The vicious no-see-um

The Vicious No-See-Um—12th Dec 2012

The No-see-um or midge is a vicious beast.  The combination of high humidity and light winds has allowed the no-see-ums to take over the marina.  There were so many midges biting me last night as I was trying to read that I decided to go to bed.  After a few minutes of reading in bed, I looked up at the roof of the v-berth to see about 30 midges. I smashed as many as I could and switched to the LED light, hopefully cooler and less attractive to the little buggers.  I feel that I’m always complaining about the conditions.  Recently though it has been raining a lot—resulting in needing to close up all the hatches and portholes.  When it’s not raining I try to open the hatches to air out the boat.  Sadly this allows the no-see-ums to enter through the screening.  So now it seems that I should just keep the boat closed up all the time.  Tomorrow the winds are forecast to be from the north.  I hoping that will mean drier weather.  Maybe the midges will retreat to from whence they came.

I'm still trying to work my way through Captain Mike's List of jobs.  Of the 21 tasks, I have accomplished about three and a half. Today I went to the library and photocopied the documents that we will need to enter the Bahamas.  I stripped the varnish off one of the hatch boards and cleaned the BBQ (not on the list).  This had been left uncovered and the rain had got into it somehow.  The result was that the BBQ was dripping nasty brown water onto the deck.  Now it a lot cleaner and covered so that shouldn’t be a source of dirty marks on the boat.  Sadly the birds (grackles) have taken to perching on our mast with predictable results.  As the neighbor at the dock said “there’s always something to be done when you own a boat.”