Mice can swim

Eidos is anchored about 160 m, or 500 ft from any land. I rarely go to land myself; perhaps once a week for supplies.  

Three days ago, I noticed a hole in my mosquito netting that covers the entryway at night. Careless me, I thought to myself as I looped an elastic around the hole to stop the mosquitoes from coming in. 

But the next day there was another hole in the mosquito netting. The second strange thing that I noticed was the cheesecloth that I use to cover my jar of kefir was lying beside the jar. I suddenly put the two together: Mouse or a rat. 

Rodents can do a lot of damage to your boat. They can gnaw on furniture and upholstery, destroy the wiring with the added danger of causing a fire, as well as ruin your food supplies and spread disease. I keep all my food in glass jars with metal lids or double bagged. Only fruit and vegetables are out in the net hammocks.

My fears were confirmed when something scurried away in the dark near my feet. I don't have any traps on board and I'm terrified of using them. First of all risking my fingers to set them and second of all dealing with the dead body of a mouse or a rat if it works. And so a couple of years ago when I had a similar problem with a rat on a quay in Vonitsa, I bought some poison. I still had some left. Judging by the size of the droppings, this happily was not a rat but only a mouse.

I put a cake of the poison in the cockpit, closed the door to the v-berth and attempted to go back to sleep. A couple of hours later, I checked and the poison was gone. Thank goodness, the problem has been dealt with. Just to be sure, I put another cake of poison out in the cockpit and a second one under the sink where I found some droppings. In the morning the poison in the cockpit was gone but the one under the sink was still there.

In daylight, I saw half eaten cakes of poison behind my herb garden. All I could wish for now is that the mouse would swim to shore before it dies. I imagine it would not be fun if it crawled into a small space in the boat to die. Rotting corpse of a mouse is probably not the most attractive smell on a boat.

Today is the third day. The cakes of poison have been fully eaten, there is a hole in the mosquito netting of one of the portholes as well as in one of the garbage bags.

And I just found some damage to my upholstery. I sprinkled cayenne pepper on it which I read repels rodents. I also put out some more poison bait. 

I replaced the netting on the porthole, and tonight I will have to close all the hatches and portholes in 30 degree heat, to hopefully keep the mouse out and not in. I also made up some bait using (organic!) almond butter and a) boric acid and b) washing soda, and made an anchor chain guard from an empty water bottle.

I sure hope something works soon, because I have no idea what to do next. 

Day four. The bait has been tampered with overnight so the mouse is still alive. I placed another one in the same area behind my herb garden . Happily, I have not noticed any more droppings or damage to my upholstery inside. I have not heard any scampering sound either. I am now hoping that the creature has either died or has decided that it's safer for it to stay outside.

I made patches for the holes in the upholstery with the hope that the mouse will not make any more damage.

Yesterday, I placed about 20 or so mothballs around the inside of the boat thinking that perhaps the strong smell would repel the mouse and cause it to abandon its hiding place.  There are hundreds of tiny crevices where a small mouse could hide that I would never be able to access and I hoped the fumes from the mothballs would chase it out. And then I Googled. Not only are mothballs and their fumes dangerous to humans but they do not repel rats and mice. So, I spent an hour retrieving as many of them as I could before I was the one that got gassed. And then another hour cleaning the boat with vinegar . As you can see, I'm getting desperate. My ears have become ultra sensitive to any unusual sound, I am not sleeping well, and I find it difficult to do anything else but getting rid of the rodent.

My question is, why would a mouse swim to an anchored boat when there are restaurants, shops, and garbage bins everywhere on land?