Monday 30 Mar, CY day 16: More Sailrite use to stitch the spraytop, and unwanted visitor in the evening, when we discover stowaway monster cockroach.
Its windless and hot in the morning, as soon as we get up. So back up goes the over-boom sunshade. And again we get instant relief from the heat. Phew!
Local news on Covid-19: there are no new test results to announce today. And it seems the supermarkets were much better under control yesterday, with the new surname alphabet system of entry. News from the rest of humanity is not so rosy 🙁
So what’s happening on Cloudy Bay today? It’s our 5th day of isolation onboard. Oana continues to edit videos, alternating with reading a book, while I tackle repairing the spray hood. Which took me all day! We have a brand new sprayhood stowed below, but now we have the sewing machine I have sworn to Oana that I’ll keep repairing it until it finally disintegrates! Actually, there is only one place where the sunbrella material has failed, where it passes over the rear frame. The rest just needs restitching here and there where the thread has disintegrated in the UV sunlight. I will confess that it took me two attempts to correctly cut out the patches, but once sewn on, we are pretty pleased with the final result. Oana’s only “observation” was that when I cut the loose thread ends, I am wasting too much thread. Sometimes I think she should have been born Scottish!
In the evening, as we relax reading in the saloon, we hear an unusual sound of rustling plastic coming from the bow cabin. I go forward to hear better. There it is again. It sounds like a mouse in a bag. I narrow it down to a paper bag on the bed that is full of packets of plantain crisps (chips, to those from North America). One look inside and I see the biggest damned cockroach ever, strolling around on the packets like it owns the place. It must be 3-4 inches long (8-10cm). I grab the bag and rush it to the cockpit. Where, armed with kitchen paper, I grab the beast and throw both it and the paper over the side. Only the beast escapes and scuttles back into the cockpit and disappears from sight.
I start searching, then hear a blood-curdling scream from down below – it’s Oana, she has spotted it running back into the saloon. I’m quite sure she could not have screamed louder even if pirates had attacked us! Anyhow, it was a good alert and soon the beast is in my hand again. Only this time I squeeze the life out of it and successfully send it to the waiting fish.
We then debate: have we got an infestation (our worst fear) or was this just a solitary olympic-champion cockroach that managed to fly the 200m here from the shore? I turn the mid cabin upside down looking for other stowaways but nothing. Only a few signs of cockroach poo near where the olympian was discovered. Needless to say, we are both feeling rather itchy at bedtime and Oana is even reluctant to use the forward heads! Let’s just hope this was a solitary stowaway that didn’t lay eggs and not just one of many other siblings that are still hiding in the boat. Only time will tell.
Tomorrow, surnames L to Z are allowed to the supermarkets. For the first time ever, we are actually looking forward to tomorrow’s trip ashore for food shopping! Strange times indeed 🙂