I just spent a week on the water — via a Caribbean cruise ship — so I can speak with authority about the keys to nautical survival: all-you-can-eat buffets. I can’t promise that such buffets are coming to Clinton Lake, but a major expansion of the Clinton Lake Marina will give boaters there much more room to host all sorts of activities.

Megan Hiebert, owner of the marina in the Clinton Lake State Park, told me work has been completed to install 70 new covered boat slips, and work will begin in the spring to add another 17. But the slips aren’t your standard slips that just provide a secure place for your boat to dock. The slips also include a patio area for each slip owner.

“The only thing separating you from the lake is a railing,” Hiebert said. “We have people who have ordered new patio furniture and decorative lights and electric grills,” Hiebert said. “It will be just like their back deck, without the fire pit.” (Regulations prohibit open flames on the deck.)

The expansion will bring the total number of slips at the marina up to 475. The expansion is just the latest in what has been a major investment in the marina since Hiebert purchased the facility in 1998. At that time, the marina had fewer than 200 boat slips and offered far fewer services than what it does today.

Heibert said she decided to go with the dock system that included the patio areas — each patio is about 100 to 150 square feet in size — because there has been a strong demand for lakeside property on Clinton Lake. Current regulations have made it difficult for any true lakeside developments to be built along Clinton Lake. Plus, Hiebert said she has long promoted the marina as a small community, and she thinks the patio areas will help bring boat owners together to socialize even more.

The new slips, which are on the eastern end of the cove and provide a good view of the dam, will lease for about $5,000 a season, depending on the size of slip needed, Hiebert said. She said the the patio component added about $1,200 a year to the lease rate.

“That is lakefront property for basically $100 per month,” she said.

Of course, some of those months will be in the cold Kansas winter, but that’s not a problem, if you have planned ahead: Eat enough during the summer buffets and you’ll have plenty of layers to keep you warm in the winter.