Well it is now 2012 - Happy New Year to all. As has been pointed out bysome of our more devoted following we have been delinquent in our posts and it has been more than a month since we updated the blog. There are several reasons for this, none of them very good. The last report was from Rosie's Place on Grand Cay. I mada a serious error here and we went ashore without putting the hatch boards in. When we awoke the next morning we could here something chewing something else in the aft A/C cabinet - presumably my wiring. Sue investigated further while I went to see if the island sold rat traps - they did not. While investigating she opened one of the cabinets and a large rat jumped out producing a very predictable and justified extreme emotional reaction. The closest place of any size is Marsh Harbor a good two days away. We made it in two days including an overnight stop at anchor behind Powell Cay. The Whale was manageable (Sue has more on that) and we arrived at Marsh Harbor Marina and Jib Room at noon. We have been at the marina since then. We made a decision to use Marsh Harbor as our base from which to explore the Abacos and then to move on to the Exumas later in the season.
The marina is owned and managed by Tom and Linda and their son Stephen and a small local staff. It is beautifully kept and the bathrooms are the cleanest and best set up I have ever found in a marina. Tom drove me to the Central Hardware the afternoon we arrived and I purchased a selection of rat traps - two big Victors and two varieties of glue traps. For the next week these were deployed around the boat in various configurations. We did move all of our clothing and chewable stuff off the boat into temporary storage (I lost one tee shirt in the first two days). It turns out rats are smarter than you think. He (I always presumed it was a he only because I could not face the thought of it being a pregnant she) got into one of the big glue traps early on and then got right out again - they don't work. However he never went close to any of the others again. He ate most of the peanut butter off both Victors without springing them and it appeared we were in for a long seige. During this time we received plenty of advice; one of the dock hands provided me with a small chicken bone and instructed me to cable tie it to the bait holder which I did. That night the trap was sprung - but no rat - how big was it? From the web I discovered there are electric traps available that, once the rat is inside a small house like box a high voltage electric current (from AA batteries) will kill him. Of course Marsh Harbor did not have any and it would take two weeks to get them. However Nassau did have them. So I flew to Nassau and purchased two of them (in case one did not work). On my return I discovered the other Victor in the food cupboard had aslo been sprung - still no rat. Obviously conventional means were not working so I decided to discard all the old traps and get serious with my new electric marvels.
At that point, when I went back to the food cupboard the rat had appeared and was sitting motionless looking at me. I poked it with my 1" combination wrench to see if it was still alive. It was and it moved at which point I lost it and beat the poor thing to death with the wrench. Having removed the carcass from the boat I retired to the bar for a stiff drink - provided I must say compliments of the marina.
It took a day to vacuum, wash, and disinfect the boat, throw out all perishable goods, launder everything on the boat and then put everything back together. For a week we had been sleeping in the cockpit - thank goodness for watertight side curtains - and it was very nice to sleep once more in a proper bed. The hatch boards now go in whenever we leave the boat.
We decided to spend Christmas with Frank and his family in Houston which made a very nice break and for the last two days we have been in Hope Town harbor. Sue will be blogging about that later. The weather here is terrific quite cool at night and not too hot during the day. I have made significant progress on my brightwork.
Anyway, Happy New Year and my resolution is to be more didligent about keeping up this blog.
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