Last night was a deluge: I didn't stick my head outside to see for myself but from the inside, the rain drops sounded like pebbles pelting Calypso's 25-year old canvas top. Like each one might rip open a hole to let its buddies come inside.
So I was surprised when I got up this morning to discover my waterproofing had held up pretty well. Not perfect, but at least the cushions and mattress stayed dry through the night.
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There's an old saying that "Something's always breaking and needs fixing on a boat" ... but I strongly disagree.
My floating, waterfront experience tells me that the truth is actually, "Something always needs fixing on a boat belonging to an absentee owner who only shows up on weekends two or three months out of the year."
That's the guy you see standing around cussing on the docks on Saturday mornings, scratching his head and wondering 'What's wrong this time? Why won't it start?'"
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Compared to the total number of boats here among the 500 or so slips, there's not many full-time liveaboards, which always makes me wonder how the "typical" owner might feel about showing up for a weekend of boating and discovering the most recent thunderstorm had left six inches of rainwater flooding his vessel's saloon.
Or how an "absentee" owner would react upon getting a phone call from the marina office informing him that his boat had sunk overnight because the bilge pump had failed.
See, when there's not a living person aboard to notice the leaks, the boat doesn't much worry if rain's coming in through the hatch somebody forgot to close last month.
The boat doesn't give a fish stick if rain pours in by the bucketfuls and ruins its upholstery, nor will a boat start crying if a seacock fails and allows its friendly neighbor The entire Chesapeake Bay to come flooding in for a week-long sleep-over.
But when somebody's living inside the boat it's different, because the slightest leak or drip gets noticed right away. The person living aboard immediately notices, because leaks and staying afloat are mutually exclusive.
Put simply, you couldn't stand living on a boat if you ignored leaks and didn't pay attention to where the water's coming from.
Nor could your vessel keep staying afloat.
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Scripture tells us that when a person accepts Christ as their saviour, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside that person. And like living on a boat is incompatible with the deceit of ignoring leaks and pretending they don't exist, the Holy Spirit is incompatible with sin and deception.
That "incompatibility" is what causes believers to feel convicted by their sins and to genuinely seek God's forgiveness and mercy. A believer can no more shrug off and ignore sin than an unattended, leaking boat can stay afloat or avoid permanent damage.
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Being a full-time liveaboard means staying on top of leaks before they cause damage requiring extensive repairs.
But for pleasure boaters who only show up a few weekends in the year, who knows what major surprise that next little leak or overlooked drip might have in store?
