Very ugly, but these mummies I found during the preparation of our sailing trip…
No mummies on my boat
We were in two marinas the last year, and everytime we had intruders on our boat. Not just intruders, but smart, mean, dirty and dangerous rats.
I had quite a job to get rid of the rats that were living on our boat. It becomes a disturbing routine job. I get the rat-traps and put cheese and peanut-butter on the hook and put down small trays with rat-poison on the places I suspect them to pass by during the night. This I do with gloves on, so not to give an indication that some human being is setting up the traps.
The first time, this was in Mar-Marine, we were lucky to trap a rat in a few days. Problem gone.
The second time was in the Crowbar marina. The rat or rats were eating a lot of poison every night. First I was using some add-on goodies like cheese to make them a nice ‘Puree de Poison’. I thought I had diluted the poison too much. So later on I just went for the poison.
The poison was not touched any more. We went to Guatemala city and the problem was over and forgotten.
When we came back from Guatemala city I discovered that the rat-poison that I stored away had been eaten. This was more worrying then humorous. I started again with my catching-procedures, but I got absolutely nothing, no trace. After a week I gave up and stored the stuff away again.
Before we go on a long trip I scan the boat meticulous from f’csle to the aft-storage lockers. To my surprise and disgust I found one mummy laying under our bed and one in the anchor-locker. Are our noses so bad, or do the rats dry our without making any smell?
I was worried about the damage those animals did while we were away. What did they chew on?
I found two holes in our staysail. Just pure luck that the holes were relatively small. The sail was repairable. For the rest some minor chewing on the boat-isolation. No food was touched.
Lesson learnt:
At anchor is safer, cleaner and cheaper then at dock in a marina. Most dangers encountered with sailing are related to the closeness of land. The closer, the more dangers.
