The Marina Zoo

The How Not to Sail Minute You don't move into a marina.

You move into a zoo.

Or perhaps aviary is more apt.

First, there's the crows.

They've mastered the trash cans, the bungee cords, the art of the perfectly aimed poop.

They watch you with the knowing eyes of tenants who've been waiting for a new super to fail at his job.

On the shrouds and stays, the starlings have taken up residence.

Those are the things that look like tiny black dots and sound like a bunch of rusty gates being dragged across concrete.

In December into January, they number in the hundreds, maybe thousands.

The herons perch on dock lines like disapproving uncles who've seen better days.

Get within the kind of distance that a heron reserves for things that have brought cutlery, and it takes off with a croak that sounds like it's trying to dislodge a beach ball from its gullet.

Then there are the pelicans, graceful as ballet dancers in the air, ridiculous as clown shoes on the dock.

They always remind the Admiral and I of our old dog Daisy.

They perch on houseboats, on ruins, on anything that floats or stands still, using them as perches and privies with equal indifference, and they're pretty casual about giving way as we leave the marina past the fish-cleaning station.

None of these avian tenants care about slip fees.

None of them need to check a chart plotter before motoring through a channel.

They've been doing this a lot longer than you have.

And they'll still be there long after you've sold your boat, abandoned it, as many seem to do, or, hopefully, sailed off into the sunset.