Dev's Rat Tale

We don’t know where he came aboard.  It wasn’t until Georgetown that we discovered we had a rat for a passenger.   Food scattered around the cockpit locker.  Then other places.   The only places we docked were Bimini and Nassau, so it had to be one of those.  One night I was sitting at the chart table and this little head appeared out of an opening in the instrument panel.  The little head had whiskers, eyes and was just checking me out for a few seconds.  I was more surprised than the rat, it being a surreal experience to come face to face with a rat on MY boat.  The night before Alisa noticed a rat running up the mizzen sheet and disappearing into the mizzen sail cover late at night.  The guy clearly thought this was HIS personal yacht for the taking.   So we started to take stock of what food was where.  Every compartment seemed accessible to Mr. Rat based on the food we found scattered there or the rat turds.   So we quarantined all the food in various containers that he could not chew through or get at. THAT was quite a task. We found a water bottle that had been chewed into and was leaking.  The toothy little critter had even chowed into our Chai Tea !!   !!

So we got traps.  Mouse traps, rat traps, sticky traps.  Nothing seemed to interest him until one night we heard the rat trap go off.  Sure enough, it was off but there was no rat.  Also, one of the mouse traps was sprung and there were big rat footprints in the sticky traps.  Apparently the sticky stuff was much like a fingerprint taker.  A Graumman’s Chinese Theater impression spot for rats.   So this was war.   We were about to set out on a passage and Ratty was not invited.    

The passage started easy enough but then became challenging and then miserable.  Tossing and turning.  Hot, humid.   The engine was on, the sunshine was full blast and the seas were rocking us around uncomfortably.  And that’s when I realized that if Rat Boy was hiding in the bilges and other compartments of the boat, he had to be at least as miserable as we were.   What little ventilation we felt inside the boat wouldn’t be found in whatever compartment he was hiding in.   AND he was wearing a nice rat-fur coat.   The word “DEHYDRATION” flashed through my mind like a blinking neon billboard.   I figured that if he was hot as hell and couldn’t access some water, then he might die of dehydration.  Either that or fall into the bilge drown in whatever liquid it is that lives in the bottom.   Either way, we wanted him DEAD.   We knew he had to be AT LEAST as miserable as we were, especially without access to refrigerated beverages!   

The passage eventually ended.  No sign of rat.  Granted, there was no access to food for him to plunder either.  Now some rats are known to chew through water hoses, electrical wiring and stainless steel just for fun.   He already chewed the plastic head off a screwdriver.   We checked all the traps.  No luck.  We couldn’t find him anywhere.

And then, we found a Post-It Note with these words: “You Win” scratched in ink from one of the sharpie markers at the chart table.  

I paused to think about this.  A sure sign of surrender.  The rat knew that I knew he was dead meat.  

I yelled “Come out, come out, wherever you are” but the rat did not respond verbally.  

Instead, I found another Post It Note a few hours later with the following: “If I surrender, how do I know you won’t kill me?”.   

To which I stated in a loud voice and with firm tone and conviction loud enough for the rat to hear: “You’ll just have to trust me”.   

But the rat knew he could not trust me.  Nor I him.   Any mutual trust evaporated when he stepped foot on my boat and  plundered our food without so much as a “please” or “thank you”.  

Soon the rat began to negotiate.  The next note said “I am sorry for the problems I caused, but I need to leave your ship unharmed.  What kind of payment would you accept for my safe passage?”   I held firm.  “You can’t pay me enough money to get off this boat alive.  When I find you, you should be prepared to die.  But before you die, I may consider water-boarding your whiskered little face”.  

This seemed to put the fear of Neptune into the rat, for his next offer was much higher.   “I will see to it that all of the wood on your boat is varnished and all mechanical systems are brought to Bristol condition at my expense.”  “Please, I am quite thirsty and need something to drink”.  

I held out.  The rat continued to sweeten the pot and fattened up his offers.  “I know you want a new catamaran sailboat.  55 feet did you say?  It will take me some time, but I can make it happen.  I’ll even throw in a new Porsche for each of your kids and a new Volvo for your wife.”    This, of course, got my attention.  After all, letting another rat loose on this earth was no different than letting a congressman loose on K Street, and certainly better for society as a whole.  

I paused for a moment and then said:   “I will have to seriously think about your offer.  Can I get back to you tomorrow?”  I heard a hoarse whisper from somewhere under the floorboards of the boat “Take all the time you need”.  

I knew then I had beaten him.   But I wanted him to suffer a bit longer, to stew in his own juices– if indeed there were any left given his state of dehydration.  So I slept on it overnight.  

The next day I called out to Ratty: “Ok, I’ll take you up on the deal”.   All I heard was silence.  No Post It Notes, no scattered food, no hoarse whisper, nothing.  Later on in the day I noticed a faint odor that did not belong on the boat.   I went looking for Rat in all the usual places but he was nowhere to be found.  With increasing desperation and fearing I would never see my new catamaran, I turned the inside of the boat upside down and inside out.  

Then I found him.  He was laying under the sink near the garbage.  He was on his side, his long tail trailing downward toward the bilge.  He was nestled next to a water hose.  The hose was untouched, unharmed by teeth marks and not leaking.  In contrast, the rat was leaking and clearly dead..  His fur coat was intact.  The very thing meant to keep him warm had lead to his death.  I thought of the familiar sailor’s lament when stuck on a life raft:  Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.  

I contemplated whether Rat left our water hose intact out of a sense of duty or he was just ignorant about how close he was to the life giving water.  Too late now.  We got a plastic bag and carried his little corpse out from under the sink and gave him a proper burial at sea.  The boys played Taps on their portable keyboard while Alisa wiped away a tear and said:  “I really wanted that new Volvo”.

(Click "read more" below if you wish to see the gruesome, not-so-dearly-departed Ratty, lying in state.  But be forewarned: the caption is "Ewwwwwww".)

Das Rat. Fin.

Ewwwwwww!