Marine Life revolves around the chaotic family life of June, a middle-aged lounge singer and mother.

Marine Life revolves around the choatic family life of June, a middle-aged lounge singer and mother. June is trying to hold on to her career, her beauty, her children and her most recent love, Robert - a tender but slightly confused younger man. To escape the world, June makes frequent trips through the car wash, singing her heart out. June's twelve year old daughter Adele - an amazingly mature adolescent surrounded by amazingly adolescent adults - tries to make sense of the emotional upheaval surrounding her. Within her weird extended family, Adele learns about loyalty, betrayal, forgiveness and what to expect from love.—arvi

Twice divorced lounge singer June, who is past middle age, her much younger boyfriend of several years Robert, a former sailor turned tugboat operator, and June's youngest offspring, twelve year old Adele, a proverbial "blip" whose father is June's second husband Humphrey, live together in what was June's mother's old house overlooking the docks in East Vancouver. Adele doesn't much like Robert, who she calls Slobert, as supplanting Humphrey in June's life. While Adele wants to live permanently with Humphrey who she sees once every other week, she is unaware that despite June having been the one to end the marriage, Humphrey only seeing Adele as infrequently as he does is more than adequate from his perspective. While Adele wants to leave, someone reentering the household is Adele's older unemployed half sister Joyce, who is escaping the physical abuse by her boyfriend Eric, she secretly taking uppers to dull the emotional pain while Eric stalks them by constantly parking outside the house. Also hanging around more than he should is Adele's older half brother Ray, a dock worker who too is escaping, he from the imminent responsibility of fatherhood as his wife Merry is pregnant. Despite his own tender age, Robert, who literally jumped ship in Vancouver when he met June who he has long wanted to marry, is more of a parental figure than any of the three offspring have ever had, he, whose very public displays of protecting family, often embarrassing Adele in the process. In dealing with Adele, Joyce and Ray in combination with June's growing feelings of inadequacy as she grows older, Robert may fall straight into the preconceived path as he is romantically pursued by his dispatcher Doris, who is closer to his own age.—Huggo