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.