Life in a Marina

 

Pier "E", our home

One of the really fun and interesting things about living on boat is the marina environment.  It's nothing at all like living in our landlubber homes.  Most landlubbers drive their cars into the garage, shut the door, turn on the TV, crank up the air conditioner, and live inside their self-contained bubble with little interaction with their neighbors.  Yeah, some neighborhoods are more sociable, but these days, that's the exception.

But in a marina, you constantly interact with your boat neighbors.  It's impossible NOT to!  We're all out and about our boats and walking the docks and so forth.  This will sound kinky, but most of us do NOT use the toilets and showers aboard our boats when moored in a marina.  It's much easier to use the bathroom facilities, thus that becomes just one more socializing opportunity!

Dragonfly is moored in an especially good place for making friends.  We are in slip #11, very near the "head" of a pier with about 50 slips.  So EVERYBODY on my pier passes by Dragonfly at some point in the day.  I know all of the local live-aboards by name.  And boat name.

Even though we're not yet out cruising, already we've become very attuned to the weather.  What we can do each day is governed by whether it's hot or cold, rainy or dry, windy or calm.  One even becomes attuned to the TIDES.   The marina has floating docks, so we notice it when the water is high or the water is low.  (When the water is too low, we keelboats cannot get through the shallow channel into the marina.)  Last week, the wind blew HARD out of the north for two solid days, which tends to empty all the water out of Galveston Bay.  At low tide, Dragonfly was literally sitting on her keel!

As the days get shorter and the daily temperatures continue to drop, we all tend to huddle up inside our boats a little more.  Opportunities to take our boats out sailing become rarer. 

 More adventures to follow as we get Dragonfly ready for her big trip.  Stay tuned!

 

Jam session in the cockpit with Chris, my boat neighbor and fellow sailor

This is the mansion directly behind Dragonfly's slip.  I have not met the owner, but he does have a powerboat moored nearby.  It sports a "Trump" flag.  They always have rowdy parties on their back porch!