Bilge Rats!!

 That THING is going to be the death of me! That pestilent creature from the sludge ridden bowels of the dankest bilge that’s ever sailed the seas! I’ve been chasing that slime ball from stem to stern for years and just when I think I’ve rid myself of his presence, IT show up as if nothing has happened at all. ITS INFURIATING! 

Jerome is his name. He takes pride in nothing, except for his place in the band. You see, he plays the lead in a heavy metal ukulele band called the Nine Inch Gnomes. They’re nothing but degenerates!  Jerome has been known to frequent shady establishments where equal rights are, well, shall we say, decidedly one sided. But that’s not the problem. He also cavorts with characters of the “Underground” variety. For example, a couple weeks ago I was innocently visiting a dear friend of ours, Dodi, she is the kindest of souls. Well, during our visit we were commenting on the weather of the day when her eagle eye witnessed a mink swim straight into the exhaust port of our boat. I wandered over to shoo the animal away and found it was making a nest, IN THE EXHAUST HOSE!! I banged on the hull and it fled. I started the engine and out came 3 pounds of nesting material. Luckily there were no signs of shredded hose. Now, mink aren’t the smartest of creatures and require great amounts of training. This is where that pestilent gnome gets his kicks. It would not be beneath him to convince and train a mink to sabotage our boat. 

 So, by now you know that we are in Canada getting ready to cruise north on the Rideau Canal to the capital city of Ottawa. Guess who shows up, uninvited, and with a bounty on his head, like nothing is wrong in his world? That bilge rat Jerome! He was catching rays under the fire extinguisher in the cockpit. I snapped a quick photo before he had a chance to get away but he heard the shutter sound effect on my phone and made a hasty escape into the engine compartment before I could tear his beard out one hair at a time. Melissa screamed and took the wheel as I flung open the engine compartment lid and dove in after him, to no avail. He ducked into the sludge beneath the oil pan and surfaced forward of the engine and slipped behind our waste tank. He likes it there. I hope he doesn’t chew a hole in the tank again, waste fluids in a hot engine compartment are VERY BAD! The chase continues…

BTW, we made it to Kingston without mishap. No thanks to the bilge rat.