Bugs Bugs Bugs (and Larger Winged Creatures)

Our fun with bugs and other winged creatures had been going on pretty much since La Paz, so now seems like as good a time as any to give a bit of a summary of all of these critters.  The first bugs we encountered were the bobos, and the first time they invaded was on Isla Espiritu Santo, I think, and they invaded us en masse.  Bobos are basically small flies, and the upside is they don’t bite or sting, but the downside is that they are as annoying as all hell.  They especially like to land on your face, and they have this uncanny ability to detect when you are busy using both hands so that neither is available for swatting.  Unlike typical houseflies, who you can get to fly away by simply moving, these bobos seem to stay stuck until you actually swat at them.  We find ourselves making some pretty crazy facial expressions trying to get a bobo to get lost, and it is simply infuriating.  They are slower than houseflies, so very easy to kill, and I tended to find bobo graveyards all around the boat.  I guarantee, with bobos around you WILL at some time or another find yourself smacking yourself on your forehead, and feeling satisfied with the kill.

The next encounter was with bees, also on Isla Espiritu Santo.  Basically, bees visit boats for one reason only, to find freshwater.  They send a few “scouts” and if they report back then they bring all their friends to your boat.  Of course, we’ve heard all about how important bees are to our ecology and our first reaction was absolutely not to harm them, but try to help them.  Tim had the idea of putting a small amount of freshwater outside then they would be attracted to that and leave us alone.  He put a bucket of water on one of the back swim steps, and it resulted in a most amazing bee invasion.  They drank the water pretty quickly and were then swarming around in a frenzy.  So, he put another bucket up on one of the bows hoping to draw them away from our main living area.  Not long after we had an even larger swarm all over the front of the boat.  It was totally out of control.  At sunset all the bees go home, but it turns out that they remember when and where they have found water, and the next morning they brought even more of their friends to visit.  We ended up having to move anchorages to get away from them.  Fast forward a couple months, and I’m sorry, I’m really really sorry, I know bees are important and without them the human race will die out and everything, but we kill bees, we really must kill them.  We have learned that outside whenever we must rinse with fresh water we must post-rinse the swim step with a bit of seawater.  It will attract some bees but they will recognize it as not drinkable and won’t report back and bring all their friends.  Any bee that manages to get inside the salon absolutely must be killed.  At Isla Coronados I left some frozen meat out on the counter to defrost and the condensation attracted hundreds and it was quite a bee blood bath that afternoon.  We try really hard not to let them in the salon at all so the killing can be at a minimum, but seriously, anyone that gets in is at that moment doomed.  One thing totally outside of our control is how much dew is on the deck in the morning, and dew is a huge bee attractor.  One of our worst experiences was at Honeymoon Cove on Isla Danzante when Gary and Marsha were with us.  We had hundreds of bees on the deck lapping up the morning dew.  We left that anchorage in a hurry that morning.  We have all been stung, and we find that the worst stings are on the feet and hands.  I got stung on the finger (early in our journey, when I was actually still trying to help the bees) and I screamed like a baby and writhed in pain for at least 20 min.  Stings on the hands and feet cause a lot of swelling, and we’ve all been subject to “fat hand” or “fat foot” as we affectionately call it.  Once we got into the summer and had a few rainy days, the bees were a lot less prevalent, presumably, then they don’t need us sailboats as their freshwater sources.

Of course we encounter mosquitos every now and then.  They are most common when we are anchored near mangroves or estuaries, and they tend to feast mostly on the boys at dusk and dawn.  Tim and I haven’t really had too many mosquito bites.  We’re just glad that where we are now the mosquitos are just a nuisance, not transmitters of horrible illnesses.

Then comes the mother of all biting insects so far.  They are bugs that absolutely must be the spawn of the devil.  Yes, I’m talking about jejenes.  They are also, not so affectionately, called no-see-ums because they are so small.  You can see them, but just barely.  They pack a huge, burning bite that develops into a small itchy bump, sometimes with a day or more delay, and the bump itches for many days up to a week.  Our first encounter with them was at Isla Salsipuedes.  In the late afternoon after anchoring I paddle boarded over to Lady Carolina, and we were chatting and through the course of the conversation jellyfish came up.  I don’t really remember exactly what we were talking about but I remember both of my calves starting to burn a bit.  I joked that the power of suggestion of jellyfish made me start feeling stings, and I paddled back to Exodus not thinking much more of it.  The next day the bumps started itching, and the rage was on.  Bites just kept showing up, primarily on my legs.  For days bites kept showing up.  We had heard that they crawl, so you can’t protect yourself with clothing or covers, and we also heard that they can infest your boat and you have to wash all your bedding to kill them all or you will just keep getting bit.  At this point we were at Isla Partida, far away from any laundry facility, and I was a crazy woman with fire in my eyes.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I gathered up all our loose clothes, all of our bedding, all of the boys stuffed animals, and I bagged up every last bit of it.  If I couldn’t wash and drown them, I would suffocate them.  Then I spent all afternoon vacuuming every nook and cranny of Exodus.  It was poor timing because it was the day after the mini-Chubasco, so we had a fair amount of cloud cover, which means not much power generation to run the vacuum, but I didn’t care.  I was on a mission to seek revenge on every little biting creature that was tormenting me.  I should probably mention at this point that I have very poor tolerance for itchy bug bites.  I have a high pain tolerance for many things, I can give birth (3 times) with no anesthesia and I can run a marathon, but I absolutely cannot take the pain of small, red, itchy bug bites.  I scratched my legs until they bled.  Repeatedly.  Well, they eventually subsided, and I have no idea if my bagging and vacuuming really mattered at all or if I was just feeling the delayed effects of bites from Salsipuedes.  But I did know that those bugs needed to be avoided at absolutely all costs.  Of course, we ran into them a couple more times, and my legs now bear permanent scars from my inability to refrain from scratching those nasty little bites.

As far as creepy, crawly bugs go, we’ve only seen the lone earwig or cockroach once or twice.  According to cruising books and blogs, cockroaches are a huge cruiser nightmare.  They hide in all things ashore, especially cardboard, in fact, its often advised to not bring any cardboard from your shopping excursion onto the boat.  We also talked to some folks who saw cockroaches on their dock lines at a marina, so they now spray their dock lines with bug spray.  Cockroaches, unfortunately, do fly, so at some point there’s only so much you can do.  Luckily so far we’ve only had the lone guy to deal with and we’ve expended with him swiftly and haven’t had to deal with any sort of infestation.  Brenden is officially our bug hunter/killer.  He’s swift and efficient, and it’s sort of entertaining to watch.

Buying flour here can be a bit of an adventure as well.  At home I would buy a bag of flour, put it in the cupboard, use it when I needed it, and never, ever, found any creepy crawlies in it.  Here, every bag of flour needs a bit of inspection before it gets to stay on board, and I’ve even taken to opening bags at the store before even buying them.  So far we’ve managed to avoid any sort of dry goods bug infestation, but we use airtight containers and put bay leaves in everything, so hopefully that’s will keep working for us.

There have also been some larger winged creatures who have visited Exodus.  The most entertaining incident (in hindsight, as far as I’m concerned) was the evening at Isla Partida before the mini-chubasco.  I had just finished taking a shower, had dried off a little bit, and was just stepping out of the shower stall when something came flying down from the hatch above and smacked me in the head.  It landed on the floor and quickly regrouped and started flying around in a frenzy.  It didn’t take me long to realize it was a bat!  It was a small one, but I still hightailed it back into the shower stall, slammed the door, and started calling to Tim.  God bless him, he came quickly (because my blood-curdling scream made him think I was in some sort of imminent danger) and he managed to cover the bat with some rags and carry it outside and release it.  Whew, what a relief.  Of course, mom screaming over a small bat has become quite a joke around here, only slightly more entertaining than mom screaming over a bee sting.  Anyway, I dried off, came out of the bathroom and was getting dressed in our cabin, when I swear to god, something came flying into the salon, down into our cabin, missed my head by only fractions of an inch, I’m sure, and settled under the stairs.  Seriously?  Two things flying into (or near) my head in one night?  This time it turned out to be a small black bird that just needed a little sanctuary, and we let him stay on the boat as long as he needed to.

The next morning, after the mini-chubasco, the black bird (or a similar one) was nestled under our cockpit table.  Tim made it comfortable, gave it something to drink, and a little later it was gone.  Or was it?  When Brenden woke up he discovered a bird on his bathroom floor.  He felt so bad because he stepped on it a little before he saw it, and he felt very obligated to take care of it until it was ready to fly away.  After hanging out for a while, it tried to fly away out of Brenden’s hands, and it briefly landed on the deck before falling overboard just off the stern.  Brenden immediately starts figuring out a way to retrieve it when we all spot a seagull make a beeline straight for the little bird. Before any of us really realized what was happening, the seagull snatched the bird up in its beak and flew away.  You could actually hear the little bird let out out a squeak as it was being crushed.  Brenden screamed out in horror and sorrow.  He cried and cried. He said when he first saw the seagull flying over he thought it was coming to take care of the little bird, like a substitute mom.  Then he said it was all his fault that the little bird couldn’t fly because he had stepped on it in his bathroom.  We told him the bird must have been hurt or something to come on to the boat at all in the first place, but it took a while to console him.  It was all very sad, and we all got to see quite close up how harsh nature can be sometimes.