Phantom Wave Syndrome

Walking among boats in heated storage is like swimming underwater with ghosts. They are hoisted up high, so that you walk beneath the water line, their plastic covers rustling softly around you.


The first thing Mark and I noticed when we climbed (and I mean climbed) onboard Mazurka Saturday afternoon was that she felt like she should be moving, even though she wasn't.

It was a very strange, sad feeling.

We spent Saturday afternoon aboard Mazurka, doing the last cleaning of the season, but for different reasons: Mark was cleaning in case a potential buyer needs to come onboard; I was cleaning so that she'll be fresh and ready when we take her up north next summer.

I am having a hard time leaving this boat.

Mark, surprisingly, is up and ready for the next adventure.

"I got tired of the transient lifestyle," he confessed. "The pump-outs not working, the electricity going out, and then when they shut off our water in Belmont Harbor, that was it."

I had learned to just accept all that inconvenience as boat life. In exchange, I got the sky and the trees and the water constantly beneath me. I miss the water. We can see the lake and the sky from our fancy south loop furnished temporary condo. It's not the same. We are always the same temperature; we are always level. At night, I still feel the water beneath me.

Someday Might Be Tomorrow

On Saturday night, after Mark and I had spent all day shuttling boxes from Mazurka to storage, I asked him, "Do you think someday we might look back on this and think we were crazy for living on a boat?"

"Someday might be tomorrow," he replied.

Sunday morning we found a brief lull in the gale force winds and took Mazurka for her final voyage down the Chicago River. She now sits comfortably in a cradle in heated storage, beside million dollar yachts.

I took one final picture of her in the water. "Till we meet again," I thought, because I was being melancholy and dramatic. In reality, till we meet again is probably next weekend, when we'll be back to give her a good thorough scrubbing.

Someday might be tomorrow, till we meet again is next weekend, and in the meantime? The meantime is Mark and me and two cats nestled very comfortably in a one-bedroom south loop condo, complete with dishwasher, in-unit laundry, and all the hot water you want to fill that nice, deep bathtub.

We made it just in time for the snow.

Not Even a Few Last Drops?

Although Belmont Harbor is supposed to keep its water on until November 15th, they decided to turn it off early this year. Maybe because temperatures got below freezing; who am I to judge. All I know is that in our few last days onboard Mazurka, we've had to resort to some creative ways of filling the water tanks.

Even at the end, it's comical. Save those tears, you guys! (You might need them to wash your hands.)

We've spent our last night as liveaboard newlyweds. Tonight we graduate to a furnished condo downtown, our temporary digs for a month, complete with functional plumbing!

Last Appearance in Chicago

On Saturday night Life Aboard Mazurka made its final literary appearance before it sets sail for dry dock.

Many thanks to Jenny Seay, my good friend and organizer of the Tamale Hut reading series, and Jaime, owner of the Tamale Hut, for giving me the opportunity to read one last time. And thanks to all the audience members who came out to listen on a very cold night.

Here's an excerpt of the reading:

One morning in our last month on Mazurka, in the few weeks before leaving Belmont Harbor, Mark went out the door for work and I stood in the doorway, waving to him as he carried his briefcase and blue lunch bag filled with the sandwich I had just made him. He turned on the dock to look back at the boat. I opened the door to see if he needed something. He stood looking at the side of the hull, then at me, his eyes taking in the whole scene. It occurred to me that he wasn’t looking at anything in particular – he was taking it all in, as an impressionist painter does. He was checking out the condition of his boat, as he often did, and as he did, he was checking out the condition of his life. This was his life: boat, wife, living on the water, just the two of us.

Time to pull up anchor and head to a different harbor, which we were preparing to do; this life was coming to a close; we would soon be bound for land, for the unknown.


(One of our last mornings in Belmont Harbor.)

No Place Like It

We may be leaving in six weeks, but in sixteen years of living in this town, last night had to be the best.