"Thanks for putting up with me...

…I know it’s not your typical way of living in the city.”

Mark tells me this Sunday night as we’re walking to dinner, after a weekend full of winter preparations. Saturday was spent building the shrinkwrap structure (similar to a barn raising minus the teams of Amish to help), wrapping the boat in plastic, and waving a blowtorch to shrink the plastic. This year, we waited to buy the shrinkwrap until five inches of snow had fallen – which meant that all the rolls of 26x100 were gone, and we had to settle for 20x100. Seeing as Mazurka has a beam of 13 (the width across), 20 was cutting it close. (A little too close – we got creative with some tape in the bow.)

Note to wanna-be live aboards: shrinkwrap your boat before it snows, before it’s 20 degrees, before the sleet and freezing rain and plummeting temperatures make the 8-hour job almost unbearable.

By Sunday, there was more plastic to shrink, and then chores like filling the water tanks. Mazurka holds 150 gallons of fresh water, and we need to refill every 10 days or so. In the summer at Belmont Harbor, this is easy; you take the hose hung beside your boat, connected to the spigot beside your boat, you turn the water on. In the winter, docked on the wrong side of the marina, this job is a bit more complicated; the spigot is all the way on the other side of the marina, beside the condo building. There are no fewer than seven hoses that link together and snake along the docks, through the river, and up to our dock, and if just one of these hoses is not emptied properly, the remaining water will freeze, making it impossible to fill the tanks – which is exactly what happened. So Mark turned the water on and waited for the hoses to thaw. After our tanks filled, we went through the laborious process of emptying the hoses by draping them all over the marina.

Mark also installed the de-icer, the bubbling fan extended beneath Mazurka, which keeps the water circulating around the boat (and saved us last year when the river froze). There were some other odd jobs in there, too – to be honest, I don’t know what all he did, because by mid-afternoon I was back to my old ways and hiding inside at the computer with coffee and hot soup and two large, furry, personal portable heaters.

Everything is harder in the winter. The basics of filling water tanks and emptying sewage tanks (especially when the pump out hose bursts on a cold Wednesday night) are hard enough without battling the elements of snow and ice. This is about the time when I start asking, “Why are we doing this again?”

I have come up with three reasons:

1) I like adversity and battling the elements, the worse the better;
2) There’s something very comforting about settling down into a warm, protected cabin on the water, while the wind and snow and ice blow outside;
3) Living on a boat is cool, no matter what time of year.

Still, we’re both ready for a vacation – maybe some place tropical, maybe with backpacks and bicycles, maybe this Friday….

A Good Reason to Wrap Early

Who knew it would snow on December 5th?

All Wrapped Up for the Holidays

The River Rats (and other Rodents) love this time of year for decorating.


Find Mazurka in her holiday gift wrapping.

Ol' Man Winter Flexes

Last week I called my mom and told her we were getting ready for winter.

"Oh that's a pain," she said, "changing out all the summer clothes for winter ones."

That's not even the half of it.

If you are considering living onboard a boat in winter in CHICAGO, of all places, here is what you will need to prepare:

1. Plastic for the inside windows
2. An electric heater
3. A diesel furnace
4. 3-4 space heaters to put around the boat
5. Colored lights (if you're feeling festive)
6. Super strong duct tape to seal up every vent (and there are many)
7. Strips of grey sponge with adhesive backs to seal up the cracks around doors and anything else
8. Shrinkwrap. This is a whole 'nother chapter and future blogs will include a complete lesson in how to build a structure and then wrap your boat in plastic and shrink the plastic tight as a drum with the equivolant of a flame thrower.

We learned a lot last year, especially when the Chicago River froze and Mazurka was locked in the ice like Shackleton's Endurance. We learned so much that PassageMaker Magazine (THE trawler and ocean motorboat magazine) is going to feature an article about our adventures in its January/February issue.

Here's hoping we avoid a repeat performance this year.

You Wanna Put it Where?

Ever since the laundry fiasco, the captain has been obsessed about getting a washer and dryer for the boat. He’ll wake up at 4 AM and start researching them online. When we come home at night, the first thing he does is get the tape measure and start measuring areas in the forward cabin, near the bathroom. He’s ready to pull out the counter, cut into the closet, destroy the drawers beneath the bunk. Last weekend when we visited Jill and Scott, they spent all afternoon discussing where it could go. Mind you, they weren’t on the boat – this was all hypothetical. Call it a visualization exercise.

Tonight I’m sitting in my bathroom when I hear Mark just outside with the tape measure. “I think I found a spot,” he says. “In the engine room, where the litter box is. We’d have to find another place for the litter.”

“Are you really going to do this,” I call out to him.

“What – don’t you want it?”

I think for a second. A washer/dryer combo is expensive, bulky, troublesome to install, and quite frankly, I don’t think it’s going to really wash and dry our clothes. There are a million Laundromats in this city. For a drive across the State of Illinois or Michigan, we can do our laundry for free.

“No,” I decide. “It’s not worth the hassle.”

“I just like thinking about where it would go,” Mark says.

I don’t entirely believe him. He has an intensity of thought and a singleness of purpose that is admirable, but could also result in a huge washer/dryer sitting in the middle of the salon, too big to fit anywhere on the boat, reducing our 12 feet of living space to ten. Oh, when you live on a project....

Cruising South for the Winter

For the last few weeks, we have watched Belmont Harbor clear out for the season. It was an especially sad day to see our neighbors aboard the Harbor Dog go; I stood on the dock and waved as Steve and Cindy cruised off toward dry dock.

On Sunday it was our turn. We spent a couple hours packing up Lil Choppin, securing the bikes and plants on board, hauling out the winter lines and putting away the summer ones. Mark organized the lazarette with all our gear. We filled the water tanks, pumped out the sewage, and were on our way.

We were still a little leery of the lake after it claimed three of us last week. The wind had changed direction, so instead of riding rolling waves, we were tossed about in choppy water from all sides. Still, the ride was surprisingly smooth, the weather warm and sunny, and we ate caramel apples as we cruised south for the winter.

We were reticent to leave the trees of Lincoln Park, but we get to trade them in for giants of glass and steel. Now, instead of the constant hum of Lake Shore Drive traffic, we have trains and barges. Instead of watching runners gleefully racing outside on the bike path, I watch runners like rats on treadmills in River City Bally’s. I can sit at my home office and listen to the tour boat guides all day. “And to your left, you’ll see River City, which looks just like the corncob of Marina Towers. That’s no coincidence – they were built by the same architect!” And in the South Loop, we are in the midst of the biggest gentrification this city has ever seen: I counted seven cranes on the skyline yesterday, new condos have gone up over the summer, and we are now within walking distance of the newest, biggest, glossiest Whole Foods in the city. There’s even talk of the property just north of us – the beautiful green space that has survived the jackhammers – finally breaking ground for – you guessed it – more condos.

Hasn’t the housing market fallen through?

Developments like these make the captain nervous – he fears that one day, the whole river will be developed and there won’t be anywhere for live aboards to spend the winter.

By that time, global warming will be in full effect, and the lake will be hospitable year-round.

It’s Nothing Personal

When you live on the water, it’s easy to forget that the lake is not our friend. As much as she means to us – the amazing peace and tranquility and beauty she brings – she is also as vicious and as changeable as a woman scorned. As much as we think we know her, as many years as we may have spent with her, she can turn in a second. We don’t really know her at all.

Our hearts go out to the families of the three experienced sailors who were killed last week in treacherous water, when their sailboat slammed into the breakwater at 95th Street, and to the Chicago Fire Department and the Coast Guard for risking their own safety in the rescue and recovery.

Deep Sea Communication

Every time I climb on board Mazurka, I clutch everything tightly to me - keys, phone, laptop, wallet - because the inevitable can always happen, when making the leap from pier to deck; in the deceptively short six inches of just-a-step, you can lose what you need most.

This has not happened to me yet.

Nor had it happened to Mark, which was somewhat surprising because he has a tendency to lose most everything. Until last Friday morning when he was out on deck, putting out an extra fender and somehow, as he leaned over the railing, the rail knocked into the cell phone holstered to his belt; the phone went flying into the air and landed with a plop into the water below.

He came racing into the cabin. "I dropped my phone in the water. Oh my god, I'm sick about it. It had my whole calendar. I haven't synced in months."

I thought of stories I had heard about people dropping cell phones into stranger places - such as latrines in India - and retrieving the phone, letting it dry out, and finding it worked good as new. I had the same experience when my phone was caught out in the rain. After a day of buzzing, it dried out and I was able to use it. I reassured my husband. "We can get it."

The lucky thing about docking on A Street is that the water is less than six feet deep below us, and often, we can see the bottom. While the salmon fishermen watched us from across the harbor, we attempted to shield the sun so we could see to the bottom - no luck. "I'm just sick about it," Mark kept repeating. "Try the net," I said. "But what will that do?" he asked. "I can't even see it." "Try dredging the bottom," I suggested, "right where you dropped it."

Against his better judgment, he did as I advised. One sweep, nothing. The second sweep, and up came the cell phone. We erupted into cheers, causing the fishermen across the way to wonder if we'd come upon a new method for catching salmon.

I wish I could tell you that in 24 hours the phone was good as new. This is not the case. All of Mark's information from the last six weeks is gone forever to the bottom of Belmont Harbor.

The good news is that, while waiting for his new phone to come, Mark was able to borrow Mazurka's phone, the one that will call him if there's an emergency on the boat. So as long as we don't burst a pipe in the next couple days, we'll be just fine.

It's Snagging Season

The salmon are here.

And so are the fishermen. They surround the boat, jumping the fence and fishing off the piers. From inside Mazurka, it feels like we are under attack.

Wednesday afternoon, I was working at home when I noticed men six feet from our home hurling fishing lines off the piers and vigorously reeling them in. It’s called snagging: the idea is that you throw a heavy lure out and reel in fast, hoping your hook will “snag” a fish. It’s not really fishing, and it’s not legal.

I went outside and chatted up the fishermen; their whole family was standing in front of our boat, watching them. I did some outdoor chores, like filling the water tanks. For the most part, I don’t really care that people jump the fence and fish – that’s their business, and they’re not really hurting anything. Often, they get the point when they see me around – they’re not supposed to be on the docks; they can fish from the other side; they usually leave.

Thursday afternoon, there’s a new set of fishermen. I was cooking dinner, and so I repeated my performance, going outside, doing chores. I asked one guy casting close to us what he was fishing for – he explained the salmon have come in, and in a month they’ll be feeding and you can catch them on lures, but for now, you have to snag them. He says they’re okay to eat because they come from way out in the lake. He was very excited because it was his mother’s birthday, and she loves salmon, and they were going to fix her a surprise salmon dinner.

I watched him snag two fish right in a row, calling to one of his partners (with a whistle sounding eerily similar to calls used on the street to run drugs); his partner came by with his pole, snagged the fish, and they hauled it up together. I asked if I could take their picture; they proudly agreed.

One after another the salmon were snagged, brought in, two or three feet long, and heaved over the fence. The guys worked quickly, like thieves – they began to get greedy, rushing to the end of piers, looting the harbor for all the fish they could snag, while Mark and I sat eating dinner, under siege.

And then somebody spoiled the fun and called the police. Two squad cars showed up. The cops kept two of the guys at the fence for a long time, checking their licenses. One of their teammates evaded the police and lay on the dock, before finally crawling onto the back of a boat and ducking down, waiting. The cops took all their salmon – 7 or 8 long, strong fish – and heaved them over another fence, into the bird sanctuary. It was disappointing and a sad to think of these salmon just a few days earlier, large and free, swimming cold, deep Lake Michigan. And then they made the mistake of coming into Belmont Harbor, snagged by thieving fishermen, thrown as a feast for thieving raccoon.

The hiding fisherman sat on the back of a boat for a very long time, after his friends were let go, while the cops still milled around. By this time we were out on deck, getting ready to push off and head for the pump out dock. The guy on the back of the boat started to get up. I motioned for him to stay put, that the cops were still there. He sat back down quietly.

As we approached the pump out dock, the police had worked their way down the harbor, asking for driver’s licenses, fishing licenses, checking poles and lures. One of them helped us tie up. The fishermen with licenses and legitimate lures were allowed to stay, others had to leave.

It was pretty quiet on our end of the harbor for the rest of the night, but the fishermen stayed throughout the rest of the harbor. At 2 AM, Mark went out to check the bumpers (they had turned in the wind and Mazurka was hitting the dock). When he came back to bed, he described the line of fishermen opposite Mazurka, reeling in fish. This morning at 5:30, the harbor was still teeming.

A Year and a Day

Last summer, when Mark and I were planning our wedding and figuring out where we were going to live, I committed to one year on Mazurka.

I know my patterns. A lot of times, when thrust into a new situation, I fight and kick and scream and try everything I can to escape - until I just surrender, and then I really, really like it. Like Kindergarten. Like Chicago; for the first two years in this city, I wanted to run screaming like it was still on fire. And then I settled down and realized everything this city has to offer and that it's a fantastic place to live.

I thought maybe the same thing would happen with Mazurka, so I promised to live a full year on board. If I hated it after a year, we could move to land.

On September 30th, we celebrated a year of marriage, a year of living together on this boat. And though there have been some challenges (like the river freezing, the heating system going out, the pump-out overflowing, and trying to prove our Chicago residence), not for one second have I wanted to live anywhere else.

I love Mazurka.

I love coming home to nature every day, in the middle of a huge city. I love the transitory nature of our home - that we are meant to move, that nothing is ever intended to be permanent. And I love lying in bed at night, watching the ripples of water reflected on the ceiling above us.

Mazurka has converted me into a true live aboard.

And for our anniversary, we spent the weekend on the move, riding Mark's motorcycle seven hours north to Door County, and island hopping via ferry to Washington Island and Rock Island. Call it reconnaissance for next year's mission to take Mazurka up through Death's Door....

20% Discount

The captain and crew of the Mazurka have been pretty busy these days. Life on a boat is not all recreation – there are jobs to attend, money to earn. So lately, things around the boat have not been so ship-shape. Groceries haven’t been bought, floors haven’t been swept, and the laundry – the laundry has been collecting under stairways for weeks.

In his bachelor days, Mark used to take his laundry to the River City cleaners. When I came on board, I thought $75 for two weeks of laundry was too expensive. Give me a roll of quarters and a few hours and I’ll do it for ten bucks. We also have no shame about doing our laundry at our parents’ and siblings’ houses.

On a recent deceptively-free afternoon, I tore off the quilt and comforters, stuffed them into a bag, and proclaimed the laundry would be done. That was a week ago. Since then we have been slumbering under a sleeping bag, the laundry spilling around us. Mark had suggested taking the laundry in to the cleaners, but I refused, saying it cost too much.

By last Saturday morning, there was nothing left to wear. Mark piled everything we had into two huge bags and found a laundry just across Lake Shore Drive. The guy was amazed we lived on a boat, and promised to have it done by Tuesday. He didn’t speak great English, and some things were lost in translation…but he said not to worry, he would take care of everything.

The laundry was a day late. “I’ve never seen so much,” the guy told Mark. “I’m still working on it.”

“What does he have to work on?” I asked Mark. “Just throw it in the washer and dryer and fold it.”

Tonight when I got home, Mark was waiting for me. “Is the laundry here?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “You’ve never seen such clean clothes.” “How much was it?” I asked. “Well,” my husband said, “we’re not taking any vacations for a while.”

I started guessing. “More than $100? More than $200?”

The grand total – at a 20% discount – $380.

What did we get for our $380? An amount which made Mark’s hand shake while he wrote the check, and compelled me to call the launderer and complain that this was dishonest work that we never asked for? What did we get?

Ever single item in those two bags was dry cleaned and ironed, including oven mitts, ball caps, and t-shirts. The launderer worked tirelessly to get oil stains out of Mark’s work clothes and sweat stains out of my running sweatshirt. The sheets were ironed and packed neatly into plastic bags. My underwear was safety pinned to hangers in perfect descending order. This man took more pride in cleaning our laundry than I have for cleaning the entire boat. He even included eleven pages of notes detailing his week’s work.

Our one and only time at Lakefront Cleaners resulted in the cleanest, crispest clothes we have ever had on board.

“Everybody always wants dry cleaning,” the launderer told me on the phone, apologizing (but not offering any money back – after all, he had the check in hand). “Next time I will know what you want.”

There won’t be a next time for Lakefront Cleaners. We’re going back to rolls of quarters and waiting for 25 cent washers. It’s worth three hours of my time.

A Day at the Races

For the past four years, Mazurka has served as safety boat for the Flatwater Classic, the annual canoe and kayak race down the Chicago River. Sponsored by Friends of the River, the race starts on the north side at Addison, winds its way south through downtown, and crosses the finish line in Chinatown.

This year, we had not one, but three safety boats. Mark captained the Mazurka; Carl captained his zodiac raft; and I captained our zodiac, fondly named “Li’l Choppin.”

I was excited about being captain. The day before, I pumped water from the little zodiac, which had been sitting out through too many thunderstorms and had collected a good foot of rain. I scrubbed her down, painted on her name and little musical notes. I don’t know what came over me; I’d never yearned to be captain, yet here I was, stroking the little raft the way I watched Mark pat Mazurka.

It’s a love thing, between a captain and a boat.

Race day started early. After receiving our orders, we cruised out with our crew – Sharyl, Scott, Myke, and Carl – before 8:30. We locked through at Navy Pier and took a deep breath – it had been all summer since we’d been on the River. We missed its quiet, calm sense of purpose.

Mark brought Mazurka in front of the Merchandise Mart, and we started setting up the zodiacs with motors and gear. Sharyl was my first mate – a physician on call for the weekend – but with her pager and cell phone, she could answer pages from the water (which she did). We headed north, not quite sure where we were supposed to be – or, to be quite honest, how to drive the boat.



Now wait – I’ve driven the zodiac once. And as a kid my dad used to let me pull the cord on the outboard motor on his 14 ft fishing boat. I mean, I was pretty sure I was going to figure it out. Still, as we were floating away, I called to Mark, “Which one is the throttle?”

After a quick course (outboard motors are forgiving) we secured our location where the river forks, just north of downtown. Our job as safety boat was to keep racers against the west wall, out of the way of huge tour boats and any other crafts coming down the river.



Paddlers descended the river for the next four hours, in everything from long canoes with crews of 20, to a single kayaker bent on winning. (One intense dude ignored our directions to stay to the west, later cursed Mark and Myke and Mazurka for being in his way, and later still tipped his kayak and had to get help from Carl and Scott. I think he lost.) Families came in kayaks and canoes (one mom was towing her daughter’s kayak), construction workers and pirates, and a lone racer standing atop his board, paddling with a long oar.

We refueled once, and when I shut off the motor, we experienced what the racers heard the entire way – the stillness of the River in a huge urban landscape.

And there is something very cool about motoring down the Chicago River towards the Sears Tower and seeing your house floating at the base of so much steel and glass.


At the end, we tied up in Ping Tom Park in Chinatown and celebrated with the racers and volunteers, grateful for this awesome city.

After a day in Li’l Choppin, the captain bite is strong…I think it’s time I learn to parallel park Mazurka.

Bow thrusters, I fear you not.

Hot Water, Cold Water, No Water, Way Too Much Water

Our six-gallon water heater is leaking. The captain tried fixing it, but it’s on its way out. To keep it from leaking too much, we are turning off the water pressure unless we need to shower or wash dishes.

This leaking water heater happened about the same time diesel started appearing in the engine oil, at the rate of about two gallons a trip.

Nothing on a boat is stable for very long. After nearly a year on board (yes, our newlywed year is almost up), I’ve learned not to get excited and not to get upset when I wake up and there’s no water and the floor of the salon is gone and my husband is in the engine room in his underwear with a manual and a bunch of tools. This is life on a boat.


The small things make me grateful. Now that the six-gallon heater is a goner, we can buy a new one – a bigger one – yes indeed, folks, our new water heater holds 10.5 gallons!

And a boat – as Noah knew – may be just the place to be when the world is coming to an end. Last week, as the rest of Chicago was pummeled by wind and rain and funnel clouds, Mazurka floated just fine, protected in this northern pocket of Belmont Harbor, with all her necessities self-contained, including a generator in case we lost power. (While her captain and first mate, however, rode a motorcycle through the second wave of the storm.)

So many of our long-limbed neighbors were not so lucky. The carnage is heartbreaking.

Male-Pattern Baldness

My friend Mark Mershon (also bald) named this photo. I was going to go with something flat and explanatory like, “While Sophie eats, Mark changes the oil with a hand pump.”

Socked In At Waukegan Harbor

This past weekend, the Mazurka party flag was up. Our complement: Mark, me, Mark's brother Scott, his wife Jill (who has been my best friend since junior high) and their three month-old baby Sophie.

The plan was to head north to fish for salmon. Instead, we encountered torrential rain and 20-30 knot winds and spent three days socked in at Waukegan Harbor, playing Risk and Blokus and eating sugary snacks. It was a great trip.

And if you’re going to be socked in anywhere, Waukegan is an interesting town. The harbor has laundry, showers, wifi, free coffee, and a friendly community of boaters.

Beyond the harbor, you have downtown Waukegan, home to Ray Bradbury, Jack Benny, the biker bar Hussey’s serving an incredible weekend breakfast, some interesting fountains, and a whole lot of riff-raff (present company excluded, of course).

At Night, Mazurka Becomes a Death Trap

As a kid, I read that spiders are a Native American symbol of creativity. I decided that I loved spiders and wanted them near me. Big ones, little ones, daddy-long-legs with freaky-long legs, and tiny ones crawling across my ceiling in the middle of the night. I never feared they might drop on my face while I slept – I revered them all.

Good thing, too, ‘cause now, I live with hundreds.

At night, Mazurka becomes a death trap. Spiders are everywhere, inside and outside the boat. In the mornings I inevitably stumble through an invisible sticky net on the way to make coffee. Their wide intricate webs from anchor to dock to fly bridge wave like delicate Japanese ladies’ fans, beckoning come hither with killer lace. At dusk, if you lie on the aft cabin and look up at the sky, all around the mast you will see spiders climbing and falling, tatting and spinning, tiny acrobats more intent on creating art than feasting on flies. In the mornings, their webs are strung with insects wrapped like lanterns, dangling secure in the breeze – a good breakfast after a long night of work.

The Summer Galley

Cooking and kitchen storage is easiest in winter when the cold weather provides extra refrigeration outside. On winter Sunday afternoons, Mark and I cook meals for the week and keep them stored outside under the shrink wrap. It’s a lot harder in summer when, without storage, you’re faced with only preparing what you will eat. And you are limited to eating just what you prepare. So after a long day of work when it’s 90 degrees and the restaurant budget is tapped, here’s how we’ve solved our challenge of the summer galley.

1) Shop Often. There’s really no way to get around this one. I think of it as the European way. Shopping frequently helps you eliminate waste and eat fresher food. It does take more time throughout the week – three trips to the grocery store as opposed to one or two – but it takes less time per trip; you can usually zip in and out with a few things, and we tend to spend less overall when we spend three times a week rather than once. It also helps that you only have to plan what you’re going to eat 2-3 days in advance, rather than seven. When we’re on a seven-day shopping schedule, we inevitably run out of one crucial ingredient and have to make an extra trip to the store, anyway.

2) Keep the Refrigerator Clean. You’d think with a small refrigerator (about the size of the one in your college dorm), it’d be easier to rotate stock and find what you need. Not so. With such a small space, stuff easily gets crammed to the back, where it sits for months. Or else condiments end up taking half the fridge. A good once-a-week cleaning is necessary to defrost the tiny freezer and make sure we’re getting the most out of such small storage.

3) Follow the Collegiate Theme. Along with the dorm-sized refrigerator, every boat’s galley can benefit from the other staple of the collegiate kitchen: the hot pot. Use it to boil water for tea and coffee (and get rid of the coffee maker), and any number of foods.

4) Grill It or Go Raw. Mazurka has a great stove – with three burners, all functional, and an oven. But when the cabin is 82 degrees, a pot on the stove can bring it over 90. Therefore, in summer, we use the grill off the fantail almost exclusively – or we eat raw.

Here are some of our favorite summer meals:

Asian Spring Rolls
These are a great hot weather meal, and fun to assemble when you have guests, too. With a hot pot to boil water, you can avoid turning on the stove entirely. The trickiest part is finding the spring roll wrappers (flat disks made of rice) and the rice sticks (which look like thin pasta). Asian stores stock them, or you may have to specially order them on line or at your grocery.

Arrange plates and dishes with: shredded lettuce, grated carrots, scallions, crushed peanuts, thinly-sliced red pepper, fresh basil and cilantro. Shrimp is the first choice on Mazurka, but any meat (or tofu or no meat) will do. Prepare the rice sticks by placing the noodles in a pot and pour boiling water over them; let them sit for about ten minutes before draining. Prepare the rice paper by putting boiling water in a wide pan and dipping the disk into the water until it becomes soft and malleable. Place the paper on a plate, fill it with a little bit of everything, roll it up and eat it. Peanut dipping sauce (I make some with peanut butter, water, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, fresh cilantro, and chili paste) is a great accompaniment.

Mark experiments with fillings – he stuffs them with olives and artichoke hearts for Mediterranean spring rolls, and a mango/cucumber/red pepper/coconut dish for dessert.

Mediterranean Tapas
Humus, Tabouleh, Baba Ganouj, fresh tomatoes, artichoke hearts, cucumber, feta, black olives, spinach, red onions, lettuce, sprouts, some grilled chicken, and some pita bread. Spread them out on a table, assemble at will. ‘Nuff said.

Mango Black Bean Salad
This is a variation of a recipe my friend Anne makes. Take 1 mango, 1 can of black beans, chopped red onion, chopped fresh cilantro, fresh grated ginger, a little lime, a little chopped red pepper. If you like it hot, add some chopped green chili. Mix together.

Caprese Salad
You can’t go wrong with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. (Especially when you grow the tomatoes and basil on the dock!)

Mazurka Salad
This salad didn’t originate on Mazurka – but we eat it so often that it’s become our house salad year-round. Romaine lettuce (or spring mix), garbanzo beans, walnuts (or pecans), dried cherries (or sliced green apple or pear), bleu or gorgonzola cheese (or not – depending on how healthy you’re feeling), balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

A Few Things I've Learned About Entertaining

In his bachelor days, Mark threw a lot of parties on Mazurka. He says that having a boat in Chicago means taking people out to show them a rare view of Chicago.

In his bachelor days, he also entertained like a bachelor – meaning there wasn’t a whole lot of clean-up before the party, a whole lot of preparation at all….

Things are different when you’re married.

All summer, we’ve had guest out on Mazurka, but in the past few weeks, we’ve had a half dozen parties. All different mixes of people; all different outcomes. As the wife, first mate, and hostess, I tend to stress about preparing for these events.

Here are a few things I’ve learned about stress-free entertaining on the water:

1) 12-14 guests are optimal. Mazurka can host up to 30, but it’s damn uncomfortable trying to squeeze through the walkways, and you end up parking yourself in one spot all evening just ‘cause it’s easier than trying to maneuver through crowds. A dozen people means everybody can move about freely, mix and mingle, and even escape to a quiet area if they need some alone time on the water.

2) Pump out before and after each party.

3) Don’t apologize for the diesel smell – or any other strange smells; it’s a boat; there’s nothing you can do.

4) Give guests the tour and explain the plumbing first. Then tell everybody where the life jackets are. In rough water, allay people’s fears by telling them what the captain has told you: there is no way this boat is going to tip over.

5) Tell guests a dish to bring. This is a tricky one – especially because I’ve always thought if people are coming to my house for dinner, they should not be obligated to bring anything to eat. But going out on the water is different – and preparing the boat, plus dinner in a small galley, will take all day and wear you out before anybody arrives. It’s better to have too much rather than not enough, but having too much on a boat with little storage means sending food home with people, or taking it to coworkers the next day. Also, be explicit in telling people what to bring; at one party we had three desserts (and way too much left over for me and the captain), at another, there was no dessert at all. Don’t assume: guests will just bring wine, and then you’re left with a dozen bottles of wine and no side dishes. Which brings us to Lesson 6…

6) Keep the alcohol to a minimum. I know boating and drinking go together. On our small dock alone, there’s the Absolute and Cranberry, Rolling Rock II (in green font just like the label), Bumpy Night (flanked by two martini glasses), and Aquaholics. Somewhere in Chicago, the Betty Ford is cruising. Every weekend, we watch boats return to the harbor with half-naked guests staggering and reeking of beer. The captain and first mate should do not drink at all (yes, you can get a DUI on the water); but guests should also know they can go overboard on the tiniest wave – or slip, fall, and hit their head on the deck. It’s hard enough trying to keep your balance and your wits about you on a boat when you’re sober.

7) Let people help clean up. I’ve been amazed at the deft organization skills of our guests on board. Before I even know it, the fly bridge is clean and people are hauling out garbage bags. Use paper plates and let everybody take a garbage bag to the dumpster on the way to their cars. The raccoons will be glad to see them.


(Thanks to all our guests this summer – and especially to Jeff and Gail and their crew for the most fun Sunday afternoon!)

Well, That Answers That Question

We have some interesting wildlife out here in Belmont Harbor. Hordes of raccoon families, for one thing, led by parents the size of small grizzlies. The other night Mark and I came home and parked the motorcycle beside the dumpster where a family of seven was feasting on pretzels. The little ones climbed the fence as we neared, but their mom stayed put, munching away, keeping an eye on us. Pretty soon her babies returned. “Welcome to Flood Bros. Family Dining,” Mark observed.

Tonight I was out watering our garden (we have a garden on the dock – six tomato plants, basil, sage, dill, parsley, cilantro, and chives), when something resembling a small shark swam underneath me, between the dock and the boat. I looked down, thinking it was a large carp. But it was hairy...and swimming above water. And there were two.

A few nights ago one of our Venetian Night guests told us she saw something strange swimming in the water. “Not a raccoon,” she said, “not a rat, not a beaver – but like a beaver – they have them at the Shedd Aquarium.” “An otter?” I asked. “Yeah! An otter!” she said. We all told her there was no way there were any otters living in Belmont Harbor. But I tell you what – I saw them. Two of them. They were swimming side by side, and I followed them all the way to the end of the harbor, where they swam around a bit. The security guard came by. “What are those things?” I asked her. “Ducks,” she said, smoking a cigarette, not looking where I was pointing. “No,” I told her, “THOSE things.” “Oh my God…” And we stood together for a long time, watching the otters, trying to convince ourselves maybe they were beavers – but no, they were otters. Furry, long, with narrow heads and small teeth. (Note to Reader: they were not otters. They were muskrats. Mating muskrats. Cue "Muskrat Love.")



We walked with them as they swam back along the boats. I stopped in front of Mazurka and picked up the hose to finish watering the plants. Hunter and Leo had come out by that time and were roaming around. “Don’t you worry about those cats?” The security guard asked me. “That they might fall in?” “No,” I told her. “They’ve lived on the boat for a year – they’re pretty agile.”

Cats falling in the lake was an early concern. I knew from childhood (and mean boys throwing cats in the Mississippi River) that cats are good swimmers. We had a rough plan that if one of the cats fell in, we’d throw them a line or a hook or get the net or steer them toward the swim deck. Then rinse them off real good.

I finished watering the plants and took my bags inside and came back out in pursuit of Leo, who was making his way down the dock. The last I saw of Hunter – who is unfortunately the clumsy one – was him standing on the Harbor Dog, ready to jump on the Mazurka. The next thing I hear is him miss the boat – I turn just in time to see him miss one of the ropes and land in the water. He could swim all right, but he also cried like you’ve never heard a drowning cat cry in your life. I screamed for Mark – who was on the phone inside – and rapped at the door for him, running to get a hook. Hunter is swimming in circles and crying and gurgling water. I had half a mind to jump in for him, right where the muskrats had been. I extended one of the gaffes into the water, and Hunter grabbed on, but as I lifted him out he fell back into the water. I’m screaming to Mark, who is oblivious. I throw Hunter a rope (who knows what I expected him to do with the rope). He’s trying to climb up the flat walls, and slowly swimming toward a nearby swim deck. Just then, Mark emerges with the giant fishing net (it was hidden at the bottom of the lazarette), and fishes out the poor cat. He stumbles around a bit, then lets me pick him up, take him inside, and rinse him in the shower.

Oh, Huntie. Huntie-runtie. A little slow, he’ll probably forget this by the morning. For now, he’s got some bathing to do.

A Typical Beautiful Summer Sunday Afternoon

Today I had eight hours of work to do for a Friday deadline that’s about a dozen monkeys on my back. Instead, I blew it off because it was just too damn nice outside. Beautiful summer Sunday afternoons don’t happen all that often in Chicago – when we are blessed with blue skies and calm waters and a sweet breeze, we should take advantage of it.

Rather than taking out Mazurka, we decided to go for a ride in the little zodiac, which we named “Li’l Chopin.” We loaded up with towels and sunscreen and soda and headed for Montrose Harbor, which is about three miles north…maybe a little more. On the way out there, I asked Mark, “How much gas does that thing hold?” “Enough to get us there and back,” he assured me. “I just filled it up.”

We motored for nearly an hour before reaching Montrose Beach, where we put down the anchor just outside the buoys. The beach was filled with people, with boaters and jet skiers and kayakers practicing not far from us. The water was warm, and we swam around the zodiac for a long time before deciding to jump back in and head home. The problem is, you can’t really jump into a zodiac. Or climb. Or gracefully lumber up. A zodiac raft is damn near impossible to climb into if you’re in the water. Mark and I tried to climb up on opposite sides, to steady the boat, but as he's trying to pull a limb inside I'm laughing hysterically. He’s got one leg in the air as a boat comes by, “Need some help?” they call. Mark gazes over his leg nonchalantly, “No, we’re fine." We try climbing up the stern, bracing against the motor. Finally, we try the old fashioned way; I climb up on Mark, into the zodiac, and pull him up after me. We’re on our way.

I’m driving back to Belmont, with Mark in the front, when about a quarter of the way into the trip…put…put…put. We’re out of gas.

“Well, I kind of just filled it up,” Mark explained. “When we were in South Haven. Maybe it was halfway full.”

We’ve got a long way to row. Like almost three miles. Mark takes the oars, and I begin bailing the boat with a pop can (water has collected from waves over the bow). Lesson for next time: bring extra gas and a bucket.

This is going to take hours. We’re bickering about the best way to go back. I vote that we row to shore and guide the zodiac in the water from shore, via rope. Mark thinks it’s best to row. “I just hope the oars don’t break,” he says.

Just then – I’m not kidding – the piece that attaches the plastic oar to the raft cracks, making it impossible to row.

Luckily, we’ve got extra supplies in the emergency bag, including the plastic piece that cracked. We’re putting it together when a jet ski saddles up beside us. “Need some help?” asks the driver, his arms covered in tattoos.

Our new friend Dan takes our rope and tows us at back to Belmont, very slowly. Mark looks back to me, his brow furrowed, “The only thing I’m worried about…”

“Don’t say it!” I plead, “Don’t say it!”

He doesn’t say it – not till Dan drops us off in Belmont Harbor, and Mark is rowing us back to Mazurka. “The only thing I was worried about is that you’re not supposed to tow a zodiac – the ropes are only secured to the raft with glue. They could rip right off and the boat would sink.”

Maybe we'll try it again next weekend.

Whose Hobby is This, Anyway?

Mark just returned from a six-day conference in Orlando. Usually, I like to go with him on business – I work poolside while he sits in conference rooms all day, and I get to enjoy the rare luxury of a bathtub. But there are three very strong reasons I didn’t go with him: Florida – July – Disney.

Mark joked to his colleagues, “Yeah, she’s home, keeping the boat afloat.” Before he left, I fretted just a bit. For six day and five nights, I would be in charge of Mazurka. If something went wrong, I was the point person. This scared the hell out of me. Not like the captain was backpacking in Alaska and unreachable; and not like he didn’t leave me with a boat in working order – the water tanks were filled, the sewage was empty. In fact, everything on Mazurka is ship-shape – part of Mark’s plan to abstain from any work in the month of July and just enjoy the boat (if you own a boat, you are laughing hysterically right now). And except for the first few days of the month, when the varnishing project went a little long, he’s kept to this abstinence.

But I don’t know a whole lot about this thing I live on. When bells and whistles go off and stuff starts happening for no reason, my first reaction is to ignore it till Mark fixes it. My knowledge ends at differentiating the flat-head screwdriver from the Phillips, and sometimes I don’t even do that.

To be completely honest, I regard this boat as Mark’s hobby, not mine. He lived on it before I ever came into the picture. He loves working on it. There are few things that give him so much joy and peace of mind as pulling apart the entire boat and putting it all back together. This is not my idea of fun. We have divvied up the tasks among us – his stuff is outside, mine is inside, and I stay the away from the engine room. But on a beautiful Saturday morning as he’s pulling out the varnishing tools to recoat the teak on the deck one more time, I’m hiding.

Meanwhile, our fellow summer campers, our neighbors aboard the Harbor Dog, are re-canvassing their boat. It’s a big job, sewing canvas covers for the windows and side railings; they brings out the sewing machine on the aft deck and work close together, solving problems like how to make hundreds of holes for the grommets. (Answer: soldering gun.)

Mark and I both noticed this together-ness. This is what marriage is about, right? Working together on a joint project – whether it’s children, a boat, or life itself. So even if this was Mark’s boat long before I ever came into the picture, and even though boating is not my first choice in hobbies…I think the time has come that I have to give a little, learn about how this thing works, and start pulling my share of the weight.

It could be worse; it could be football.


(Captain in Training)

Any Real Fishermen Out There?

This morning, the 4th of July, five fishermen arrived at our door at 3:45 AM. We were underway by 4 AM in search of salmon.


Right before dawn, I started to feel queasy. Due to only two hours of sleep or semi-rough waters, seasickness took me over. I wasn’t the only one. Out came the wristbands and Dramamine. I stayed on deck just long enough to snap the sunrise, then disappeared inside.


After proclaiming to Mark, “I hate this and I’m never going fishing with you again,” I collapsed into bed and slept for three hours, without even taking any dramamine. When I awoke, we were heading back to Chicago, empty-handed, nauseous, disappointed, and tired. There’s serious talk of hiring a charter boat to take us where the salmon actually bite.

“At least I got the planer board working,” Mark said.

So I’m just going to throw this out there to all you “real” fishermen. Send me an email if you know what you’re doing when you fish the waters around Chicago…where are you catching these illusive salmon?

Welcome to Belmont Summer Camp

Our original plan for the weekend was to head north to Waukegan on Thursday, cruise on to Milwaukee on Friday, hang out at Summerfest for the weekend, then head back to Chicago by the 4th of July. We waited all day Thursday in Belmont Harbor for the wind to subside…and all day Friday…and by Saturday, decided we weren’t going anywhere; instead, we spent our vacation right here in Belmont Harbor.

Good thing there’s plenty to do: with our neighbors aboard the Harbor Dog, we went running, shot arrows at the archery range, played doubles tennis, went for bike rides, had craft time (otherwise known as varnishing and canvas-making), and essentially spent a week at summer camp.

When you’re an adult at summer camp, you get to stay up as late as you want, sleep as late as you want, and there’s no camp counselor to boss you around.


Half an hour late for tennis? Eh, who cares? Don’t feel like going swimming today? Take a nap instead.

Dear Mom, Camp was great this year. We made neat friends. Can’t wait to come back next year.

In Search of Calm Water

Some days more than others I am aware that we are at the will of a higher power. Think you're in charge of how things go? Try living on a boat.

Like yesterday, when a party I had planned for months – about twenty people coming on board on a Wednesday evening for dinner and fireworks – was precariously postponed by a violent thunderstorm. At 4:30, I am sitting atop the fly bridge, the only place I can steal a wifi signal, hunched over my laptop to protect it from the rain, emailing my guests to say that as the rain is coming sideways, we’re probably going to cancel…but I don’t know for sure. It could pass and by 7 pm there might be beautiful, smooth sailing. At 5:30, I make the call to cancel, and I get in touch with each guest to let them know. And by 6:30? You guessed it – clear skies and calm water.

So Mark and I decided to head out just the two of us. We cruised up to the playpen and dropped anchor in front of the Hancock Building. Our plan was to spend the night and in the morning, make our way up north, to Waukegan for a night, then on to Milwaukee.

It’s a cool thing to be able to make a decision to go on an extended trip, and half an hour later, you’re on your way. The feeling you may have forgotten something doesn’t go away, but you have the peace of mind knowing that you can’t possibly have forgotten anything: you’re taking your whole house with you.

The playpen was calm, protected by breaker walls, except for powerboats passing through at top speed, which sends ripples of high waves. So we put out the stabilizer – a hinged wing of stainless steel that is suspended down into the water from the boom; as the boat rocks, it floats up and down in the water, creating enough drag to keep us from rocking too much. It doesn’t completely take away the rocking, but it makes it a whole lot more manageable.

The passing storm stirred the water and dropped the temperature, so it was too cold to swim. Instead, we spent the evening on the aft deck, in a sleeping bag, watching the fireworks over Navy Pier, drinking vanilla tea.

After the fireworks, most of the boats left the playpen, except in a short while we noticed two powerboats, rafted together with a party, drifting closer and closer to us. They didn’t have their anchors out. When they were within 20 feet we started to get nervous and stood out on the deck. “Don’t worry,” they called to us, “We see you – we’re moving.” Except it took forever to get their engines going and someone in the drivers’ seats – we wondered if they were all plastered.

Their boats drift even closer; “Let’s get out of here,” Mark says, going to start the engine. By now, there are twodrivers in the other boats who at first steer straight for Mazurka before correcting the direction. I go up top to man the wheel while Mark begins to pull up the anchor. Except it won’t come up. The foot pedal on the deck, which starts the wheel to pull up the anchor, is a little touchy anyway, but after a good ten minutes it’s still not working. The other boats have driven safely away, but now we’re stuck with an anchor lodged in the mud at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

It’s after 11, and Mark gets out his set of tools and an extra foot pedal (yes, we have an extra foot pedal on board), and commences to figuring out the problem. I am tired and collect the cats into the bed – they’ve been fighting seasickness all evening – and the three of us settle down to sleep together. It’s nearly midnight when Mark returns to the cabin. “I figured out the problem!” he proclaims. “The anchor is powered by the same source as the bow thruster – and I didn’t have it on.”

This problem solved, we decide to stay in the playpen for the night, as the waters have cleared of boaters and are calm. We drift off to sleep.

But before the sun is up, I am awoken by strong rocking and my husband wide awake and cleaning up cat puke throughout the cabin. “The wind shifted,” he says, wiping his feet. “It’s coming out of the northeast. We’re going to have rocky waters.”

We also have new neighbors, blasting house music at that early morning hour. They look like people who have been partying all night, as opposed to early-risers up to see the sunrise.

The cats are hunched miserably low in the engine room, but come out when Mark starts the engine. It’s not yet six when we pull up the anchor and begin our cruise back to Belmont. The weather report cites 10-15 mph winds from the northeast, rising to 15-20 mph in the afternoon. There’s a small craft advisory warning. We’re not going anywhere today.

So we sit in Belmont Harbor. I call our Thursday night Waukegan guests and cancel the second party this week. With a cooler full of Italian sausages and kabobs, we’ll wait till tomorrow to head north.

Go Fly a Kite

It’s never a good sign on a first date to run out of gas – especially if your mode of transportation is a boat.

Long before I ever met him, Mark’s first grade teacher, Sister Susan, set him up on a blind date with a woman who lives in Milwaukee. Mark lived in Chicago at the time (on land), and decided it would be fun to take his boat, the Escape Hatch, up to Milwaukee for the blind date, and stay there for the weekend. But it’s a much longer ride than he anticipated, and by the time he got within a quarter mile of shore…he ran out of gas.

He had to call the Coast Guard to help him, which is no small thing. They board your boat, check out every nook and cranny, charge you for the gas and their time, and no doubt give you a lot of shit for being a dumb ass who ran out of gas. All the time this is happening, Mark can see his blind date sitting on the dock, waiting for him.

Needless to say, they didn’t hit it off. Not that they didn’t get along, there just wasn’t a spark.

As a parting gift, he sent her a kite. I scoffed when he told me that detail. “What?” he said. “We talked about kite flying.”

The Thirteenth Plague

We headed back to Chicago early on the morning of Father’s Day. Somewhere off the shore of Michigan we hit a pocket where the high and low pressure systems meet: this is where the black flies hide. Mazurka was overcome with thousands of flies of all natures – tiger and leopard print, big and small, fast and slow, all of them biting. There were everywhere, dying by the hundreds, feasting on each others’ carcasses and us. We rinsed the boat again and again to no avail. No insect repellant or thick clothing could hold them off; finally, we came inside, where the relief was that you only had to swat one or two at a time, rather than a hundred.

For the rest of the day, every slight tickle got a swat.

When we were within an hour from shore, and could see the downtown skyline, we heard over Channel 16, “Mayday! Mayday!”

Mark turned it up; we leaned in closer.

The Coast Guard out of Monroe Harbor responded, asking for the nature of the problem.

“I’m stuck,” the guy replied.

“What do you mean, you’re stuck?” the Coast Guard answered.

There was no response. The Coast Guard called for them repeatedly. No response. Finally, the boater called again, “Mayday! Mayday! I’m stuck!”

The Coast Guard answered again, asking for the location and nature of the problem.

“I’m off Fullerton Harbor,” the boater said (there is no Fullerton Harbor, but we imagine he was somewhere just north of downtown). “The engine just shut off. I tried to get it going, but it won’t start. I’m stuck.”

“Are you taking on any water?” the Coast Guard asked.

“Negative.”

The Coast Guard then asked the boater to switch to a different channel. We switched along with them. “First time in my life I ever heard somebody call mayday,” Dad said.

On Channel 22, the boater described how he couldn’t start the engine, and he was afraid to try – he feared taking in air. (??) At that point, the Coast Guard asked him for his cell phone number so they could call him privately.

But we knew the rest of the story; he ran out of gas.

“Who runs out of gas on the lake?” Dad asked.

I looked at the captain. “I’m sure no one on this boat.”

Day 3 of Fishing

Standing on the bow at dawn with my Dad, he proclaims on the third day of fishing: “From what I can tell, these are ideal conditions for fishing. 1) You’ve got a falling barometer. 2) The wind is from the Southeast. 3) The water looks good.”

It was a nice theory, particularly after two days of not catching anything.

Our first morning in South Haven, Mark and Dad did some reconnaissance, learning that nobody at in the Harbor knew much about fishing at all, and that the nearest place to buy a fishing license was the Walmart two miles away. Thus the benefits of taking your house with you turtle-style wherever you go showed through once again – we were able to buy our licenses online and print them out without ever leaving the boat. We headed out at noon that day – far too late for any real fish to bite, but enough to learn the lay of the land. We found a steady increase in depth and no salmon; in the late afternoon we headed closer to shore for some perch, but found nothing. Another boat pulled alongside us. “We saw you were parked here for an hour and hoped you were getting something,” they called. We shook our heads and didn’t say much.

On Day 2, Mark and Dad got up early enough to follow out the charter captains, hoping to get some insight into the key fishing spots. Again, we returned home empty-handed.

That evening, Mark and I took a walk around downtown South Haven in search of ice cream and information. He sweet-talked a nice lady charter captain who told him that we were doing all the right things, even using the right green “mountain dew” lures, except that the dipsy-divers should not be off-set; as it was, they weren’t going deep enough to catch the salmon. She also said that they were catching fish – not a lot, but some.

That night, there was serious discussion of the fish to be caught.











Day 3. We had done all the research, and now we had this last bit of information that would ensure the salmon would be ours for the reeling. (There is a lot of reeling to be done when you’re casting out more than five hundred feet of line – as evidenced by the black and blue marks in my thigh from bracing the pole.)

It did seem like a fortuitous morning. And the hours wore on…the gear was spread about… we were calling out the depth changes every five feet…and no fish.

Not to say that the day was without excitement. About 11 AM I was inside on the phone to my brother Jim, trying to get his advice for these fish, when I hear some ruckus on deck and somebody call, “It’s the DNR!” I came out to find a green boat with CONSERVATION on the side saddling up to Mazurka. I raced back inside for our licenses and passed them around, all of us waving them. The two guys from the Department of Natural Resources nod at us – oh yeah, we see you got your internet licenses, they say. I’m still on the phone with Jim, narrating this shake-down. “Ask them where the fish are!” he tells me. “Where are the fish??” I yell out. But the two DNR guys just look at me and laugh. “They’re here,” they say. “Somewhere.”

Somewhere. Somewhere is actually a place in time, not in the Lake. ‘Cause when we got back to Chicago and I talked to Mark’s brother Scott, another fisherman, he said the one thing we have no control over: the king salmon don’t start coming in till August.