As you can tell by the numerical countdown 'post-it note' daily dwindling on the header above, our time here in New Bern is growing short. With this in mind, Sheryl's mother coordinated one final visit to the boat. Returning for their third visit to Prudence were Sheryl's mother, Carla, and step-father, John. Making their first acquaintance with our nautical home were Charlie and Lori, Sheryl's brother and sister-in-law.

After a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant, we all settled into the cockpit and chatted away the afternoon. A big surprise came when it quickly turned into 'Christmas in October' aboard Prudence. Charlie started by removing a box from his backpack and presented us with some truly fine gifts for cruisers (not an easy accomplishment, considering our limited needs and even more limited space). Included in the largess were pencil flares, a big knife (which used to belong to Sheryl's father), and some really fantastic LED flashlights with rechargeable batteries. It was quite touching that Charlie was concerned about both his sister's safety and sight during our pending journey. Sheryl's mother then presented her with both Birthday and Christmas 'presents' which came inside card-stuffed envelopes. The type of present every cruiser's kitty can use. With wrapping paper at our feet and a smile in our hearts, thoughts of dinner crept to mind.

As our guests disembarked and began to walk along our finger pier, neighbors on the next boat shouted, "A RAT, SWIMMING THERE ON THE WATER!" Sheryl stopped and stooped at the end of the finger pier to see if our neighbor had correctly identified the creature swimming toward our boat. I quickly grabbed a boat hook off of the deck and asked Sheryl to step back out of the way. My years of working in a laboratory allowed me to perform a quick evaluation of this brown critter (although the ones I worked with in the lab were white and generally were not swimming), it was most certainly a rat.

My experience dispatching those laboratory rodents, in the pursuit of both scientific discovery and a paycheck, also left me with a fairly detailed knowledge of a rat's neuroanatomy. In fact, given a pair of surgical scissors and tweezers, I am fairly certain that I could still remove this animal's cerebellum, hypothalamus and striatum in under two minutes. Of course, I had neither surgical tool nor the desire to measure any neurotransmitter levels in the brain of this vermin. I simply wanted to prevent him from becoming an unwelcome guest on the dock or worse, aboard our boat.

As it swam near the finger pier, I raised the boat hook above my head like a samurai warrior, aimed for a spot on the back of the head (where the skull is thinnest and the fragile brainstem begins) and swung as hard as I could. With a "SPLASH" the animal's life was quickly ended, and all motion, save for a few post-mortem reflexive spasms, ceased. I scooped the lifeless body into the empty cardboard gift box, covered it with the discarded wrapping paper and walked our guests up the dock on my way to the dumpster.

Fortunately, it was our first rat sighting here at the marina and I hope that it shall be our last. And, in order to justify my actions to any PETA people reading this blog, my decision toward swift and deliberate action against this animal was driven purely by self-defense (or, rather, boat-defense). Once upon a time, I owned a pop-up camper which was stored in the garage of my home in the country for the winter months. In the spring, I pulled it out of the garage and cranked up the top, only to find that the camper had been destroyed by a rat which had made it a comfy winter home. Canvas chewed, cushions chewed, plastic chewed, wires chewed. The old pop-up was totaled by this creature. The parallels between a camper and a boat are evident to anyone who has engaged in both activities, and the mere momentary vision of any such damage to occurring Prudence demanded action of an unequivocal nature. I'm certain that you would have done the same.