Rat on board! For as long as I've been wearing out my overalls on the gelcoats of pleasure boats, I've been hearing about the difficulty of getting rid of a stowaway rodent on board. But until now, this kind of adventure remained a story gleaned from the bistros at the back of the harbor. With me, no rodent on boardâeuros¦ until now.
No rat at anchor
I am cruising around Menorca in the middle of summer. In this summer period, it is so difficult to find a place in the harbor, all full, that all nights are spent at anchor. No question for these charming little rodents to follow the moorings from the quay, to come and discover the joys of boating. At anchor, I risk nothing, I thought.
And yetâeuros¦
Nevertheless, I woke up one morning - at anchor, that is - to discover that the envelope of a breadstick had been eaten away. Around, some droppings are there to explain the cause. A rodent had invited itself on board. Moreover, by walking around on the deck, I see that the animal has also made a complete turn, marking its territory with numerous droppings. Obviously, it was looking for a way to get back to the land.
After thinking about it, I think that the charming animal took advantage of the loading of provisions to slip into one of the bags. Indeed, the day before, after having done some shopping, I left the bags for a few minutes on a quay, before approaching the boat to load them on board. It is probably there that the beast, by the enticing smell, introduced itself in a bag and found itself on the boat, independently of its will.
Tinkered traps
After the first surprise, it is necessary to go on the attack. Indeed, this kind of animal causes great damage. After the bread of the first evening, I thought I was still facing a mouse, the rat attacked bottle corks. Probably he liked the taste of the wine that remains in the cork. Anyway, he found these corks at the bottom of the cutlery drawer in the kitchen, and I still wonder how he managed to sneak in there?
I then try traps to make the bug fall at the bottom of a bucket, but the animal is clever: it eats the seeds, but comes out of the bucket easily. These rodents are mainly nocturnal. This leaves the whole day to think about how to trap them. But you have to rely on its intelligence and speed.
It nibbles at everything!
Finally, she will stay 8 days on board. This will give her time to eat a leather wallet, to attack boxes of dry cakes, to try her hand on a cupboard doorâ?¦ I was only afraid that she would nibble on electric wires or water pipes. Sleeping on board with this charming little bug is not really easy, and I only had one wish, to see it disembark. I was dreaming about it at night!
Death to the rat all around
Finally, the solution was found in a hardware store. We started with rat poison, a kind of small colored bag that was placed in all the places we had noted for her. If she nibbled some, moved others, it didn't hurt her enough to find her body dead.
The inevitable faggot
It is finally with a classic "Lucifer" faggot, baited with fresh apple that rang its last hour. Its release at the foot of the saloon table, at the time of the aperitif, while we were many gathered in the cockpit, remains a moment of satisfaction for me. I hastened to put the body of the animal at the bottom of the bucket and to throw it into the sea to be sure not to see it wake up, you never know.
That evening was a beautiful festive moment on board the boat.
