We grew up in houses, on land. We've lived in cities as well as the ‘burbs, and we felt pretty well acculturated.

But marina life is still very new to us. The standards and conventions are not what we're used to. It takes a bit of work to fit in to this saltier and sunnier life-style. We're wondering how long it will take us to get the hang of this "marina" thing.

Hard Work

So there we were, sanding and scraping and generally sweating up a storm trying to remove the old name so we can display the nice new name. And finalize our USCG Documentation. And get our MMSI for our radios. And get new radios, for that matter.

The weather was glorious and our marina neighbors were stopping by to see what's going on.

Everything's fine so far: we see how this works. People just stop by to chat. After all, the boats are stacked right on top of each other, you don't need to shout to be heard next door.

But folks stay to chat. And stay and stay and stay. And chat and chat and chat. It was remarkable. No one "had to let us go" because they had a bunch of things to do.

It seems like folks hang around in marinas specifically so they don't have a hundred places to go and a thousand things to do. They're hanging around in marinas because -- well -- they like the "hanging around" life style.

Patience

It appears that stopping and chatting is not merely accepted or tolerated; it's expected and preferred. There's no dismissive "call me -- we'll talk". Folks seem to stop by, ready to talk.

One of our neighbors was talking about anchoring, and how to tell if an anchor is set. From an old salt, he'd heard that you should let it "settle" for 10 or 15 minutes. Don't slam the boat in reverse and dig the anchor in.

Relax. Let the anchor settle.

Got it. Learning about the marina life-style is easy. Relax. Let it settle in. Chat with the neighbors. Join the Stone Soup gathering.