We have continued to sail before the wind and let it drive us towards the Caribbean. The winds have been light and the rain clouds have kept away, although on occasion they have given us some keen breezes but no rain. By noon on Thursday we had covered some 330 miles. The main event was the hooking of 3 large dorados but all got away for one reason or another. Stronger lines and hooks are now in place and better fishing is just a matter of patience or as Dirman puts it “tomorrow, tomorrow.”
The other thought occupying our minds has been the mouse or possibly mice… or worse. As a result of the creature attacking our new apples and sweet potatoes, we re-organised most of our foods so that the vulnerable items were either put in mouse proof boxes or suspended in a spare hammock. Then we set several traps including an ingenious one put together by Dirman involving a cardboard box, a bucket of water and a trapdoor. One of the other traps was a piece of card with heavy sticky plastic that disables mice should they come into contact with it. On inspection one of these traps seemed to have been torn into two and half of it was found next to a well chewed pack of wet wipes.
Bearing in mind no mouse activity has been seen for over a day, we are beginning to hope that the mouse may have died or, has it just retreated until the food stocks settle back to how they were? So our optimistic theory is that a mouse was caught by one of the sticky traps but got away as far as a packet of wet-wipes but couldn’t get much further having got stuck to them too. He or she then tried eating their way through some of the wet-wipes and died later due to indigestion. This theory is supported by the fact that no new evidence of mice has been found and we smelt a strong smell coming from an area below where the food is stored but is inaccessible due to the ship’s ballast. So the current theory on MouseGate is that the mouse is dead but we will keep you posted if anything should change our thinking. Meanwhile as we approach the end of the first week at sea, we are looking forward to the stronger trade winds to the south that should be in store for us next week.
Philip
