boy, buoy

Boy or boy means a male child or infant--
Was the baby a boy or a girl?
When Grandpa was a boy they had a horse and wagon.

Buoy or buoy  ( rhymes with boy ) means a kind of float used to mark a channel in the water, or a hazard a boat needs to avoid--
Watch for the buoy that marks the channel.
They placed a buoy with a light on it at the site of the shipwreck.
Buoy also means to keep something afloat, or spirits "up"--
This inner tube will buoy you up until help gets here.
The sight of a balloon is meant to buoy the spirit.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"The boy saw a buoy floating in the water, and wondered what it was."

Note--a "life buoy" is a floating life-saving device, like the ring you might have seen in a movie about a ship--
When they saw him in the water, they threw him a life buoy.