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.

The Captain and His First Mate

Let’s Go A-Courtin’

We happened to be in South Haven for “Harbor Days,” when the town sets up a stage alongside the Black River for concerts at the mouth of Lake Michigan, and the place is full of parties. At night, people take their zodiacs out and go visiting, sort of like a modern Victorian gentility. Except in this century, you gotta wear a life jacket.

Everything but the Campfire

Last Wednesday night our crew arrived at the South Haven Harbor after traveling all day across Lake Michigan.


The harbor was closing up for the night, just in time to assign us our slip alongside the sailboats rather than the powerboats. “Those guys like us,” Mark said, “’cause we’re not that far from a sailboat. And they’re all thinking about trawlers, anyway.”

I let Hunter and Leo roam around on the deck, taking their tour of boats. One by one, they would board each boat, wander around the deck, then move on to the next. Leo found a sailboat that was open (the owners were at dinner) and disappeared inside for nearly an hour. I could see him through the top hatch, sniffing everything. There’s only a slight problem that I can’t board the boats my cats feel more than welcome to explore – I stand on the dock, calling to them, shaking their treat can, utterly ignored.

The next night, after a fruitless search for salmon and perch – “Is anybody catching anything out there?” our fellow fishermen called helplessly on the radio – we docked and had dinner after sunset. Our neighbors brought around their chairs and we chatted it up.

And just as Mark observed, the sailors liked us trawler-owners. We are not hard-and-heavy power boaters; we only go 7 miles an hour at the most.

Late that night, the sailors confessed they had always wanted a trawler. Mark gave them the tour, and along the way, he’s telling them tales of what went wrong with each piece. “And here’s the engine room, the battery chargers…you know, I made an expensive mistake with those battery chargers. I thought they weren’t charging my batteries – I thought the batteries were dead – I went through three new batteries before I realized I had to turn the damn thing on….” (The story of owning a boat, truly, is narrated by all the things that have gone wrong with it.) They’re all laughing, and then they tell their own stories with battery chargers, leaving them off so the refrigerator is not powered, the sump pump not powered, the batteries drained so low they have to rush out and buy distilled water.

My mom, sitting beside me in her pajamas, waiting for them to leave as it was nearly midnight, turned to me and said, “I have no idea what they’re talking about, do you?”

“Yes,” I told her, “Because I lived through it.”

But I can only tell you certain things about it. I can’t tell you the power of the generator, or which wire goes where, or even where the battery charger is and which of the countless Where’s-Waldo items down there are the batteries. I’m just not that interested. But I can tell you what it was like to watch Mark try to coordinate getting three 80 lb batteries from Monroe Street into the tender boat and onto Mazurka in the pinpointing heat of late July.

It grates me, just a bit, that I fit into the gender stereotype of the wife who doesn’t know nothing about those li’l electronic thingys. My training in that area ended in junior high when I built a pencil holder and earned an A in shop class. I’m sure I could learn, if I got a manual and muddled my way through it. Which is exactly what Mark and all these other boaters do – you keep making mistakes till one of the mistakes is right, and then you learn how to do it. Then you can tell your friends about the time you turned the battery charger off and your wife was upset because she had no refrigeration on board.

“Oh, you mean your husband’s boat,” is what the Westrec guy said to me when I called about the money they were trying to squeeze out of us. I bristled but let it go, though I wanted to say something like, “No, MY boat – I live here, too.” And I suppose in some matrimonial sense it is my boat, but really, I would never live here were it not for Mark. I would never cruise across Lake Michigan on this terrific vacation, I’d never live downtown lakefront Chicago, I’d never do any of this.

It’s kind of weird to let somebody else be responsible for your good time. Maybe that’s a good question to consider about the person you want to marry. If you relinquished control and let them be responsible for your good time, would they make sure you had fun? And could you do the same?

Misery is a Choice

The night before we left on our epic Father’s Day fishing excursion, our crew (Mark, myself, my parents John and Pam) dropped anchor in front of the John Hancock Building, thinking it would be fun to sleep downtown and watch sunrise as we sailed for South Haven in the morning. We cleaned up the kitchen, turned out the lights, hunkered down, and then…

Slosh slosh slosh – a moment of calm – slosh slosh slosh – clang clang clang - clinking of glasses in the cupboards as they were thrown side to side – moment of calm – slosh slosh slosh –

I would fall asleep for the still moment, only to be jerked awake by the next hit. It wasn't the calm, soothing rocking of the rolling seas; it was a downright assault.

“I don’t think I can sleep like this,” I told Mark.

“Me neither.”

Slosh slosh slosh.

“Are my parents asleep?”

“I think so.”

Clang clang clang.

“We’re getting echo waves off shore,” Mark said.

Slosh slosh slosh.

“Do you want to go back to Belmont Harbor?” he asked.

“No. It’s too much trouble. If my parents are sleeping, I can get through it, too.”

“I’ll go start the engine. You stay here.”

I lay in bed – slosh slosh slosh – clang clang clang – calm – slosh slosh slosh – as Mark started up the engine. I heard Dad go up top and the two of them pulling up the anchor. I was so tired I didn’t even both to get up and help. We rocked our way back to Belmont Harbor, and the last thing I remember was the stillness of being tied to the dock, and then sleep.

The next morning, the sun was high over the horizon by the time we got up. “I’d never been so glad as when I heard Mark start that engine,” my Mom told us while the coffee brewed. “I thought for sure I was going to upchuck.” Mark and Dad relayed the madness that went on while the two of us stayed in bed; the coolers being thrown from side to side, and both of them crawling across the deck so as not to lose their balance.

Nobody was earning any badges for enduring unnecessary hardship on this excursion. By 10 o’clock, we were cruising across calm waters to South Haven.

The Sweet Sound of Success

Today, for the first time in more than nine months, Mark started up the generator…and it ran. And ran and ran and ran. My laptop is running on generator power even as I type this.

The culprit, at the end of this long epic battle to find the needle in the haystack? The fuel filter. In the filter, which cleans the diesel before it reaches the generator, a blockage had formed in the filter housing that was creating a vapor lock and preventing fuel from getting to the generator.

In other words, the fuel filter needed to be taken off, disassembled and put back together.

Cost of a Racor fuel filter: $80
Cost of figuring out this problem for nine months: $1300
Cost of a new generator: $15,000

Cost of telling previous repair guy that we didn’t actually have to shell out for a new generator? Yeah…exactly.