There is a green heron who lives somewhere close by, and flits casually about the spaces inside the marina, at home and untroubled by the few of us who roost, afloat.

It's raining again. Between brief showers, the air is cool and pleasantly chilled. The sound of running water...perhaps my poor Carver draining its wet bilge.

17 June 21:41

The interesting thing about boat life is that one's entire life—at least now, in the summertime, when there are parties of lovely, normal citizens all around the Harbor, both on unwieldy party boats and in odd venues like the Yacht Club barge, or the strange purple disco that is carrying on just across the channel in the State Park—one's entire life happens in public. This is, of course, true of almost any New York City existence. There is a constant sense of being on display, of their presence, and of mutually ignoring one another as best as possible.

But not in the marina! We are on display here like Amsterdam Dames, well-lit, sweetly arranged in little rows, and afloat on the greenflat water, jumping with balls of swirling bunkerfish this evening. Krys, the Polish sailor who teaches at the school here in summer, says there is bluefish somewhere beneath. Occasionally a fin or a white underside breaches the surface. The fish seem panicked. This phenomenon has been going on every evening in the harbor—I've been sailing three days in a row, now—but back here, in the still water, it draws attention, as we do, small people going about disproportionately large lives.

I am interrupted here by Cano, the sweet Puerto Rican mechanic, who is looking for D. He is sleeping on his boat on the hard, I tell him. The boat is up on stilts in the boatyard. We live on a boat, too, Mami, he tells me. Just on land, not on water.

We are different; we are boat people. We take our houses for a sail, or never leave the dock at all. We endure the perfume of sun-warmed piss, diesel and boat soap, day in and day out. We ignore our leaking ceilings and wear the same clothes way too often. We are happy outside in practically any weather.

And so, people look.

In this public lifestyle, where anyone can see in, or stick their head in, somehow, it is becoming easier to find private space and productive creative time.

A duck honks away behind me somewhere.