Monthly Archives: January 2012

Dead Ants

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The downside of storing your boat on the hard is that critters can easily come aboard and stowaway if they so desire. The yard in Trinidad had some ants that we noticed when we dropped the boat off but they paced some plastic between the lumber the boat was sitting on and the boat but I guess that’s not enough.

We had lots of tiny black sugar type ants on board and we tried all kinds of things to get rid of them on our trip, sprays, powders, etc. Every store we went in we looked for a fumigator or bug bomb without any luck. One night we had a decent Internet connection so I consulted the almighty oracle that is google and found some interesting ideas.

Mixing sugar and boric acid seemed to be a good option and we had both of those on board already. The two powders together didn’t do much so I put some water in there and made a syrup and in no time those little (pests) came out and devoured their little ant cocktail.

2 days later all peace was restored on board. The only problem was that we put up with those little (pests) for 2 weeks before we found a solution that worked.

Pests is in parenthesis because the real explicative used might not be appropriate here.

I was so inclined yesterday when I found a couple when cleaning that I mixed a fresh cocktail and placed it in one of the cockpit storage area just for good measure and since the adults were having their own cocktails, I figured if there any ants left they too should enjoy a cocktail.

Busy couple of days

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Cleaning and putting the boat away.

Arrived pretty early on he 2nd of January and floated next to the fuel dock for an hour or two waiting on LeGrande or Yellow Pearl from a few posts ago to move out of the way. A monohull rated up to the pearl to get fuel. And when they left it was our turn but the yellow pearl simply moved forward so we went in behind her only to be told that that was the duty free fuel and since we had already cleared into the country we needed the pump where the pearl was parked so we had to back off and wait on them to finish the pictures that they were taking. Of course that means another parking adventure. We get all set and fuel up. In the last year or tyne trip to Trinidad and back we used almost as much feud le as we did crossing the Atlantic. That means we motored a lot this year, we took just under 100 gallons to top off the tanks.

And of course polishing off all food and drink on board that has become the painful flight day tradition.

St Lucia at the marina

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St Lucia is always a pleasure, but some times a disappointment when it is at the end of your Trip! We had a pretty productive day today and a very enjoyable dinner at a water front pizza joint. We are all clean and awaiting the new day! Need to clean the starboard side, exterior boat, put jib away, enclose the man and put the dingy and outboard out. We should be done early afternoon with a a few beverage breaks. Need to complete the boat importation, met with Edwin who will do some work for us and Emerson who will watch and maintain our boat while we ware away. Of course there is laundry and lots more cleaning, but no problemo. Another day in paradise……