The Mouse

Shelburne, Vermont
44 25.55 N 073 14.92 W

Last month while we had Katelyn on board the boat, I started to climb up the companionway ladder to go outside. I came nose-to-nose with a chipmunk who was just about to jump inside. I'm not sure who was more startled, me or the chipmunk, but there was no doubt which of us reacted fastest. The chipmunk took off running for his life. I chased after him, not nearly as fast. As I got up on deck, I spotted him running up the rope tying us to shore.

Recently I saw pictures of boats at a marina in California. Every rope on every one of those boats had a rat guard cone attached to their dock lines. We never had those, we never needed one before. Well, a couple of weeks later, our luck ran out. In the evening, we were both quietly reading books when Libby suddenly let out a gasp, just short of a scream. It was a mouse running across the floor.

The next day, I got some glue type mouse traps and we spread them around. They did no good. For several days, the mouse appeared each day. It was always Libby who saw him, never me. We put the traps everywhere he appeared. I even presses a corn chip into the glue as bait. He ate the chips without getting caught. Then, he didn't appear again for two weeks. We gladly thought he was gone.

Then we started hearing strange noises. He was nibbling and rustling close to our ears. We heard him from one direction, then another the next night and another the night after that. Only once did he appear. I figured out that the mouse figured out that he could travel all over the boat under the floor where we have a bilge and water tanks. Under the floor he could reach all the compartments on the boat without exposing himself. All of them have small cracks and holes where stray water (or a mouse) can find its way down to the bilge.

We gave up on the glue traps and bought some spring traps. The first day, Libby opened up the lazarette storage locker in the cockpit and there he sat. She moved a trap to that exact spot. Bingo! The next morning we had a trapped mouse.

Embarrassing as it is to have vermin on board, we did not fare as badly as Scandinavian Airline System. Last week, they had to cancel the flight from Stockholm to Chicago because of a mouse running up and down the aisles upsetting the passengers. That incident made news all over the world. I bet almost as many people saw that on Associated Press as will see our story here on this blog.