They're often paired with gulls in maritime jokes

Usage examples of buoys.

Boat propellers cut the buoys off, or storms carry them away or the ropes just rot and fall apart.

She cocked her head, listening, but could not hear the dull polyphony of the bell buoys that tolled to mark the channel.

He stretched luxuriously, hands high above his naked chest, staring ahead where he knew the orange-and-white buoys would soon be bobbing.

Spare vortex buoys which Governor Silar has released from the Naval Base.

No message would be able to reach us during the entire mission for the buoys were one-way repeaters.

Saul had ordered her to drop one of our own navigational buoys after each of the last twelve vortices.

You reached Earth eons later by following the buoys from the First Sol Mission.

Saul had started to lay back-up buoys as soon as we had left the well-charted starfields.

Silar shipping us vortex buoys from the Naval Base just before sailing?

Silar and your own leaders would let a ship and her crew sail knowing that the Monitor and the buoys would blow without warning?