The Dancing Nun

The second time I met Mark was in August 2005, at a co-ed bridal shower for my best friend Jill, about to marry Scott. Mark was the groom’s oldest brother. He showed up on a 1988 Honda Goldwing, all 5’6 of him, and barreled through the back sliding doors, compact, wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt, propelled by burley arms and legs.

He was, of course, a trawlerman, like Redmond O’Hanlon describes in his hilarious, wonderful book Trawler about fishing off the northern coast of Scotland:

He was obviously a trawlerman – even I was beginning to be able to identify one, generically: big shoulders, a flat stomach, and, most apparent of all, massive leg-muscles: muscles so absurdly well developed that trawlermen seemed to have to buy their trousers many waist-sizes too big: their broad leather belts hold the extra cloth puckered tight.

“Here comes Mark,” the groom said, laughing.

We all arrived early to help, but the grill was already warm, the crudite waiting on pretty platters. So as maid of honor, I stood in the Oak Park living room with the best man, making awkward small talk, while toddlers of other early guest played at our feet.

“Here, I gotta show you the dancing nun,” Mark said, rifling through photos on his Trio. Why this urgency to show me the nun picture, I wondered. Did he know my mother had been a nun? Did he know I had written an unpublished novel about young nuns?

Mark’s boat had just won third place in Chicago’s Venetian Night, the annual July boat parade that draws more than a million people to the downtown lakefront. Decked out in a Blues Brothers theme, Mazurka had a painted set, elaborate light show, singers, dancers, Jake and Elwood, and of course, a dancing nun.

I found it intriguing that he lived on the boat year-round. I was also intrigued by his large, piercing blue eyes that seemed to focus intently on whoever he was talking to – at the moment, me – and take in everything about them. Still, I worried that I would get stuck talking to him the entire afternoon. So when I saw my chance, I politely excused myself.

As most people still hadn’t arrived, Mark turned to the next logical guests: he got down on the floor and played trucks with the toddlers. A couple hours later, he told me some funny jokes. A month little later, he asked me on a date. A year later, we got married.


Never trust a man who pledges his life and love to you, then blindfolds you, gives you a bat, and pushes you on your way.

September 30, 2006

Ike Strikes Chicago

When you live aboard Noah's Ark, three days of rain - 8.54 inches - is nothing.

We even found the source of the dripping water in the cabin (unexciting story) and spent the weekend floating happily as the water around us rose.

According to Tom Skilling's blog, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers meteorologist Keith Kompoltowicz estimates as much as 877.5 billion additional gallons of water have now been added to Lake Michigan.

Maybe more, considering how much water the City of Chicago added into the lake.

By Saturday morning at 7:30, the underground Chicago water storage network called "Deep Tunnel" was full. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District opened the sanitary canal locks in Wilmette, near Navy Pier, and at 130th and Torrence to release the water into Lake Michigan. According to the MWRD, most of the liquid was storm run-off; only 1% was raw sewage, as quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times.

But if you read a little further, when the MWRD opened the locks, it released four billion gallons of water per hour.

One per cent is still 40 million gallons per hour of raw sewage being dumped into the lake.

What do you do when the City dumps that much raw sewage into the lake that you live on?

Well, on Tuesday my friend Anne and I went swimming at Montrose Beach. We were careful to keep our heads above water.

So What If Summer's Almost Over?

It's never too late to plant a garden.

Where's All This Water Coming From?

There are common questions in the liveaboard household, including:

“What’s that smell?”
“Where’s all this water coming from?”
And my favorite, often asked by the captain on his way to the head first thing in the morning: “Do you think the pumpout’s full?”

If these three happen simultaneously, you know you’re in trouble.

Every captain is intimately familiar with the question, "Where's this water coming from?" When visitors come aboard for a tour, captains will often tell the story of a leak: where the water came from, how he figured it out, how he fixed it – or how he’s trying to.

A caulking gun is never far away. Mark fires it up and scours the boat, caulking at will. For months we endured a terrible leak in the aft stateroom; every time it rained, water would silently seep down the wall, mildewing and destroying books and papers beside the bed. We left the shelf bare – heartbreaking in a place with so little room – until Mark discovered that the caulking near the front of the fly bridge was rotten. He somehow deduced that rainwater was coming into the top deck through the fly bridge, seeping down the length of the boat, and draining into the cabin through the aft deck. This sounded like a pretty big leap in logic to me, but he caulked and sealed the fly bridge one weekend, and the leak in the aft stateroom stopped.

An important lesson I have learned living aboard this boat: if you throw enough possible solutions at a problem, one of them will eventually work.

But sometimes, when you plug up one leak, the water finds another spout, as was the case yesterday morning at 5 AM, when I was lying half-awake and heard the unmistakable sound of water pouring very close to my head.

"We have a leak!" I yelled to Mark.

He came running in from the salon (yes, he was up at 5 AM), and asked me three times, "We have a leak?" to which I answered three times, "yes!" all while we are scurrying to clear shelves and lay out towels and grab the big pot from the galley to catch the water.

We know where the water is coming from - which G-H-I hurricane is it today? - dumping several inches of rain on us yesterday.

Time to get the caulking gun.