The Great Wander

It doesn’t matter where you live, you have creep crawly critters.  In houses you can have mice, rats, spiders, or snakes.  You just might not be super aware of those critters that you are sharing your space with.  On a boat however, your awareness of these critters does become a little more heightened. 

In December, when we were supposed to be having some electrical work done, we took off for North Dakota to visit family for a week.  I hadn’t left the boat since August.  Sandy and Matthew had both taken some trips and gotten away, and my mental health needed the break.  The trip was great.  It was good to see family and get away from the boat for a bit, since we were living in the work.

When we returned, there were several things that we discovered.  One of the biggest was the anti-fatigue matt that was in the galley was chewed, a lot.  Then we started to poke around found that food in the pantry had holes in the packaging.  And rat droppings.  I guess they could’ve been mouse droppings, but they were pretty big, so we assumed they were rat droppings.

It was late, so we just went to bed knowing that there were rodents on board with us and we all hoped that no rodent would be joining us in bed.  The next day we did more investigating and yep, there were rats.  We saw chunks of apple that had been on the counter overnight chewed up.  

The question then became, how do you get rid of rats on a boat?

Step one, rat traps.  They are bigger than mouse traps, but the same idea.  Find places that they are likely to hide and put the trap there.  One of the compartments in Matthew’s cabin was open, and it was dark and dry, so we put a trap there.  Eventually, we caught one there.  Sandy was on the boat alone, so she got to deal with it.  Blood and guts were in the compartment and she was lucky enough to have to clean it.  One down, are there more?  How do we keep more from getting on the boat?

We found out through some research that rats don’t like strong odors like peppermint, so we bought peppermint oil and doused our docklines in it.  We also bought peppermint oil soaked blocks that we distributed throughout the boat.  So far, almost six months later, it seems to be working.  We’ve added to our list of chores to add peppermint oil to the dock lines and we routinely check for signs of rats, but so far, so good.

The other critter that we just discovered that has been joining us are weevils.  Weevils are small insects that you will find in pasta, flour, rice, and other dried good like that.  When you buy flour at the store, you are almost guaranteed to have them in your flour, but you need the right temperature and humidity for the eggs to hatch.  And when they hatch, they will get into anything and everything!  They aren’t much bigger than about 4mm, but you see them crawling all around.

How do you get rid of weevils?  First, whatever you see them crawling in, throw it out off the boat.  I threw away three boxes of unopened pasta, because through the window, I could see the holes in the pasta.  Bags of prepackaged rice mixes…gone.  Crackers, gone.  If you see some in there, get rid of the entire product.  Of course, if you like, you can keep the product and just know you’ll have added protein.

What I know now is that to prevent the infestation.  You need to get rid of the cardboard packing before it even comes on board or at least very quickly.  Things like flour, you can vacuum seal and that helps.  It’s better if you bake the flour at about 200 for 20 minutes, but when it’s 93 outside, I’m not turning on the oven. 

I don’t know how effective this will be, but I’ve heard that weevils don’t care for bay leaves or cloves.  So the mice dice I mentioned, before, now that the peppermint oil is gone from the first set, those are getting soaked in clove oil and distributed in the pantry.  Flour, rice, and beans will be sealed with bay leaves too.

Everyone talks about all of the boat work that needs to be done (though we obviously weren’t expected what we’ve been through) and while I’ve found several bloggers who talk about dealing with weevils and other insects, these are things that are new learnings for us!  I never really expected that we’d have to worry about these things, but here we are.  Now, when I have air conditioning…you can bet my flour is getting baked before it goes into a storage container!