To Catch A Rat

There's a first time for everything, right? My good buddy Bruce Prevatt and I zoomed over to Panama City so we could take a ride in his Pursuit 2500 fishboat on Saturday and meet with an interesting fellow by the name of Capt. Ric Corley, a guy who's got a few sea stories that'd boggle the mind of Homer. Anyhoo, after talking/dining with the Cap for a few hours on Friday evening and sleeping a few more Friday night, Bruce and I met next morning for breakfast and the ride.

And the ride was good, albeit rough. Winds were still blowing sportily. During the night I'd rested poorly onboard the ol' Betty Jane mostly due to the wind which was blowing a steady 40 mph with gusts going higher...in the marina! Being a retired naval officer (flyboy not water-winger) Bruce had rested well at the BOQ on the Navy base in PC. So the breezes out on the water cleared the cobwebs from my frazzled, up-half-the-night-checkin'-mooring-lines consciousness and semi-brought me up to speed mentally. They seemed to supercharge ol' Bruce's consciousness, though.

Supercharge? Yup! When we got back to the dock he was so dang enthused about everything that he simply had to show me his genius scheme for nailing the dirty rat that ate half of his electrical wiring (to the tune of $750 in damages and repairs) last fall while his boat sat around in dry-stack storage at the Navy base marina.

"Just in case the darn varmint comes back or he's still around," Bruce explained, after fishing the above implement of destruction from a locker, "This oughta get him."

Now I've seen a few rat traps on ships and larger commercial vessels of dicey character, but this was the first time in my life I'd come across a trap large enough to snag a robust rat-type rodent on a 25-footer pleasure boat.

Is there some deep meaning to it all? Does Bruce's naval background enter into the whole affair in some way? Or hmmmmmmm...wonder if Capt. Corley ever trapped any rats while sailing the North Atlantic?