The Big Chill

How are all my east coast liveaboards out there faring during this crazy cold weather? The summer humidity seems like a lifetime ago. We were not expecting it to ever get this cold in coastal North Carolina, and the past few days have been quite the experience as we scrambled to figure out how to balance heat and available power on the boat.

Our central air was working wonderfully until two days ago, when the river got too cold. Because our Marine Mermaid AC/heat relies on water intake, the system couldn’t extract enough heat to warm the boat above the low 60s. So, we turned that off (takes up too much power) and bought two space heaters. Thankfully our space is small! They are a big energy suck and we tripped the breakers more than once figuring out what appliances we could have running simultaneously. The balancing act includes unplugging the smaller heater in order to run the microwave, and god forbid we turn on the hot water at all!

For the past two days, we’ve just moved the heaters into whatever space we are occupying and shut off the rest of the boat. The v-berth has the worst insulation in the boat, so that door has been shut for a few days. We keep our bedroom door shut as well during the day and move everything for Baby W out into the main area. At night, the whole family goes into the aft cabin for a snuggly night’s sleep (or as much sleep as you can get with a newborn)!

I know that boaters up north have it wayyyy tougher than we do, and one frozen week out of the year isn’t too bad. Still, I’m really looking forward to Monday, when it is supposed to heat back up into the 60s and we can get back into our routine. The good news is that day-to-day challenges on the boat won’t seem nearly as tough after getting through this weather!

Hope you all are staying warm and dry.

Love,

Taylor, Conor, and W