Roaches and Rats and Bats, Oh My!

[savoir]

Originally Posted by Auzzee

^Fair enough! Oz Authorities say one must not handle bats under any circumstances. The difference between an animals disease (rabies etc) and a bat borne virus (Lissa, Hendra, SARS etc) is that a virus can be transmitted through the air.

"Unlikely", yes; impossible, certainly not.

Well at least that's clear. Stay away from bats with a cough and if you see one with a runny nose get the hell out of there.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by savoir

Well at least that's clear. Stay away from bats with a cough and if you see one with a runny nose get the hell out of there.

ROTFL -- this place has turned into a comedy club today!

[Hudson Force]

Originally Posted by Rakuflames

All animals can carry nasty diseases, but we're unlikely to catch anything from a fruit bat..................

I agree with Rakuflame's thought here and I'm sure other humans are the greatest risk with mosquitos being a close second.
We've had roaches, ants, dry wood termites, lizards, birds, spiders, flying fish and one large rat that I was fortunate enough to soccer kick off the deck one evening. Our most surprising guest was a three foot harmless snake that Nancie exposed when taking off our windscreen cover. I managed to find him a safe spot ashore. It surprises me how biased I am. I was ruthless with the invertebrates and the rat, but I tried to rescue all the others. Not much success with the flying fish,- too many left dried on the deck in the morning!

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by CaptForce

I agree with Rakuflame's thought here and I'm sure other humans are the greatest risk with mosquitos being a close second.
We've had roaches, ants, dry wood termites, lizards, birds, spiders, flying fish and one large rat that I was fortunate enough to soccer kick off the deck one evening. Our most surprising guest was a three foot harmless snake that Nancie exposed when taking off our windscreen cover. I managed to find him a safe spot ashore. It surprises me how biased I am. I was ruthless with the invertebrates and the rat, but I tried to rescue all the others. Not much success with the flying fish,- too many left dried on the deck in the morning!

If you'd done that to a rat on my boat, you would be my hero forever. You'd have to wear your underwear on the outside!

[barnakiel]

It looks like I am in CaptForce's team: of all the unwelcome visitors I get really p... off only by other sailors' cats. Stray cats come close second, but these at least are smart enough to avoid me.

All the other creatures, I tried to rescue, save, move out, encourage to leave ... not always with full success.

Of the less usual type, we had wasps in the boom and some bugs that ate all my havregryn before I even opened the pack ... ;-(

;-)
b.

[westsail374]

One pest I have noticed in looking at boats that have been laid up for a bit is bees and wasps. They seem to like to create hives/nests in sail covers and other canvas.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by conachair

...

It was only afterwards my friends told me.. "No, you leave the ripe bananas *outside* ...

Both aboard and at home (lots of banana trees at home) we hang ours outside and cover with a plastic bag. That keeps the bats outside and keeps them out of the bananas.

Not sure the variety of bat in the pic, looks like the little leaf-nosed bats we get here in the Western Carib, but the variety of fruit bat we get here is MUCH larger. They eat LOTS of fruit, then roost, and...well all that fruit has to go somewhere....man they can make a mess!

One of the coolest bats I have ever seen around boats is the Mexican Fishing Bat (a general name I think which is applied to a few different varieties). They actually catch fish! Way cool to watch at night.

The worst pest I have seen aboard a boat is Africanized Bees in the mast...big headache.

[Khagan1227]

We had a fella with a dock queen near the head of the dock.

Since he wasn't using his boat, a mother racoon and babies moved in. It appears mama chewed through the cockpit boards and made herself at home. Since the boat was tied up bow in, it took a while before someone saw a racoon looking OUT of the ports in the salon.

The racoons turned a pretty nice boat into a project boat.

[Auzzee]

Where's Davy Crockett when you need him?

[annk]

Widlife and the Tropics seem to go hand in hand! Mosquito's, bees, biting flies but we have also had some more exotic visitors, a 5 foot boa under the second anchor, a vampire bat caught in the landing net on deck, a bright green iguana and worst of all an infestation of termites that gave us a real headache to exterminate.

[westsail374]

We never had any of these problems except for a few roaches that tried to sneak aboard in some cardboard boxes in which we had some supplies purchased in Martinique. We squished them before they could escape and multiply. We NEVER kept paper bags or cardboard boxes aboard - most common way for bugs to arrive.

[sck5]

bring some boric acid with you when you go. It really works but I found it hard to get in the islands.

[DumnMad]

[QUOTE=CaptForce;1077271]
We've had roaches, ants, dry wood termites, .....................

How did you deal with the insects? We have a few on our new to us boat.

[savoir]

There was a very detailed thread on this subject about a year ago. Anyone remember the thread heading ?

[westsail374]

Originally Posted by sck5

bring some boric acid with you when you go. It really works but I found it hard to get in the islands.

Boric acid is definitely the best way to deal with roaches.