Bewitched

Marinas are uncanny places, a bit like the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel, where you start out gasping at all the different lollies (hot showers! 240 V power! washing machines!) but then realise there’s a big scary witch hiding inside who wants to roast you in her oven and eat you for dinner.

Okay, maybe they’re not that bad, but after a few days in a marina, something witchy starts to happen to us: we want to leave, we know we should leave, we’re haemorrhaging cash out our eyeballs, but we keep saying things to each other like, “maybe if we stayed for one more night we could finally get round to fixing the [insert boat part]” and fronting up to marina office with our tails between our legs and asking to pay for “just one more night.” Life in a marina is dull, it’s usually hot, it’s often noisy, but it’s easy.

Eventually the kids start to go Big Time Berko and the scales fall from our eyes (Who needs hot water? Who needs shore power? Who needs clean undies?) and we get the hell out of there.

We’re always glad we did.

Us escaping from another marina

Where we ended up