Six of them in my anchor locker.
A friend called me a couple of days ago and said she saw squirrels chasing each other on my boat, it's on the hard for the winter. I climbed up the swim ladder (it was down) and looked around, one squirrel was near the bow and was not happy. It wanted to run past me and I figured out why, it was using the swim ladder to get up on the boat. After it left I looked around some more. Carefully opened the companionway, all good. Raised the anchor locker lid and there they were. One came out immediately, launched off the bow towards a frost fence, missed it and hit the ground running. Two more jumped off the bow as well. I went to the cockpit locker and got my dock pole (for protection, haha) and carefully went up front. I could see one more, buried in my anchor rode, and had to poke around to get it to come out. Using the hook I pulled rode out and found another of the rodents, it kept trying to bury further down. Finally it launched off the bow as well.
I could here my wife supporting me from the security of the truck, rounds of laughter coming from her........
I cleaned out the locker, they were settling in nicely for the winter. They entered the locker where the chain exits. I then plugged the access with a 2x2 and a heavy block.
So, my extension cord is ruined, sections of anchor rode are chewed and a couple of docklines are now garbage.
Other than needing to rant about this, I thought I would share the story so others can learn from this...plug the anchor locker exit hole!
Cheers
dj
A friend called me a couple of days ago and said she saw squirrels chasing each other on my boat, it's on the hard for the winter. I climbed up the swim ladder (it was down) and looked around, one squirrel was near the bow and was not happy. It wanted to run past me and I figured out why, it was using the swim ladder to get up on the boat. After it left I looked around some more. Carefully opened the companionway, all good. Raised the anchor locker lid and there they were. One came out immediately, launched off the bow towards a frost fence, missed it and hit the ground running. Two more jumped off the bow as well. I went to the cockpit locker and got my dock pole (for protection, haha) and carefully went up front. I could see one more, buried in my anchor rode, and had to poke around to get it to come out. Using the hook I pulled rode out and found another of the rodents, it kept trying to bury further down. Finally it launched off the bow as well.
I could here my wife supporting me from the security of the truck, rounds of laughter coming from her........
I cleaned out the locker, they were settling in nicely for the winter. They entered the locker where the chain exits. I then plugged the access with a 2x2 and a heavy block.
So, my extension cord is ruined, sections of anchor rode are chewed and a couple of docklines are now garbage.
Other than needing to rant about this, I thought I would share the story so others can learn from this...plug the anchor locker exit hole!
Cheers
dj