Water We Thinking

Well it took almost six weeks to restore power to River City after the flood of Sunday May 17.  In addition it took almost two months to get internet back.  That's why we haven't uploaded any new videos, our iPhone hotspots work, but 4K video takes a whole bunch of bandwidth.  Now that we have the ability to upload at will here is the latest installment of "What I Did on My Covid Vacation." Enjoy!

There are many aspects of living on a boat that people are curious about.  We've tried to write about many of them here but in all the time we've lived aboard we have never gotten one question that we think is actually an important one.  "What is it like to live at a marina?" Maybe there is a reason nobody asks, they just don't really care, or maybe they don't know that they should be asking that question.  You don't know what you don't know.  So in this post we want to give you an idea of what it's like to live at a marina. Sunrise at 31st St. Harbor. River City Let's face it, a marina is a floating trailer park.  Some folks may argue with this since you have the freedom to take your boat anywhere, boats are more of a recreational object than a trailer, some boats cost more than the collection of trailers in most parks, and boats are just cooler than a single-wide mobile home.  Maybe the analogy would be better to compare a marina...

We've tried to give you all a peek behind the curtain to see what it's like to live aboard a boat in Chicago.  Many of the posts we've written have been about our troubles, and since there is no shortage of work to do on Cygnet there have been many posts like that.  Overall we are still enjoying living aboard, and now that the weather is getting warm we are realizing how great it really is to be on a boat in Chicago all the time. Well, now it's time to brag a bit. We had the first party of the year on Cygnet and it was great.  We decided that the Kentucky Derby was a great excuse to have some friends over for a some mint juleps and conversation.  Kevin had a procedure done the day before so most of the prep work was done days before since he was pretty well out of commission the days of the surgery and the party.  We didn't realize just how dirty Cygnet had gotten through the winter.  We cleaned, wiped, scrubbed, and polished almost every inch of the aft ...

Above is the view from the Harrison St. Bridge just blocks from our marina.  The rounded building on the right is River City.  Beautiful evenings like this reaffirm our decision to move to the river downtown.  We're enjoying exploring our new neighborhood and all it has to offer.  The changes to our day-to-day living do not just stem from living on a floating vessel.  They also come from the neighborhood we live in, the loss of parking in a garage outside our back door, the lack of a basement to store our bikes in.  We are figuring out solutions as we go.  We found a parking space to rent in a high-rise apartment building right across the street from us, with space for one car, a motorcycle, and maybe two bikes hanging on the installed wall rack.  We're also testing out locking bikes up on our swim platform.  This is a more convenient spot to grab and go, but then we have to move them when we want to take the boat out on the water.  ...