Having stayed at many marinas in our mostly transient
boating life, I can attest to the fact that although there are many differences
between them (size, features, efficiency, etc.) there also many similarities.
These similarities encompass both the good and the bad. (And yes, sometimes the ugly.)
In most marinas you will find that the commonality in sharing the
joy of boating is a robust and constructive one. Most boaters are more than
willing to give you information, advice or a welcome hand at the dock as you
bring your boat in or out. It is not uncommon for somebody you’ve only just met
to go so far as to lend you the use of their car to get into town for supplies
or parts.
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| Typical group of friendly boaters looking for someone to help out. |
Which isn’t to say they’re intrusive in anyway. Most of
them. If you’re the type of person who loves to socialize there are more than
enough opportunities to do so. If you’re the kind that enjoys their boat as a
means to find quiet time for yourself, that is, for the most part, respected by
people once they get a handle on you.
And privacy is a key issue in marinas. As the title of this
post states, a marina isn’t a parking lot for boats. It is a community. A very
small, tightly packed community that can only exist because of the willingness
of everyone to exhibit an unusually high degree of respect for their
neighbours.
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| The tight-knit community of the marina |
Noise...
Now in any social setting like this, an apartment block for
instance, you can’t expect that everyone will be thinking about this all of the
time. Who hasn’t had to endure a neighbour that plays his television too loud,
or is constantly entertaining loudly on his balcony? Well, when your
“apartment” is only 30 or so feet long and a third of that wide and is
connected to the other apartments by one of the most conductive elements on
Earth, namely water, the effect of an unthinking neighbour is exponentially
increased.
That is why, in some marinas, there is usually a place that
the community considers the “party dock”. This is where (either by intelligent
design of the marina owners or by attrition caused by non-party people moving away)
the group of boaters that primarily like to sit on their chairs on the dock and hoist a few
are located. Quite often they are friends that know each other well and enjoy
that sort of bonding as it translates to group boat outings and such. By and
large I’d have to say that these people are reasonable and keep their raving to
a minimum. Of course, that’s not always the case.
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| The Party Dock |
Now, here is the conundrum. Boaters are quite often of the
live-and-let-live variety. And confrontation comes with difficulty to most. Many
marinas have signs posted advising of ‘quiet hours’, usually from 11 p.m. on,
sometimes even as early as 10 (which I think is even more reasonable,
personally). But on the weekend, when people have come here to escape the pressures of
daily life, how do you reconcile the behaviour of those that want to let off
steam with those who wish to mellow out?
Well, here are a couple of possibilities.
If it is your desire to blow it out, why not gather your
friends into a little flotilla and head off to some remote anchorage where
noise level is, arguably, no issue? (Weather permitting.) Or, if that isn’t practical, appoint one of your group (if
he/she hasn’t already assumed that mantle) to act as a sort of bell-weather for
the rest of the community, occasionally having a listen in the shoes of the
other boaters and decide if maybe you’re overdoing it?
Now you could say, well if you want that peace why don’t you
just do the same thing; take your boat and hide somewhere? And, of course, we do and that’s okay,
except it is much easier for the party person and his small group to go elsewhere
than the rest of the marina to vacate to accommodate them.
Okay, enough about noise…. Wake.
Entering and leaving the harbour. In this age of great
diversity of boat types, it is obvious that not all people are boating for the
same reason. Some people quite enjoy plodding along at 7 knots while others prefer to jet around
the lakes on PWC’s and of course, everything in between. Surprisingly, a
mid-size Sea-doo makes a lot of wake for its size, especially at high
speeds.
Most marinas have ‘no-wake’ signs up as you enter. And for
the most part people respect that. But there seems to be a feeling that if
you’re on a PWC or one of the now super-powered dinghies that it doesn’t apply.
If you’re docked on a wall and not in a slip, wakes of this
nature can put a bowl of soup in your lap pretty easily.
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| PWC entering a marina at 6 a.m. (Caption exaggerated for effect) |
The washrooms...
In a marina there are common wash and shower rooms that are
used by all. Owing to the limited capacity of holding tanks in most boats that have them, most
people opt to do their ‘business’ in the provided restrooms and to save their fresh water
they use the marina showers.
Again, a lot of people packed into a small area needing to
live together gives the sense that perhaps you are back in college and living
in a crowded dorm or something. And in many ways the same rules apply. If
everyone wants to get clean without getting some nasty surprises on entering
the shower rooms, isn’t it wise to clean up after yourself? Nobody wants to walk into a shower room to find discarded paper towels, soap bits, empty shampoo bottles and other flotsam and jetsam scattered about the floor and counter. Kids should be made aware of this too. And if there's an issue with something, like leaks etc., report it so it can be fixed for the next person.
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| Typical marina washroom after a long weekend |
Dogs...
Simple rule here. If they're off the boat, they're on the leash. Your 50 lb. Rottweiler may have the disposition of a saint and have recently saved 20 people from a burning building, but of course nobody but you knows that. And it can be pretty disconcerting, especially for older folks, when one comes bounding down the dock chasing a gull or something. This same rule of thumb could be applied to children... (I jest) (Kind of).
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| Rottweiler disguised as a German Shepherd looking for prey. |
Okay, I've said enough and I promise that I won't visit the curmudgeonly side of boating again any time soon. As I said earlier, for the most part people are considerate, but depressing situations have happened often enough that I felt a gentle reminder of this need for courtesy might not go amiss.
Thank you, and good night.
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| Curmudgeon |
