Year-round boat dwellers look forward to warmer weather

Living year round on a boat in the bronx? :scared:Now that's hardcore!

‘It feels like summer will never come’: Year-round boat dwellers look forward to warmer weather



By New York Daily News new York Daily News – Tue Mar 8, 9:46 am ET
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Lore Croghan, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
When New Yorkers talk about how bad the weather's been, Whitey Johnson speaks with special authority: He lives on a boat in the Bronx.
"It feels like summer will never come," said Johnson, 75, a truck driver. "I have a big problem with cold - I despise it. The only thing I like cold is iced tea."
After the Dec. 26 blizzard, the front deck of his 46-foot house barge docked in Westchester Creek was piled solid with more than three feet of snow.
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He had to shovel his way along the dock without slipping into the frigid waters at Westchester Square marina. His neighbors at Metro Marine were out there, too, digging their way toward land.
"There was a lot of cursing," he said.
Watch the video at NY Daily News online
New York's endless rounds of snow, ice and rain have been particularly hard on year-round boat dwellers.
Winter live-aboards are allowed at Marina 59 on Queens' Rockaway Peninsula. At Venice Marina in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, 20 boats are occupied. Boatyards and clubs on City Island, the Bronx, host a handful of hardy souls and a dozen boats serve as winter homes at the 79th St. Boat Basin on the upper West Side.
Johnson has lived for 30 years on his red, shingle-roofed boat. The two-story, three-bedroom barge has no engine. It was towed here from Rhode Island, where it was made.
Johnson, who was living in Bellerose, L.I., wanted to buy a cottage on City Island but couldn't find an affordable one.
He opted for an aquatic home, and in summer, he hangs a green awning over the boat deck and sits after work, drinking wine and listening to Mozart.
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At the 79th St. Boat Basin, Frances Gaffney (above) sometimes gets queasy while she's sketching because her boat rocks so much. Still, her floating home is a workable winter artist's studio.
"It's really good to be in open space," said Gaffney, 54.

Her husband, a carpenter, put a wooden bar on the stove in the galley of the 40-foot vessel to keep pots and pans from sliding off; the temperature stays anchored at 52 degrees to conserve fuel.
"I warm the bathroom with a hair dryer before I take a shower," Gaffney said. Some winter phenomena are more odd than dangerous - like the thump that migrating geese make when they land on the boat's roof. "It's like a bowling ball," she said.