When we moved aboard a boat, we knew we’d be giving up some comforts of home, but neither of us expected to be dealing with this level of cold and snow. We can’t stop asking “When will this snow melt?!”

It was a really difficult weekend. On Saturday we both went in to work, mostly just to get out of the boat for a while. Sunday was the worst – the cabin was 40°F (4°C) when we got up. It was a very cold day, I spent all morning wrapped up in a blanket out the couch, shivering. By afternoon I managed to start moving around again, but just barely. Kyle was doing dishes late afternoon when the water pump started making a weird sound. It’s like it’s trying to pump water but there’s nothing there, which means we either had a water line freeze or our tanks are dry. I am pretty sure we didn’t empty the water tanks in a week, so…we’ll find out how bad it is when everything thaws, I guess.

We can’t access the sight gages for the water tanks – those lockers are covered in several inches of ice right now. The marina turned off water to the docks since 12/29 so we can’t fill them either.

Now we have no water.

When we were getting ready for bed Sunday night Kyle discovered that our pillows were soaked where they were touching the walls. So was a portion of the mattress cushion. It’s all from condensation, I don’t know why but it was so much worse yesterday than it has been for the past week. We moved all our bedding to the other berth and slept there, but even though that berth has been closed up and kept very cold, it still had enough condensation to drip on my pillow all night. I wiped down the walls in the morning and the towel I used was soaked through.

I’m completely over it. The weather, the ice on the docks, the condensation, the lack of water, everything. I’ve been confined to the couch, under piles of blankets because it’s the only place I stay warm. I’ve been showering less because it’s freezing cold, and now I’m dealing with the effects of reduced hygiene and movement. I feel fat and gross and bored, like a bear that woke up halfway through hibernation and can’t get back to sleep.

But that all ends today! It’s currently 64°F, I went for a lovely walk outside, I’m wearing only one layer of clothing, the sun is shining! This week the lowest forecast temp is 40°F, which is higher than it ever got last week. Hopefully we’ll see this snow melt within a couple days.

Should we have done anything differently? We’ve lived in SC long enough to know that we should expect a couple nights below freezing, but last week was the worst snowstorm in almost 30 years. Who could have predicted that? We could have gone out and bought more space heaters, but we struggled with power management with the two that we were using (we had to turn one off while the coffeemaker was running). Plus that would have made the condensation worse, although if we had managed to keep it above 60°F the dehumidifier would have worked. And we knew it was a very temporary situation, although the cold snap lasted longer than could reasonably have been expected. We might have been better off getting a hotel for the weekend, but it’s hard to be away from the boat in a situation like this, where if something goes wrong we want to be present to address it before it gets worse.