Secrets Inside Marinas
They call us liveaboards. We live on our sailing boats. We work, love and play on them. Our lifestyle is totally transient.
They call us liveaboards. We live on our sailing boats. We work, love and play on them. Our lifestyle is a transient one. It makes for a glamorous picture but our lives beneath those masts are more sophisticated than that. Glamour is a small part of it. The rest is sheathed in complete secrecy.
It’s a private club. Like all clubs, it has codes. They protect the club’s secrets. Marina people have lots of secrets to keep protected. The codes change depending on the weather conditions and whether its members are on the ocean or near land.
You wouldn’t think that meteorological events and changing one’s position on the globe would have such an influence on sailor behaviour but it does. Even those who work in a marina yard, right beside the marina don’t understand it. They won’t know the whole truth about those who live in it just a few feet away. It’s something few land dwellers can understand too.
Sailors share strong bonds through unspoken rules that protect them and their watery world from outsiders. Dysfunction might occur without proper order in the club’s ranks, threatening to upset the delicate balance between life and death. The ocean is a dangerous place. Fear is what unifies sailors. It keeps them safe. A knowing nod is more than enough to figure out what’s needed between two people of the sea. All is well when things are in order and ship shape.
Relationships activate fast and require little maintenance after members sail their separate ways. That’s what living on the water is all about. Sailors depend on it. It has to work this way. It’s the fickleness of land dwellers that threaten to ruin their piece of paradise that concerns them most.
“What do they know?” We often ask ourselves.
Why would a sailor buy tobacco at the full-priced packet on the mainland if it comes cheaper by the crate on a duty-free island? A thousand sea miles will see a yacht sail past many places of opportunity. A smoking sailor knows all the tricks. He knows where to get the best deals. On Everything.
Drugs?
Sure but laws differ from shore to shore, country to country, don’t they? Who can keep track of these things? And who’s to say what happened if nobody says anything about breaking a law here or there? What happens at sea never happened at all.
That’s why the us and them barrier is installed at each marina. It controls the flow of information between the wet and dry sides. On the fluid side, the club is divided into two discernible groups, each with its own layers of order.
The first is the day sailors and recreational fishermen who arrive at the marina on weekends to play with their floating toys. They come and go oblivious to the liveaboard way of life. When their day is over, they pack up their playthings and go back to their cities of concrete. There are smiles and winks between them and the liveaboards but that’s all.
The liveaboard layer of truth isn’t broached by any weekender.
The second group is the people who live on their boats. Liveaboards remain in the marina long after the others have left. They endure all kinds of weather. Sun, rain, hail and cyclones. On quiet evenings, when the weather is kind and calm, they crawl out of their floating capsules to gather and share their spoils. Information is currency. Boat parts are currency. Favours are currency. Alcohol is currency. Females are currency.
Marina managers rely on liveaboards as they function as the eyes and ears of a marina when they aren’t around. Liveaboards act as after-hours security. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. To maintain it, management frequently turns their eyes away from the private lives of the liveaboards. The less that’s said, the better it is… for everyone.
My serial killer has a good reason to take advantage of the liveaboard code of secrecy. He has a substantial one to keep hidden from land dwellers. First, he has to break into the club from the outside. It’s not easy to do. It will take time and patience, lots of patience.
-M