Hello everyone,

Let me introduce myself, my name is Miss Priss, though I answer to Priss, Cilla, Miss, Kitty, Puss Puss and at times get addressed as "cooking fat" (a spoonerism, with Irish overtones I fear), and "that damned cat". I am a 16year old, 3.5kilo, grey, tan and white, mixed heritage cat, meaning that I am 80 human years old, slim and pretty! I live in the country on 4.5 acres with my 2 humans and I generally rule the roost. There are plenty of trees and bushes in the paddocks for me to hide in and a cosy open fire for when the weather is cold and wet.
I began to suspect that something was afoot when my humans began acting a bit strange. The male left our home and didn't return, then the female stuffed me into a crate and took me for a ride in the car to Launceston, about an hour's drive away. I remained chilled as I have been on car trips before, usually ending up going to stay with Aunty Lois at the cattery but this time was a bit different. We ended up going into a veterinary surgery where I showed my concern by howling a bit until the assistant sprayed the crate with some stuff called Feliway which gave off the pheromone that my mum used to exude to make me feel calm and safe. I was then taken out of the crate and examined all over by a nice lady who turned nasty and stuck a needle into my neck, it only hurt for a moment or two, it apparently was a rabies vaccination. The same lady also had a poke around at my teeth and told my human something about maybe needing the back teeth taking out, but that wasn't going to happen today. I was relieved to go back in the crate and enjoyed the car ride back to our home, the relief was short lived though as the next day I was again bundled into the crate and taken for another car ride, this time much shorter, to a veterinary who looked at my teeth and said something about general anesthetic. Back in the crate and home, I thought it was over but oh no, there was a repeat trip the very next morning and this time my human left me at the veterinary surgery. They shaved some hair off of my neck and my right paw and gave me something which made me fall asleep, I woke up very groggy sometime later with a bit of a sore mouth and throat and feeling very thirsty, but luckily I still had all my teeth. My human appeared, I was again shoved in the crate and driven back to the safety of our home. That was the extent of the indignities or so I thought! The hair on my paw and neck left me feeling a bit naked and not so pretty to look at but I diligently licked it to make it look normal.
Everything went back to relative normality for a couple of weeks except that my male human didn't reappear so I had to try and be friendly with the female who is not my favourite, not that I would ever let her know that!
Then one morning, really early, I was once again accosted and bundled into the same crate which had been sprayed with the Feliway. Uh Oh, something was up and I didn't think I was going to be happy about it. We drove for about an hour and a half, stopped and my crate, with me inside, was taken into an office and my human left me there. The next thing I knew was that I was being loaded into a cargo hold on a small plane, I've flown before so was well aware of what was happening. I spent the next hour flying to Sydney and once there I was collected by a total stranger who took me to an hotel for animals and let me out of the crate and fed me, I was very scared as my humans were nowhere to be seen and this wasn't Aunty Lois - I didn't know these people. I slept with one eye open as there were a lot of strange things going on around me and the next morning I was once again examined all over by another very nice lady, I must have seemed OK as she didn't do anything else nasty to me. Later in the day though I was again confined to "the crate" and then loaded into the hold of yet another plane. I was quite prepared for another hour of flying but to my horror this flight lasted 15 hours ending up in Doha where I was once again met by a stranger, given some free time out of the crate and fed, not that I ate very much as I was too worried about what would happen next. I didn't have long to wait and was again confined in the crate and loaded into the hold of yet another plane. I wasn't particularly happy about it but no one seemed to take any notice of my pleas for help and I spent another 15 hours in the semi dark confines of the hold. Once the plane landed, in Miami, I was unloaded and kept in an office for quite a while until eventually my humans were there to collect me, I was so glad to finally see two faces that I knew. They put me into the back of a car and opened the crate and my male human held me on his lap whilst the female cleaned the bottom of the crate and replaced the soiled pad with a clean fresh dry one, then they put me back in the crate and we drove for about 3 hours to a new home.
We arrived at a marina and I was lifted onboard a boat - a totally new experience for me, it felt very strange. Once we were down below deck the male human lifted me out of the crate, I thought for a cuddle but was sadly mistaken, he held me under a warm shower and rubbed something called shampoo into my fur exclaiming about how much I stunk! I was rinsed off and handed to the female human who did cuddle me, in a towel, and tried to dry off as much of the water as she could. Eventually she let me loose and they put down some food and water for me, I was terribly thirsty so made the most of the water but wasn't keen on the food that they had put down - where was my usual meal? Luckily the biscuits were my usual brand so I had a few of them to curb my hunger. The male picked me up, not for a cuddle but to show me where my new toilet was located, again it is different to my usual one but I think I can live with this one - as if I have a choice!
Over the next few days I was given free rein to explore my new home, it is very small compared to home with lots of odd cupboards, shelves, spaces and hidey holes. There is a new bed for me which has my 2 blankets from home over it, its not quite as deep as my old bed so I don't know if I'm going to like it and there is quite a leap for me to get up onto the humans bed - they really didn't take into consideration my advanced years with this bed but I notice that the female has to climb onto a small stepladder to get onto the bed so I'll just take her lead and do the same!
There are all sorts of different smells, noises and movements on the boat that I'm trying to understand and come to terms with, the funny thing is that the humans vanish up a ladder and all I can hear is footsteps above my head. Eventually they reappear, usually with a whole load of shopping, and open even more cupboards to stash it all away.
On about my third day of confinement below deck the male human took me outside into the cockpit, what a strange place this is, there is a small area to walk around, a table which I'm not allowed to get up onto, a bench which goes all the way around with cushions for sitting on, then there is a ledge all around and outside of that there doesn't appear to be anywhere to be able to walk on if you exclude a very narrow walkway around the sides. The ledge I have discovered is called a coaming and after several short spells of being in the cockpit I have been brave and peered over the top of this coaming, however all I can see on the other side appears to be water - there is no paddock, trees or bushes that I can see, its all very strange! I make sure when I go out into this cockpit that I stay as near to the steps, also called a companionway, as possible so that if anything scary comes by I can quickly make a rapid escape down to the safety of the cabin. There are so many additional new sounds, sights and smells out in the cockpit that it's a bit hard to take it all in at once, I'm going to have to work out what its all about over a period of time.
We had only been in our new home for a week when I was introduced to a new couple of humans, Dale and Lorie, I was a little wary of them as I wasn't sure where they fit into my life - am I going to be handed off to them? My fears were increased when a day or so later my humans did the vanishing act and I patiently waited for them to reappear. I began to worry when they weren't back by tea time and then suddenly the human called Dale appeared and put some fresh food and water down for me, I was happy about the fresh food and water but still worried that my humans have deserted me. This continued for another 4 days then suddenly they were back and everything returned to relative normal, I showed my disapproval by giving them the cold shoulder for a day, that will teach them to leave me all alone!
The next week I spent getting acquainted with all the new sounds, smells and motions of the boat in the slip. The male human tried to frighten me a lot by turning on things called an engine, an inverter and a generator, they all make loud and startling noises which disturb my peace and quiet - I really don't know why he does it, there can't be any fun in it! Gradually though I am getting to know the sounds and can, for the most part, ignore them. There are some huge birds, called pelicans out in the dock, I think they could probably swallow me whole if I gave them half a chance! I've also seen a few enormous fish in the water but I don't think I can reach far enough over the edge to catch one. Every now and again some humans try to frighten me by whizzing past the back of our home in a thing I've heard refer to as a tender, they are noisy and make our home rock around and I can't imagine what pleasure they are getting out of frightening me.
A note about my food - the menu has changed on an almost daily basis, I just don't understand why they don't just feed me the stuff that I am use to and like, every day it seems to be something different and some are just unpalatable! The humans aren't unkind though, they have been giving me some treats on a regular basis, they keep them in a bag above the counter top and the rattle of the bag is very distinctive, I sit very patiently beneath the treats in the hope that they take the hint more often, but I think I must be wasting my time as they only give out the treats when it suits them! We had yet another human, this one called Dan, who came to our home for dinner a couple of times, he tried his best to get me to be his friend with all sorts of words of encouragement and even tried to feed me some of his pork chop on one occasion - I treated it with the distain it deserved but he seemed nice, I could become his friend in time.
My humans chose a very wet Sunday morning to make my life more miserable than you can possibly imagine. They began putting everything away in cupboards, getting stuff out that I hadn't seen before such as a steering wheel, life jackets, jack lines and pictures called maps. Then suddenly Dale, Lorie and Dan all appeared at our home. Everyone except me was soaking wet - stupid humans, didn't they know they could stay warm and dry by not going outside? There was a bit of discussion then Dale got off of our home and the others took up positions around the outside of the deck, with the exception of my human male who stationed himself at the steering wheel. The engine was started up and suddenly there was a different motion to what I had gotten used to in the marina slip, we were heading backwards out into the water, then we were turning 45 degrees and heading forward with a slight swaying motion. We went to a different slip, known as the fuel dock and there both Lorie and Dan jumped off of our home and onto the dock, throwing all the lines that were keeping us from drifting away onto the deck and yelling "Goodbye, fair winds and following seas" - whatever that means! My female human gathered all of the lines up whilst the male steered us out of the marina. As we kept going I began to feel a little unwell, the movement of the boat, whilst not violent, was very unsettling and I couldn't move around the boat without being unsteady on my feet - a very odd sensation.
We continued to head off towards Miami where I hoped things would settle down and return to the calm gentle rocking that I was now accustomed to. I'm sorry to say that the unwell feeling persisted and I couldn't help myself and had to vomit up everything that I had in my gut, the male human was very sympathetic and gave me a lot of attention every time he came down below deck even though he had to clean up the mess I had made. I didn't see anything of the female, apparently, she gets the same feelings that I was having and decided that staying outside in the air was the best thing she could do. Eventually I found a place that wasn't moving about too much, on the quarter berth bed, and curled up and went to sleep.
They ate and drank as normal, or so it seemed whilst I just couldn't face anything, I just wanted to be left in peace and asleep.
Within 24 hours things just got worse, the sun was now shinning so everything had dried out but the motion was now more violent, it felt like the floor was dropping away every time I tried to take a step and when you have 4 legs it's difficult to keep them all in order with a moving floor. As the day wore on I was even sicker than the previous day and vomited in several places and dry retched quite a few other times. My humans began to get quite concerned as I didn't want to eat or drink anything and was looking a bit pale around the nose and was listless so the male carried me outside into the cockpit and handed me to the female who tried to comfort and calm me by holding me on her lap and gently stroking me while shushing me with words like "it's all ok" and "you'll be fine" - as if! The male tried to get me to drink some water by dripping it off of his fingers near my mouth but I wasn't playing that game. As soon as it was possible I made my escape from the human's lap and bolted back to the safety of my hidey hole below deck, throwing up a couple more times and then settling back down to sleep again.
We finally stopped moving that evening, there was a sound that I hadn't encountered before, apparently the anchor being deployed and we were finally free of the engine noise as they turned it off. I was once more dragged out into the cockpit along with some food and water, not that I wanted to eat or drink anything but they were trying to encourage me. We all settled down for the night with me curled up in between the humans and slept until dawn. Happily, I felt a little better when it was time to get up and the male human even gave me a few treats to encourage me to eat, they are fairly salty so on top of being a bit dehydrated from not drinking for a day and a half I was ready to get stuck into drinking some water, it was almost as if I couldn't stop once I started. It seemed to make the humans happy and I began to feel a bit like my usual self again. By lunch time my appetite had returned and I was into the fish pate like I'd never tasted anything so good!
It's now been 4 days since we started out, each day seems to bring something new for the male to curse at and then spend lots of time and energy fixing. The female still suffers from not feeling too well, I can sympathize with that, it is very unpleasant but as each day passes it seems to be improving.
There has been another "first" event for me, they put up these white flappy things and turned off the engine but the boat kept moving along, it was lovely and peaceful and we seemed to get to a new place without too much hassle. I've tried to join the humans in the cockpit, where they seem to prefer to spend their time, they always make a fuss of me when I'm out there but there are still strange sounds and sights whizzing past and I'm not always sure if I should be afraid or not. They keep encouraging me to look over the side and to sit on the top of the hatch that covers the companionway stairs but I'm not confident with all that as yet. I am happy to curl up and sleep on the cushions but it always seems that I need to move out of the way when I do that. I'll eventually get the hang of all these new rules and what I'm supposed to be doing.
I hope you've had fun reading this account of my adventure to date. I'll be back at some stage to give you an update if you'll have me!

Meow.