The idea is to get away from it all and back to nature, but sometimes that very wish can bring unforeseen consequences.

While boating brings you in touch with many aspects of convening with nature, I consistently strive to keep the nature part out of the boat. The success rate so far with this challenge is of course very low. Fortunately, as an inland sailor I don’t have to endure the various carnivorous insects that my sea-going counterparts do, who are beset upon by green head flies, no-seeums, and other species that render perfectly healthy human being into a quivering mass of nervous paranoia, slapping at themselves and others in a vain attempt to drive off the attacking horde. I recall riding in my uncle’s converted lobster (laab-stah) boat out of the Marshfield Harbor (Maa-shfield Hah-bah), just south of Boston (…yeah, Bah-stan) as a kid and having to duck into the cabin when the winds were just so in order to escape the clouds of biting flies some times. That said, sailing on an inland lake still provides ample opportunities for me to serve myself up as an insect smorgasbord for the mosquitoes and the occasional horsefly, but nowhere near as bad as near salt water. The insects are still plentiful here on Carlyle Lake, a lake east of St. Louis, the largest in Illinois, but they are perhaps only slightly more passive.

The first time I shared my boat with nature began with the discovery of little mud cylinders that had been attached to the insides of the cabin. Mud-daubers had found their way in and had setup house. When I started removing the little mud home community in the cabin, I also found the builders were not happy with attempted eviction. Mom had taught me a long time ago that ammonia cleaner was an excellent old-time remedy for bee stings. It doesn’t help the swelling that much, but does help relieve the burning pain. Mud construction was greatly reduced once I added some hatch covers that blocked the small gaps in the corners of the hatches. The encounter really just prepared me for bigger nuisances.

Like spiders, another constant problem. They get into everything and hide everywhere. We’ve got big spiders, little spiders, hairy spiders and smooth spiders. We’ve got colorful spiders and plain spiders, long spiders and fat spiders, spiders that don’t move and spiders that jump. Yes, we have lots of spiders. Some are the really fat monsters that get squished in the cockpit--what a mess. Other spiders are really cool looking, all thin and long that hide just under the rub rail on the hull. They aren’t that cool inside the cabin. There’s just nothing like finding a nice big spider web stretched across the companionway opening when you’re crawling out of the boat at first light on your way to the marina facilities to start your day off right. The screaming and frantic arm flailing usually provides the newly awakened bystanders with a great show as you discover that the web wasn’t empty. The spiders at Tradewinds Marina have been known to get so thick that the webs often tangle the wind indicators at the top of many masts. Sometime near the end of summer there’s some sort of spider migration that occurs where the breeze will become filled with silky thread. That’s the time where every boat is covered in spider webs along every inch of the rigging and structures that make the boats all look like ghost ships on the lake. By Fall you tend to get used to picking off the webs from yourself, except for the ones in your face. I can never seem to get over those.

Mud daubers wouldn’t exactly be your first pick for crew.

We have mayflies as well, and not just in May, but almost all year long. On light wind days these flies will be out in force and love to land on the sails. These flies are not the problem that the biting or stinging bugs are, but create a real nuisance when squashed. By some design of nature these flies are filled with a dark red and blackish-green goo that stains just about everything. Sails and the decks fair the worst and visitors are cautioned not to squash the stupid bugs because of the awful stain they leave. These flies do provide our local pranksters with a never ending source of laughs as they sneak up behind you and squash a mayfly on your back. If you don’t want to wear white shorts before Easter, go ahead and leave them home in April through August as well.

I had often heard some of my fellow marina mates complain about the carp at night. We have dock lights that shine into the water that attract bugs which the carp gobble up on the surface. I was thinking that maybe the little noises they made were bothering these people. Wrong. I docked a friend’s slip last season for several weeks while his boat was hauled out. I usually store my boat on its trailer, in the lot, so having a slip to use was a real novelty. Well, I was out over night about a week after I started using my friend’s slip, spending Saturday night in the boat. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why someone would be thumping on my boat at two o’clock in the morning. I yelled for whomever it was to kindly go away and go find someone else to bother. When the thumping started again, I burst from the cabin with a few cuss words and leapt into the cockpit to find no one. I looked around the dock to see if anyone was hiding behind the next boat or dock box, but was sure no one could move that fast and quietly, especially at two o’clock in the morning. The warm night air suddenly had a chill in it. I climbed back into the boat and tried to settle back in to sleep. Then I heard more thumping which now had me wide awake and wondering and seriously concerned about my mental stability. I waited and listened some more and realized that the noise was coming from the bottom of the boat! It dawned on me at two o’clock that morning that the noise was the carp sucking on the boat’s hull, eating the algae and whatnot on the bottom of the boat! Why did they have to be so noisy about it? Why couldn’t they do this during the day? I gave the hull a good whack with my hand and the noise stopped. The thumping started again just as I was falling back to sleep. I vowed then to haul the boat out in the morning and clean the bottom and to always have sympathy and console all my friends that complained about the carp from then on.

Another pesky insect, the mayfly doesn’t bite, it just leaves a bit of a mess when squished.

I once also found a snake curled up on the swim platform at the stern of my boat on one trip. Well, that’s not exactly who found it. My wife and I were getting the boat ready and she was putting the cushions on the seats in the cockpit. She was trying to say something as she was jerking the sleeve of my shirt towards the dock. Just as I was watching her sprint away, the word, "SNAKE!!!!" could be heard on the other side of the lake. It only took me a moment to shoo the snake away, but over an hour to coax my bride back down to the boat. She was never fully comfortable on that trip even though I stated that I was certain that the snake wasn’t upset enough to follow to boat and "get" us…

Some guests are never seen, but the evidence of their visit is very apparent. Such is the case with our local raccoons. If you have never dealt with a raccoon visiting your boat, you are indeed fortunate. They do real damage and leave you big piles of what the gulls can only dream about, all over your boat. The basic rule is to make sure that the hatches are secured, windows closed and all food are well sealed and packed away as it is usually the smell of food that attracts the raccoons. The garbage dumpster is the usual target for the local raccoons, so we don’t have many problems. However, someone had bought one of those plastic owls to scare away the gulls and other birds from the docks and hung it on their boat. One morning the owner arrived at the marina to discover the remains of the plastic owl and other clear evidence of a raccoon visit all over the deck. The story that went around the marina from then on was that there was solid proof that those plastic owls are useless and don’t scare anything.