By John Johnston
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Hanging out in his houseboat, Mike Winstel relaxes by listening to Jimmy Buffett, who at the moment is crooning about nibblin' on spongecake, watchin' the sun bake, and all those tourists covered with oil.

Kirt Rockel uses a cinderblock to break ice around his boat at Watertown Yacht Club in Dayton, Ky. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

It's enough to inspire thoughts of pulling up anchor and drifting lazily on warm water to a tropical paradise, maybe Margaritaville, or maybe even not-so-tropical Maysville. Neither of which is possible for 29-year-old Winstel, because this is, after all, the middle of winter, and the water surrounding his 36-foot houseboat is frozen.

We know what you're thinking. Somebody needs to stop by Watertown Yacht Club, where Winstel is moored, and remind him that summer's over. Time to go home.

Except, this is home.

Winstel is a "live-aboard," the term applied to people who occupy boats year-round. There are, perhaps, a few dozen of them right here in River City, happily - believe it or not - waiting out the winter.

In Winstel's case, it means enduring inconveniences such as no running water. (Lines would freeze, although he does have use of his boat's toilet.) He awoke thirsty at 2 a.m. a while back and discovered he was out of water, so he bundled up in his pajamas and walked about 50 yards to the Watertown's floating offices, where he also takes showers.

"A lot of people think I'm nuts," he says.

His father, for one. Dad, who lives in West Chester Township, calls once or twice a week, and the conversation typically includes the question: Are you cold?

His answer is generally no. But there was the night when the outside temperature dipped below zero, and Winstel didn't get his houseboat's space heaters set right. "It was like 35 (degrees) in here, and I really got nervous." But once he cranked up the heaters and his electric blanket, everything was fine.

Mike Winstel lives on a boat at Watertown. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

Winstel, who is single and between sales jobs, bought the 32-year-old boat for just $800 last July. Rather than continue shelling out $700 a month for a Loveland apartment, in September he decided to become a boatnik. His in-water slip at Watertown costs $595 for the winter.

"I love it," the 1992 Lakota High grad says. He's wearing a Margaritaville ball cap. Also a Buffett shirt. "I love water. I lived in Florida, and always wanted to live on a boat. I'm living out a dream, I guess."

Maybe he'll become a long-term live-aboard like Kirt Rockel, a neighbor at Watertown. He looks a bit professorial, what with his thick white goatee and matching hair, combed straight back.

"After my second divorce I decided I wanted to do something different," the 70-year-old retired teacher and football coach says. So 12 years ago he bought a boat and started living on it year-round. "It's a different lifestyle. It's a lot more fun. You meet a lot of people."

Indeed, his current home, a 42-footer named "Let the Music Play," has done wonders for his social life.

"If I said to friends on a Sunday morning, come over to my apartment and let's have breakfast, they'd say no. If I say, come over to my boat and have breakfast and we'll cruise down the river, they're all here."

But not this time of year.

"It's funny," he says. "Very few of my summer friends come down in the wintertime."

Ice lines empty docks at Watertown. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

If they did, they might see Rockel tie a rope around a cinderblock, then drop it repeatedly to break the ice and prevent it from damaging the hull. Thick ice also could push hard enough against the boat to raise it.

While using a pole recently to push a block of ice away from his boat, Rockel slipped and fell headfirst into the frigid water. But his left arm and leg caught on the dock, preventing him from going all the way in, and he managed to pull himself out. He was shaken and bruised, but not seriously hurt.

Even that hasn't soured him on being a live-aboard. "It's kept me young," he says. "I enjoy it thoroughly."

At Four Seasons Marina along Kellogg Avenue on Cincinnati's east side, Carl and Leesa Clevenger don't worry about ice forming around the 41-foot Chris-Craft they share year-round with son Bobby, 14. They bought a "bubbler" device to circulate water so it won't freeze.

The Clevengers also protect their boat by applying a plastic shrink wrap around the exterior. It helps seal out cold, as well as the outside world.

Cabin fever, anyone?

"Never," says Leesa, although she acknowledges "there's not a lot of people who can do this."

Nine years ago they moved out of a four-bedroom, two-story Colerain Township house and into the boat, which is "like living in your kitchen and family room," says Carl, 56, a sheet-metal worker for General Mills.

Back then, Leesa wasn't sure whether she could handle full-time boating. So they bought a condominium as a precaution. They didn't keep it long.

"My girlfriends love the boat in the summer," says Leesa, 40, a bill collector for General Electric Consumer Finance. "But they come into the bedroom (the boat has two small cabins) and look in my closet and say, `I couldn't do this. Where's your stuff?' "

What they didn't get rid of, they put in storage.

Leesa says it helps knowing that someday, she and Carl will travel extensively by boat. "Head south and just go," she says, all the way to the Bahamas.

In the meantime, they're not without modern comforts: a flat-screen TV with satellite reception, trash compactor, garbage disposal, stove and oven.

What they don't have this time of year is many visitors. "It's kind of lonely down here now," Carl says. They occasionally get together with other live-aboards for breakfast on weekends.

Over at Watertown, live-aboards often gather at the Wok on Water restaurant. That's where Al Petry, who lives on a 36-foot houseboat, is passes an afternoon citing the benefits of boat living.

"No grass to cut, no bushes to trim, no garden to put out," the 64-year-old retired union carpenter says. That would also fit the description of a condo, someone points out. "But you can't go boating in a condo," Petry notes.

Janet Raker sits in the spacious living room of her 66-foot boat. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

Not far away, on A dock, Janet Raker and Bill Ruehl, both 65, share a houseboat that's bigger than some condos. He works for a glass company as a glazer; she works part-time for Bayer Corp. They've been a couple for about nine years, and live-aboards for nearly that long on Mama's Big Daddy, a 66-foot-long, 20-foot-wide, all-steel vessel with storm windows and a full-size diesel furnace. They can take showers on board, because they constantly run water into the boat's storage tanks.

"What's nice about it, if you don't like your neighbors, you just fire up the engines and move someplace," Ruehl says.

For the Riverfest fireworks, they invite dozens of friends. For the Cinergy Field implosion - the last time they took the boat out - they had 38 guests.

They have pleasant memories of warm summer mornings spent on the boat's deck, doing nothing but drinking coffee and listening to music, greeting the never-ending stream of visitors.

In winter, things quiet down considerably.

"It is nice to just chill out for a while," Raker says.

No pun intended, perhaps. But outside, in the mostly frozen marina, even the ducks look cold.

E-mail jjohnston@enquirer.com

Boat dwellers come in all stripes