boat your friends get super excited about parties, they talk about if for months before and after, they will do whatever they can to make it to the party.  Boat parties are the best...

Faithful readers please know that we have not forgotten our duties to keep the lines of communication open.  We have a lot of projects going on right now and we've been waiting for just one of them to finish before writing our newest installment.  But, as many of you have read here before you can understand that things don't always go as planned.  So we want to check in and let you know what we are doing right now and give you some previews on what you can expect to see in the near (we hope) future. 1.  Major generator work.  Cygnet is a 30 year old boat and her engines and generator are just as old. How many of you have a 30 year old car that starts and runs perfectly every time?  Well Cygnet was having some generator issues toward the end of last season and we decided to have a proper mechanic check it out.  Right now the generator looks like this: This doesn't look good. The mechanic (Tony's Marine Service) has taken the cylinder head and ex...

This past weekend we did what very few people get to do.  We got to spend the day on the Chicago River while it was dyed green for St. Patrick's Day.  In case you are not aware of how big a party St. Patrick's Day is in Chicago you need to understand that at one time Irish immigrants were the most populous group in the city.  That has changed quite a bit in the last few decades but the city is still full of people of Irish decent and we take this holiday seriously.  It's a day that people who aren't even Irish can pretend to be and have a great time with their fellow Chicagoans.  Since Kevin is 1/8th Irish and Colette is a smidge we go all out and spend most of the day enjoying all the various festivities this city has to offer.  We've been to the official parade made famous in The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford, we went to the last "real" South Side Irish parade before they had to cancel it for a couple years because it was getting out of hand, we've...

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 ...