Life Aboard...ramblings at sea...
Sunrise at Sea on Paul's birthday...February 9th... His 63rd to be exact. He's still asleep. Seas are calm...well...that I guess is a relative term...so I'll go with relatively calm. For my critics...Denny...swells 2-4 feet with slight chop that 8-10 knots will put on the surface, sog 7 knots, motor sailing, pinching 40 degrees off of the wind, mizzen, main, and hanky of jenny up...
Yesterday we both were sitting in the cockpit and I saw a small spider. It obviously was not happy - yes, I say obviously...don't ask me how I know...I just did! I believe it had been displaced from it's chosen home by the salt spray that pinching in higher (than described above) and confused seas would bring (the first 24 - 30 hours of our passage). I watched him for awhile, then pointed him out to Paul and mentioned that I'm not sure if "we" should #1...kill him, or #2...not kill him and we would have a boat spider! Those who know Paul know that a boat cat, boat dog or any sort of other boat pet is out of the question. Paul went on to question if geckos eat spiders. Now looking back I can see how someone might say that our conversation was just plain nuts...but it was the third day our of our passage to Colon with the first 1/2 day and night with VERY ROUGH seas so little to no sleep for either of us...and I guess some needed background information might help of "life aboard". While at the dock up the Rio at Mario's we gained tiny little ants on board. It seemed all the boats had them! It finally got so bad that Paul got some sorbic acid (to intermingle with sugar) that would (we were told) get rid of them. None of this sorbic acid however ever left the bag...it can't work if it is never used! It seemed once off of the dock there were fewer...but they were still around. Then we had to go to the dock in Roatan (battery issues) and my facebook friends might remember me saying that we had a flying unwanted guest aboard and mouse type turds. We later determined it was probably bats and we buttoned the boat up tight every night to keep from having them fly down below. I would still on occasion find the mouse type turds down below so Paul finally suggested we buy a mouse trap. He ended up getting the sticky kind and put two out. Nothing...except one night when he left an m&m on the table...the ants went crazy with enjoyment! When I scolded him the next morning (after all m&m's are far too precious to leave for the ants) he put the m&m in the middle of the sticky mouse trap square and then watched as most of the ants got bogged down in the sticky mixture. I thought at the time that it was like ant torture but I didn't say anything as I did see one get away...(are some ants smarter than others or was it just luck?). We left those sticky things out for three weeks with no further ant action and no mouse action. We did continue to find pesky little turds - only a few down below - most in the cockpit. A few days before we departed Fantasy Island Marina I finally threw the squares away. The first morning of the passage I saw some (what I thought) were fresh turds...one down below and one in the cockpit. This brought another thought to mind that Paul and I discussed (again based on little to no sleep), that perhaps we had a gecko on board!! The thought of a gecko on board was delightful...in fact one of the boats up the Rio paid one of the workers to catch one for him to have aboard! I became hopeful of finding some additional fresh turds. It would also explain why we've been seeing less ants...geckos eat ants, yes? Initially I had thought that seeing less of the ants might be because they don't like rough passages either (both from the Rio to Utila...and now the first two days of this one) and were hiding until it was all over. So...there are some possibilities...another less positive possibility is that the extremely rough seas bounced some turds from their hiding places - so they are not "fresh" just new for us to find....and all these thoughts are somewhat related and bring me back to the spider. #1 or #2. It was the latter...neither one of us got up to kill him. So, if we do have a boat gecko on board...and if they do eat spiders...I saved him dinner. And, if we don't have a gecko on board, we now have a boat spider. I wonder what I should name him/her...time will tell....and do they eat ants?
Sunrise at Sea on Paul's birthday...February 9th... His 63rd to be exact. He's still asleep. Seas are calm...well...that I guess is a relative term...so I'll go with relatively calm. For my critics...Denny...swells 2-4 feet with slight chop that 8-10 knots will put on the surface, sog 7 knots, motor sailing, pinching 40 degrees off of the wind, mizzen, main, and hanky of jenny up...
Yesterday we both were sitting in the cockpit and I saw a small spider. It obviously was not happy - yes, I say obviously...don't ask me how I know...I just did! I believe it had been displaced from it's chosen home by the salt spray that pinching in higher (than described above) and confused seas would bring (the first 24 - 30 hours of our passage). I watched him for awhile, then pointed him out to Paul and mentioned that I'm not sure if "we" should #1...kill him, or #2...not kill him and we would have a boat spider! Those who know Paul know that a boat cat, boat dog or any sort of other boat pet is out of the question. Paul went on to question if geckos eat spiders. Now looking back I can see how someone might say that our conversation was just plain nuts...but it was the third day our of our passage to Colon with the first 1/2 day and night with VERY ROUGH seas so little to no sleep for either of us...and I guess some needed background information might help of "life aboard". While at the dock up the Rio at Mario's we gained tiny little ants on board. It seemed all the boats had them! It finally got so bad that Paul got some sorbic acid (to intermingle with sugar) that would (we were told) get rid of them. None of this sorbic acid however ever left the bag...it can't work if it is never used! It seemed once off of the dock there were fewer...but they were still around. Then we had to go to the dock in Roatan (battery issues) and my facebook friends might remember me saying that we had a flying unwanted guest aboard and mouse type turds. We later determined it was probably bats and we buttoned the boat up tight every night to keep from having them fly down below. I would still on occasion find the mouse type turds down below so Paul finally suggested we buy a mouse trap. He ended up getting the sticky kind and put two out. Nothing...except one night when he left an m&m on the table...the ants went crazy with enjoyment! When I scolded him the next morning (after all m&m's are far too precious to leave for the ants) he put the m&m in the middle of the sticky mouse trap square and then watched as most of the ants got bogged down in the sticky mixture. I thought at the time that it was like ant torture but I didn't say anything as I did see one get away...(are some ants smarter than others or was it just luck?). We left those sticky things out for three weeks with no further ant action and no mouse action. We did continue to find pesky little turds - only a few down below - most in the cockpit. A few days before we departed Fantasy Island Marina I finally threw the squares away. The first morning of the passage I saw some (what I thought) were fresh turds...one down below and one in the cockpit. This brought another thought to mind that Paul and I discussed (again based on little to no sleep), that perhaps we had a gecko on board!! The thought of a gecko on board was delightful...in fact one of the boats up the Rio paid one of the workers to catch one for him to have aboard! I became hopeful of finding some additional fresh turds. It would also explain why we've been seeing less ants...geckos eat ants, yes? Initially I had thought that seeing less of the ants might be because they don't like rough passages either (both from the Rio to Utila...and now the first two days of this one) and were hiding until it was all over. So...there are some possibilities...another less positive possibility is that the extremely rough seas bounced some turds from their hiding places - so they are not "fresh" just new for us to find....and all these thoughts are somewhat related and bring me back to the spider. #1 or #2. It was the latter...neither one of us got up to kill him. So, if we do have a boat gecko on board...and if they do eat spiders...I saved him dinner. And, if we don't have a gecko on board, we now have a boat spider. I wonder what I should name him/her...time will tell....and do they eat ants?
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Hey there...let us know what you think...Capt Paul