TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Rats on Charter Yachts

I've recently heard a few anecdotal reports of of rats onboard charter boats.
Have any of you experience this in the last few months?
Thanks.

No reports of rats that I am aware of.

First I have heard of that. Sounds dubious.

Rats won't be on a fibreglass boat for long, they'll soon eat their way through that. But seriously, they'd be found and dealt with quickly. Found a snake on a boat on one occasion though. That was fun.

Snake??!! 😳 I would abandon ship.

Only rats we've experienced are those that are mathematically challenged when it comes to paying their part of the restaurant tab.

Probably 20 years ago we had a rat on a Moorings 50 monohull. He was well behaved but liked my Captain Crunch. Chewed right through the box. Never had another issue with rats.

We had a small lizard that left the Moorings base with us a few years back. Catching it and safely delivering it to shore on Norman was a fun adventure!

I hear that!

It was only small. squeezed itself into the runners at the top of the sliding doors between cockpit and salon. I called the charter company and asked if there were any poisonous snakes in the BVI. They said not but asked if I wanted them to call Steve Irwin (the mad Australian who did stupid things with Snakes and Crocs) for advice

Little snake, big snake no difference to me. I can dive with 20 sharks but I see a little garter snake wiggle by and it is game over.😆. Wonder how he got on board? First thing I am doing when we get back to the boat is check that runner.😂

But what are you gonna do when you find one in the track? Call Joyce to deal with it? She'll bring over one of the chickens! lmao

No chickens on board. Tim will slay it and we will hoist it over TWT.

Brings back early bareboating memories: turn on the light to go to the head and always greeted with hundreds of roaches - cute little guys - and always found them hiding during the day! And how about block ice in the ice box - after the third day, almost had to put on your Speedo to dive into the dirty water to rescue your evening meal! Those were the days my friends! Thankful for fumigation and refrigeration!

I'll never get those visions out of my mind of coming home (I was brought up on a sailboat in the Caribbean) turning on the light and seeing the roaches scatter. Or the fun roach bomb days where you had to seal off the entire boat, detonate the bomb and then wash every dish, glass, silverware, surface of the boat afterwards only to have the scurrying continue a couple months later! We are lucky to still be alive!

When my kids complain that they can't find something in the boat fridge or that they can't take a "proper" shower, I remind them that I grew up without a shower at all and an icebox for refrigeration! Spoiled brats! I too am thankful for fumigation, refrigeration, air conditioning, toilets that flush without blistering your hands and all the other pampered things we have now days!

It was Sam (you may know him if you've been around TMM a while) who was being 'helpful' on the phone.

We'd just left Road Town on our way to Cooper when I saw this bit of 'rubber' hanging down from the top of the cockpit door. I gave it a gentle pull to see if it was loose and it shrank into the door which I instantly recognised as not normal behaviour for rubber. First thought was that it was a lizard of some description. After thinking about it for a short while, I went inside and looked at the other end of the door track and could see this tiny head with a forked tongue waving about. That was when I phoned base to see if there were any venomous snakes in the BVI. Having established it was very unlikely to be dangerous we decided to keep an eye on it and continue to Cooper to deal with it then.

When we got to Cooper, two of us dressed in thick gloves, covered as much of our bodies as possible and got a bucket and a cover ready to contain the visitor. I gently pulled on the tail and it came out fairly easily but that was when the fun started. It wriggled like mad in my hand so I dropped it straight in the bucket. Unfortunately the person assigned to cover the bucket wasn't ready and the thing was out and into the cockpit in an instant. Fortunately someone ran inside the salon and slammed the doors shut behind them (very heroic) so the snake couldn't disappear inside the boat. That would have been a nightmare. The rest of the crew was trying to get as far away as possible leaving me to deal with it but he snake seemed to have a self preservation instinct, found the sugar scoop steps and slid down into the water. It headed straight to shore and presumably lived happily ever after on Cooper Island. Very exciting start to a vacation.

Makes for a memorable trip - and when you hear someone bitching about the conditions of a charter boat or what they had to endure on vacation, you get to say "Oh yeah! Let me tell you about the time...."

And as time passes, the snake gets bigger, more venomous, vicious, intelligent, ninja like.........!

Keep Smiling!!!

Anchored off a random island in Belize we awoke to see a 6 footer draped over the life lines. After some fancy swordmanship with the mop handle it was flipped overboard. Then it occurred to us that we had spent the night with all hatches open!

Unlike the BVI there are very dangerous snakes in Belize!

That beast my story Nolan. Hope you Kitt and the family are keeping well.

Mike, I thought they'd offer to bring you out a mongoose to make sure your invasives were vanquished.

Hmmmm, how many people could tell the difference between a mongoose and a rat ?