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.