Hunter the Sailor Cat

We smuggled them away in the dark of night. Swooped them into the carrier, brought the food and litter box and made our way for the harbor.

Hunter and Leo - two brothers with long white hair and orange spots - came from the anti-cruelty society eleven years ago, when they were just six weeks old. They have all their claws, most of their teeth, some extra meat on their bones, and have never been outside.

It's hard to tell which one is the alpha cat. Leo is more agile, more adventurous, more likely to pick on his brother. Hunter likes to lounge around and get his belly rubbed, and doesn't always cover his shit in the litter box.

Cats have lived on board boats for centuries - they guard against rats. But I was skeptical these city cats would actually survive Mazurka.

The first night we let them out on deck, where they roamed for just a bit before making their way for the door. Hunter plopped in the middle of the bed. "So this is where you've been spending all your time," he seemed to say, and started purring. Leo retreated to a cupboard.

The following afternoon, in the brief window of sunlight, we brought them up to the fly bridge. Leo crouched low, mewing, uncertain of the rocking or his footing, and returned to the cupboard. But Hunter stood tall on the fly bridge, surveying the harbor, the wind blowing his fur back. He looked like a true sailor cat, worthy of the high seas.

You never know how living on the water will change somebody - even a loafing eleven year-old cat.

But sympathy pains got to him, and pretty soon, Hunter started hiding in the cupboard with his brother. Every unfamiliar sound frightened them. When I came home from work, they stayed hidden away, rather than greeting me at the door. They hovered low to the ground, ate thought they weren't pestering me for food as usual, and they ceased scrapping in the middle of the night. I worried they would never get used to boat life, even in a placid harbor.

Then one evening we started the engine and took the boat for a ride. I was certain this would send them over the feline psychological edge. They stayed in their cupboard the whole trip. Except at the end, Leo emerged slowly, with a familiar glint in his eye. We took him up to the fly bridge, by the wheel, and he started to purr. He was just waiting to be captain.

Since then, they are back to their old troublemaking selves, as if they've lived aboard Mazurka their entire lives.

I can see now why cats and boats go together. Besides the teams of mice and rats to chase, there's the maze of shelves and levels to climb; cats don't need a lot of space on the ground - they need space up. Hunter and Leo balance with their thick orange tails, and when the boat blows in the wind, they rock with it. There are small spaces to crawl into, dark places to hide. There are ropes and birds. There is always something going on, something to observe, something to get right in the middle of - like a coiled rope - and plop right down.

How to Win the River Rat Bonehead Award

"Well, there's really not much to tell, except that I just had the boat for like a month, and I never pumped out the holding tank before. It was getting dark, and I hooked it all up, but I had trouble screwing the fitting onto the pump out. It's a male fitting - and the pump out has a female fitting that you connect it to - you screw the male fitting into it, and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't screwing in right. So I just forced it in there. And I started pumping out. I noticed that there wasn't much coming out, so I figured, it must be empty. I pumped it for a while - seemed like I had pumped it all out - waited for a while - seemed empty. So I undid it.

"My mom told me I should put bleach down the holding tank - keep it nice and fresh - so I poured a cup of bleach down after I was done, put the cap back on, went to bed. No problem. 'Cept when I woke up in the morning, I realized that I pumped out my fuel tank. I was going to work and I looked over there and said, my God, I just poured bleach down my fuel tank. That was the worst thing. I knew I didn't pump out any fuel, 'cause there's a hose that goes all the way to the bottom of the pump out tank, but the fuel tank doesn't have that.

"First of all, I thought about this filtering system in my tanks. The previous owner had conditioned the boat to go to the Bahamas. You never know, you might get bad fuel when you're away, so he rigged up this system called a fuel polisher that would clean the fuel after fill up to pull out any water or dirt that might contaminate the fuel, preventing it from going into your engine. So I turned on the fuel polisher, thinking I should just run it for a while. The tanks were pretty full with fuel. So I put the fuel polisher on, and I went to work.

"That was my other mistake.

"I was up on the hospital unit and I got a page from River City saying there was an oil slick behind my boat, and the City of Chicago had called them. The lady who I rented the slip from called me and said, you know, you have a fuel leak, you better get over here right now. I was thinking about the fuel polisher I turned on and I thought maybe something sprung a leak and was pumping all the fuel into the river and was siphoning out - I have a bilge pump, and if it filled up, it might be pumping out through the bilge. I panicked and raced to the boat.

"When I got there, first thing I did was go down to the engine room. But there was no fuel in the bilge. 'Course, the polisher was still running, so I shut that off...or did I shut that off? I didn't shut that off right away - I noticed there was fuel coming out of the side of the boat and I couldn't understand why. I got in my dinghy and paddled around the boat, trying to figure out where the leak was. My friend Doug told me, 'You gotta get out of the water - you can't look suspicous!'

"The fuel was foaming in the tank and was coming out of the breather, creating this oil slick. So I shut off the polisher and went out there and was wiping down the boat. It took a while to stop foaming. I had this bubbling system hooked up in front of the boat called the de-icer - I turned that on and pushed all the oil down away from my boat, down by Doug's boat. And then as I was getting everything cleaned up, I went inside, and I saw the Chicago Police boat coming toward me. I ducked down and hid, peeking out over the top of the door. It's a $10,000+ fine for dumping fuel in the water. Huge fine. They call conservation, it's a mess. Lawyer fees, all that stuff. Jail. Newspapers. Tribune photo.

"The police came up, they kept going. They didn't see anything."

Later that year, Mark received the Bonehead Award from the River Rats. It's a white plastic bone that fits over his head. He keeps it on the shelf beside a Cochina doll from Chinle, a certificate from completing the Birkebeiner, a photo from his first communion, a picture of his sweetheart, and his other most valued items.

Nobody Likes Poop on the Poop Deck

Part of the joys of living aboard a boat is that you carry your own things - water, food, supplies, tools, fuel, and, of course, your own shit.

As well as the shit of anyone else you have had on board, from friends and family to colleagues, a gospel choir, and B.B. King's daughter, who crashed a party we had several weeks ago, cleaning out the cooler and taking with her the last sad can of unwanted Budweiser before she left.

We have been hauling this shit in a tank beneath the v-berth for almost three weeks now. There is no alarm to tell us it's full, no polite voice to warn us it's time we pumped out: no, you know the shit tank is full when it starts to overflow.

Now, rational people that we are, nobody want to reach this point. But it's not always easy to estimate just how much shit has collected in the tank until you start to see a gurgling when you flush the toilet. There are two manual heads on board, so you pump a handle to fill the bowl with water, which often creates a suction that pulls the waste down into the tank. But you cannot always rely on this method to suck out your waste, which I learned shortly after I started dating Mark.

Early in a romantic relationship (hell, maybe even after 20 years of marriage), women may be squeamish about having a bowel movement with their new love interest in the next room. Particularly if that next room is separated by a paper-thin wall aboard a boat. I just couldn't do my business if Mark was around. But one morning, I awoke to find he had already left for work. I got ready for work in the usual way, but when I flushed the toilet, it wouldn't go down. I kept pumping the handle while the bowl filled with more and more water, till I was certain it would overflow. I panicked, petrified that Mark would come home from work to find shit soup in his bathroom. I ran to the galley for a plastic cup and knife. Carefully, I ladled the liquid down the bathtub drain. (Later, I learned that "grey water" from the sinks goes directly out of the boat. You're not even supposed to let the Chicago River water touch your skin, so it's not like I did major damage, but still....) With the knife, I chopped the waste into smaller bits and tried to flush again - no suction! The bowl filled with more water. I ladled more out until, mortified and late for work, I closed the lid on the toilet and left. I called Mark from my office and warned him that the toilet was clogged. He later told me that by the time he got home, the bowl was empty - but who knows if he was only saying that to save my pride.

I was terrified of the toilet after that, and only used it in emergencies. Of course, a weekend on a boat can summon an emergency, and several weeks later I ran into the same situation - this time with Mark on board. I closed the toilet lid and called for him. "Don't look inside - just tell me what I need to do." He came into the head. "You're not doing it right," he said. "You have to push the lever down to flush it down - the way you're doing it just pumps water in."

This crucial lesson became part of the tour I give new guests aboard Mazurka: throw your toilet paper in the garbage, pump the handle, push the lever down, pump some more.

By now Mark and I have gotten past the embarrassment of bowel movements; we've graduated to pumping out the waste together.

Pump out is a two-person job, and one you can only do with someone you truly respect. First, you must find a pump out station, which any respectable marina offers. You will know it by the big white box, the yellow and black striped hose. After tying up to the dock, attach the end of the hose into the sewage outlet port in your boat - on Mazurka, it's on the port side near the bow. (Mark once mixed this up with the fuel intake port, but that's another story...which won him the River Rat Bonehead award for the year.) Make sure you attach the hose into the sewage port before hitting the green button on the white box. This starts the suction, and you will feel the sewage pumping out. Some hoses even have a clear window so you can see it coming out. Pour bleach down the heads for good measure. If the sewage tank has overflown, you will need to pump out the bilge in the bow of the boat, too. Use lots of bleach.

An important final step is to make sure you shut off the pump before disengaging it. Chris, one of the few women I know who lives aboard a boat, once made the mistake of pulling out the hose before shutting it off; City of Chicago shit spewed everywhere, and covered her from head to toe. She dropped the hose and stripped off her clothes right on the dock, then high-tailed it to the shower, leaving a trail of shit along the way. "If you live on a boat," she warns, "one day it'll happen to you, too."

I believe it, with the inept and drunken boaters I see pumping out at the end of each weekend. I heed her warning every time I get ready to push that green button.

Late Leaver

Harbor life in Chicago lasts from May 15 - October 15. Unless you get an extended pass for "Late Leaver" status, which allows you to stay in a harbor with available fuel - Burnham, Belmont, or Diversey - until November 15. Mark and I are perpetually late. So as the geese are flying south, we migrated north from Monroe to Belmont.

Belmont is a neighborhood and a street a half mile south of Wrigley Field, bordering Boys' Town and Lakeview, with once anti-hip now ultra-hip stores like "The Alley," and the Theater Building, and the Japanese Spa "Thousand Waves," and a sprawl of restaurants like "Chicago Diner," which has the best vegetarian and vegan food anywhere (okay, maybe it's technically in Boys' Town, but they all start to blend together after awhile). When I was in college at proper Northwestern during the Clinton era, Belmont was where you took the el from Evanston just to walk on the street in Chicago and feel kinda grungy, kinda hip, kinda cool.

Belmont Harbor is also one of the most beautiful parts of the Chicago lakefront, and our new autumn home.

When we set sail late Saturday afternoon, the sun was setting behind the skyscrapers, the eastern sky a painter's palette of unreal pastel pinks and blues. Just outside Monroe Harbor, Mark gave me the helm. I drove around Navy Pier, past the calm waters east of the Hancock Building (nicknamed "the playpen" by boaters), and out past the breaker wall, heading north. The radio blasted the Rollings Stones, "We gotta get outta this place," and the wind picked up, the waves rose, and I drove into them, aiming Mazurka further to the northeast, my eye on the red light north of us.

We arrived in complete darkness and sailed our way inside, protected on the east by a narrow peninsula of trees. The rows of docks welcomed us with their warm yellow lampposts. Most of the boats were already gone for the season, and we coasted right into the slip of our choosing on Dock G. After adjusting the fenders, tying up, coiling the lines on the dock, plugging in (ah, shore power...), we walked right off the dock to our car and drove downtown to see a concert.

When we returned after 11 PM, there was a security guard parked at the entrance to the harbor. He flashed his lights at us. Mark drove up in his "land boat," an '81 Delta 88 Oldsmobile, Brougham Royale, with thick white duct tape holding up the passenger window and green Mardi Gras beads hanging from the rear view mirrow. "My boat," was all Mark had to say, and we were waved in.

We slept soundly that night, protected from the waves and wind, and woke up to sunlight and autumn trees. We ran along the lakeshore, later crossed LSD and the beautiful old high rises to find groceries, then grilled tuna steaks with a view of downtown, the top lights of the Hancock darkened to make sure the geese find the right way to Florida.

On Monday night, returning from a movie after 11 PM, we turned off LSD at Recreation Drive, turned right, and there was the gate - locked. Park hours are from 6 AM - 11 PM. Mark hopped out in the pouring rain and checked the lock. Big yellow gate, big red sign, big thick lock. He got back in the car. I figured he'd turn back to the parking lot beside the tennis courts, and we would huff it the half mile in the rain to the boat. He started the car forward - and then, in true Yooper style, drove his land boat up onto the curb and around the gate.

We're living in a gated community - but they can't keep us out for long.

Blow, Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks!

Mark and I went to see King Lear at the Goodman Theater. The Goodman has some of the highest budget theater around, and this production, directed by Robert Falls and starring Stacey Keach, had elaborate halls, kitchens, chandeliers, urinals, cars, and, of course, the storm.

At the beginning of the third act, when Lear is going mad, raging against the elements, Keach stood at the edge of the stage in an undershirt, rain pouring over him, and howled, “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” You can’t help but feel good for him in that moment, because he is free from his daughters Goneril and Regan, free from the political constraints of kingship and court life. He is just himself – and whatever physical and spiritual strength still in him – at the whim of nature. And even though it’s a tragedy and you know he’s bound for the worst, you think in that moment that he’s going to win.

After everybody died and Edgar spoke the last word, we poured out onto the downtown sidewalk. It was bitterly cold – unusual for mid-October – and late; the fountains broadcasting electronic faces in Millennium Park were dark, taxis were thinning, even the panhandlers were growing weary. “She’s beautiful,” one said as we passed him by, “and she loves you.” By the time we walked the 20 minutes to the harbor, it was pouring rain, freezing drops blowing sideways in the western wind. The tenders had stopped service. We had to row home.

When I tell people I’ve just met about living aboard Mazurka, the inevitable first question is, “Yes, but what do you do in winter?” I have a standard answer: “There’s a heater, and Mark rigged up a furnace, it’s insulated, he wraps the whole thing in plastic. There’s a bubbler to keep the water circulating around the boat.” They look at me like I’m crazy – like it’s impossible to live on a boat in a Chicago winter. “Mark’s done it for two years,” I explain.

I always end my spiel with, “It’s not that bad. It’s pretty nice, actually. And how cold does Chicago get, anyway?”

The real answer, of course, is that it can get bad, very bad, and Chicago is damn cold, especially when the wind blows. Sure, there are January days when the sun shines and the wind is calm and the heater works and the furnace works and the plastic stays in place. Those days are even balmy. But on nights when the furnace pumps cold air, and the wind beats the plastic to hell and slithers up under the windows, and the temperature falls below zero, and the air sucks all the heat out of the river, and the water starts to cool…then it is not a vacation. Then you develop a different relationship to winter. It goes beyond just tolerating the cold, waiting it out – you have to like the cold, embrace it, invite it to bed with you –

It’s hard to explain why you would subject yourself to conditions like this when there are perfectly good heated apartments available in every neighborhood of the city. It’s hard to explain why you would want to row in the dark, freezing rain, or that when the wind caught us up and swooped us beyond Mazurka, I suddenly didn’t feel cold or wet anymore – I felt exhilarated. Would we be unable to row back? Would the wind take us all the way to the breaker wall, where we would wait out the night in miserable wet solitude? Mark rowed harder, trying to catch the stern of Mazurka, which was curving back and forth in the water, a whale not wanting to be caught. The freezing wind whipped snot from our faces, tears from our eyes, spewed ice cold lake water on us. We finally hooked the tail of the swim deck, scrambled aboard, skirted the ice on deck and spent the night under blankets in a cabin registering 41 degrees.

Winter is coming. And eventually, I will lose. But as long as I have strength to withstand the cold, I’ll rage against it. “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” I’ll howl – ‘cause Lear didn’t lose his sanity in the elements – he found it.

Drawer Space

Every newly married couple faces the challenge of combining two lives into one. This summer when Mark and I attended the Precana weekend (the Catholic way of preparing for marriage...an intense weekend retreat with 14 other couples), where to live was a hot topic for everyone. One couple in their late 60s (first marriage for both) had just bought a condo; they advised us to get condo hunting quick. Another couple was moving into the groom's place since he owned and the bride rented. "He said he didn't mind me moving his stuff out of the way..." she said skeptically.

At that time, Mark and I had yet to decide where we would live. I couldn't imagine him living in a tiny overpriced two-bedroom condo, or renting my apartment. I couldn't imagine him living on land at all. But could I imagine myself living on water?

And as the opportunity was presenting itself, could I turn away?

Mazurka is a nice sized trawler: 38 feet long, a forward cabin with a v-berth, aft cabin with a double bed, two bathrooms (one with a shower), and a salon with a kitchen and a table. It is also a bachelor's trawler: the dorm-sized refrigerator is filled with salami, cheese, and steak; the front closet is stuffed with winter coats and fishing gear. Open any drawer and you'll find it overflowing with electrical connectors, wire splicers, flat-head screwdrivers and wrenches (one of our best wedding gifts, in fact, is a Snap-on adjustable wrench with our names and date engraved on the handle).

So now we get down to it. The generator working (sort of), I am faced with moving on board. Not just a backpack, not just for the weekend. We've come to the precipice, the end of long, hot baths and chairs with ottomans. I've been up front about my trepidation, while trying to keep an adventurous spirit. But now my books and desk are bound for storage, and I have to decide which cooking spices I absolutely can't live without. Half my clothes are going to Good Will, the other half into boxes until the seasons change. Plants go to work, furniture to anyone who can haul it away.

I am trying to think of the spiritual value of living a life of very few belongings. 'Cause in about a week, my life's satchel is going to be reduced to nine narrow drawers, a foot-wide closet, and a bathroom big enough to stand in.

Our Morning Commute

A person's daily commute has a bigger impact on their overall happiness than more expected factors, like how much sleep you get at night, or how much money you make. The longer, the more congested your commute, the more unhappy you are overall.

The average Chicago-area commute to work is 33.2 minutes. Thousands of people each day climbing into their cars with coffee, headsets, I-Pods, books on tape, and, after a costly swing by the gas station, sitting in traffic, stop and go, stop and go, anticipating the long day ahead.

At 45 minutes, our morning commute from Mazurka is a bit longer than most Chicagoans.

On a cold, autumnal morning, the sky filled with brilliant sun, a line of cumulous clouds laces the eastern horizon of Lake Michigan. The southwest wind clanks like through aluminum cans as it turns the wind generators atop fifty sailboats. We emerge on deck wearing work clothes and soft shell jackets. At the stern, Mark climbs down to the swim deck and pulls the dinghy from its spot floating just six feet behind Mazurka. The dinghy is eight feet long, its tags from New York, given to us in exchange for Alaskan halibut.

It has sunk at least once, in a storm; Mark came out in the morning to find it missing, then hauled it up on a line, and later rowed with one oar, till he spotted the other oar floating a hundred yards toward the south end of the harbor, along with a cushion. This was the last time he left the oars in the dinghy overnight.

The first time I climbed into the dinghy, Mark warned me that if it sinks, it's going straight to the bottom. He's bought two inflatable life jackets to save us - thin, compressible, able to fit into a briefcase, and also able to inflate in that briefcase, which Mark learned when he accidentally pulled the cord at work.

The dinghy is a kind boat, a devoted boat, but untrustworthy, in the same way you can't blame your clumsy friend for missing the free throw. It's a wonder your friend can dribble down the court at all.

It is this boat - so small its name has been forgotten (though other dinghies earn such respect as "Bare Necessities" and "Half and Half") - into which Mark places his briefcase each morning before climbing in. I hand him the oars, he tosses me the rope, I give over my backpack. Oars in place, bags secured in the bow, I climb in and push off. I sit in the stern, facing Mark, legs together and between his knees. We sit so close I can smell his toothpaste and cologne.

The first leg of our commute is a half mile, straight shot through rows "Hotel" and "India." Mark rows, his back to shore, while I point him in a direction if he gets off course. Since the wind is from the southwest, the water is relatively calm; from the northeast and we'd be waiting on Mazurka for the tender. We glide past the Julianna, a beautiful blue sailboat from Indiana, the Sea Haven, the Top Gun. The air is infused with color more than sound - the intensifying pink on the buildings of glass, the lightening blue of water. No one is out on the lake this morning, but as we come closer to shore, there are runners, and dog walkers, and the constant hum of morning traffic on Lake Shore Drive.

At the shore, Mark steadies the boat while I climb the ladder, unload the bags and the outdoor carpet (always rolled in the stern of the dinghy), which I place on the cement side of the wall to haul the dinghy over. We lock up the oars inside, chain the boat to the metal loop, and flip the boat over. We are downtown in a world class city.

The first leg of our commute complete, we walk 15 minutes down the lakefront to the motorcycle, and another 15 minute drive to the office.

People give all kinds of reasons for living on a boat: adventure, independence, the lifelong romantic dream. But really, it's about making the ordinary extraordinary. You still wash dishes every night, but you're scrubbing away while looking out over the white ribbon of a moonlit lake. You still pay bills, but you pay them from atop the fly bridge. You still have to commute to work, but instead of expressways and road rage, there is the sloshing of lakewater, the soaring of birds and wind, and the satisfaction of having rowed yourself to shore.

My Salad Blew off the Dinghy

My husband of four days called me at work this afternoon. "I just got here," he said. "It's really windy. There are white caps in the harbor. I don't think we should stay on board tonight." Then he added, "Your salad blew off the dinghy."

A head of red leaf lettuce, broccoli sprouts, sliced mushrooms...all flying off in the plastic bag over the lakeshore of downtown Chicago. Past Buckingham Fountain, past the orange-vested tourists on segways, around the bend of the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, rounding the Adler Planetarium, and off to who knows where. Gary, Indiana?

It's our effort to eat in and save money. In the year we dated, we frequented 4,500 of the 9,000 restaurants in Chicago. This alerted my provincial father. "I'd keep an eye out," he said. "Knows all the best restaurants, lives on a boat...probably got mafia ties."

My father's suspicions prompted me to email him Mark's cv, detailing more than a dozen years of an academic career in the health sciences. "Not a mafia guy," I assured him. "But just as strange."

In the first month we dated, I fell in love with the captain of the Mazurka, who lived on his boat year-round, wintering on the Chicago River, summering on Lake Michigan, with spectacular views of downtown Chicago, minus the congestion. During the winter months, he has a clear view of the Sears Tower, the only thing standing between them a remarkable plot of un-mowed, untended grass, the last piece of of undeveloped land in all of Chicago, where condo tenants who live in the beehive of River City let their dogs run free in the early evenings. When I started dating this river rat from the ultra-rural, upper-upper peninsula of Michigan, I marveled that he found his own place of nature in the third largest city in the country. When he took me out on the river for our first date, slicing between the cavernous walls of glass and steel, it amazed me that the city I had known for a decade could be so quiet, so private, so spacious.

I fell in love with him first because he loved nature, and could find it no matter where he lived.

And now, a little more than a year later, we are married. And I am going to live on his boat. Me, Hunter, and Leo: permission to come aboard for one city girl and two white, long-haired cats.

We may be entering treacherous waters.

Beginning two mornings after our wedding, when, for no explicable reason, the generator stopped working. Things like this sometimes happen: the refrigerator warms up, the xm radio fizzes out, the engine fills with water. Mark is good at figuring out how to fix things. But until he figures out if it's the filter or the glow plugs or the whole damn generator, with Mazurka tied to a can in Monroe Harbor, and no shore power, electricity, or hot water...we are staying at my apartment just a bit longer.