1/12/2014 = Marina Adelaide
You Dirty Rat
It seemed like we had left Easy Tiger for
an eternity. It was actually July when we packed up and left Easy Tiger in care
mode at Marina Adelaide. We hadn’t planned to leave so long, but a severe case
of the dreaded “budget deficit” disorder meant we had to rejoin the workforce.
After six months of landlocked “adventure”
the day of return travel to Easy Tiger crawled along as times of great
anticipation do. We travelled by bus from Arno Bay to Adelaide. This is an 8
hour trip which we put a positive spin on by saying it would be nice to see
some of the country side. After about 3 hours of looking out the window it was
getting hard to justify the decision to take the bus. The country side was flat,
bland paddocks of straw. In fact miles and miles of straw dotted with the odd
farmhouse or small town that resulted in another 10 minute stop over for the
bus.
At long last the bus pulled in to Adelaide
central station. Leanne hailed a taxi big enough to take our 80 kilos of
luggage. Peak hour. Another hour crept past in the taxi until finally we were
offloaded at Marina Adelaide.
Gathering up our bags and urgently walking around the corner of the
building we got our first sight of what is now our home. Easy Tiger. Like players in the last leg of the amazing
race, we sprinted (as well as you can carrying 50 kilos of luggage) down the
gangway and along the jetty to pen S2. I was sort of expecting someone to be
there to say “congratulations Stave and Leanne, you are team number1.
To say that we were stopped in our tracks
would be an understatement. I caught a glimpse of Easy Tiger’s black sail bag
first. That is, the material of the sail bag was once black. Now it was motely grey
colour. There were also spots of white giving a dappled effect. Bird pooh, layers
of it.
My eyes (and my heart) dropped to the rear
transom where I was about to board Easy Tiger.
A bird’s nest. Or what resembled a bird’s nest covered the entire back
steps, both sides, and the entire cork floor of cockpit. There was nowhere on the rear of the boat to
put a foot or take a step without treading in pile of what we thought was bird’s
mess. There were piles of weed, feathers, some sticks and left over crab shells
literally covering the floor. Oh, and pooh; you couldn’t imagine a bird
producing so much “waste”.
After being away for so long, working long
hours and “pining” for our sailing adventures, it was quite overwhelming to see
our beloved boat and home in such a state.
We were up bright and early the next day,
to start the clean up. First we made a clean pathway from the door to the jetty,
then we broke out the scrubbing brushes, the heavy duty truck wash detergent, ajax spray and wipe then got head down and bum up.
Over the next six hours, passerby’s on the
jetty commiserated with us as they made their way to their pristine boats just
metres away. I couldn’t believe that Easy Tiger and one other power boat had
been singled out by the birds to be used for nesting, eating crabs and toilet
requirements.
Further inspection and discussion among the
few people around the marina didn’t seem to shed any light. One puzzling thing
was the amount of crab shells, and chewed crab bits among the litter. I
thought that the birds would be dining on fish, more than crabs. The marina did
seem to have plenty of resident Bream and Tommies.
On and in the sail bag, it seemed more bird
mess like. This just added to the intrigue of the mess down on the deck.
After another day of scrubbing, the marina
staff came to work on the Monday. They also commiserated with us over the
condition of Easy Tiger. Richard the
yard manager said that they would have evicted the culprit, but their hands are
tied by the fact that water rats are protected.
WATER RATS! I hadn’t really heard of Water
rats, so I googled them. That told me that they are members of the platypus
family, the largest
of these is the Australian water-rat (also known as rakali), a
very attractive animal weighing up to 1.3 kilograms as big as a medium-sized
platypus.
That explained the mess on ground level,
the crab shells and the fact that it was only on our boat and one other.
After we
spent 2 days cleaning up after this protected species, I have found a new scientific name for the Water Rat = Veri messius Pesti muchiuss.
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| You dirty rat! |
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