April 18, 2008 - Imposters, Intruders and Interesting Visitors
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

Not long ago when neither of us was home, MAGIC DRAGON was boarded by an unknown intruder. He came in a yellow kayak, and was in the process of climbing the boarding ladder when the woman from the Dutch vessel behind us called out to him, "What are you doing?" The fat young man did not miss a beat. He threw her a wide smile and replied, "My uncle asked me to fetch his cell phone." She stayed on the bow, keeping an eye on him as he ferreted about in the cockpit. When he emerged, she asked him if he had found what he was looking for. He nodded, holding up a small gray bag. When she asked him his name he ignored her, climbed back into his kayak and paddled upstream.

When we returned, we called a few acquaintances whose houses overlook the river, who in turn notified the police, the river warden and the kayak rental outfits, giving a description of the lying imposter. Fortunately this is a one-off as far as we are concerned, although fishing gear, outboards, oars, dinghies, and petrol tanks do go missing in these parts. Was the man just curious? Or was he searching for small valuables? Whatever the case, he has not been back as far as we know. Nothing was missing or left behind as far as we could determine though one or two objects had been moved, perhaps while he was searching for the key to the cabin. We hate to think what might have happened if he had not been challenged or if we had had something desirable and portable in the cockpit.

Too bad that our eagle-eyed neighbor on the Dutch boat was not behind us when a couple of kayakers tried to make off with our 14-foot tender from the jetty. Our custom ignition switch outwitted them. They could not start the 8 horse Yamaha motor. Thoughtfully, they buoyed the dinghy anchor outhaul line when they cast it off and they left the boat tied up to an empty piling downstream, so they cannot have been all bad. Neighbors on the hill who had seen the attempted theft telephoned the river warden. Colin phoned us, offering to take us to the dinghy so we could get back aboard. It is good to know one's neighbors and to have an easily recognizable dinghy. It is also wise to lock the outboard motor as well as the gas tank and the oars, and to have an ignition switch that disables the outboard. We suspect the malefactors might have been hoping for a joy ride. Poor Colin was not so lucky. He lost a tank of petrol from his own boat, an increasingly common happening now the price of fuel has soared.

Most of the visitors that come when we are absent are far more welcome. Honeybees - apparently exhausted, disoriented and lost - land on deck. No harm is done, provided we do not get stung. Now and then Michel offers the visitor a blob of honey to revive it and sometimes sees it fly off soon afterwards. Once he kept a near-dead one in a jar overnight, and photographed it sucking up the honey he had placed in there. The next morning he removed a cover he had fashioned for it and was interested to see it fly off soon thereafter even though it had been legs-in-air when found on deck the day before.

Honey bee in a jar sipping honey

Not long ago another insect visitor gave us no end of wonderment - some species of mason bee we think. We discovered it when we chose to shade our cockpit from the heat of the sun using a curtain we had run up on the old Singer sewing machine. When we opened the folds of the curtain to deploy it, out fell onto the cockpit floor pieces of a broken-pottery-clay-like substance and dozens of inert spiders. On the curtain was a pattern of the 'apartment block' built by the insect. We grabbed the camera, and put it on Macro to take several close up shots before we vacuumed it all up. We even managed to suck up the mason bee builder when it returned. We stuffed a paper towel in the snout of the vacuum. The next day, when emptying the debris, the bee flew off unscathed and un-photographed. When we brought up the photos on the laptop screen and zoomed in on them we could more fully appreciate the amazing workmanship of the insect. We could even see in one of the compartments a newly hatched grub moving in upon one of the stunned spiders to suck the goodness out of its body. These spiders have hair on their eyes.

Mason bee nest with inert spiders

Mason bee larvae

Mason bee larva feeding on spider

I remember taking much the same interest watching a mud wasp constructing its nest just inside our sail cover when we were in the Solomons. We let it stay as long as we dared, then dismantled the beautifully built erection before it had too much time and energy invested in it. Besides, we wanted to remove the sail cover to go sailing. But we kept the nest and its contents. We looked inside where a new insect was forming up. At first it was entirely transparent, then it slowly took on its carapace and wings and the colors of the adults of the species. Then it started to fly in the pail that we used as its cage. When we opened the lid it flew straight up to about ten feet above the water where it hovered for quite a while facing in different directions. Then all of a sudden it flew off toward the closest shore - and it had not had any flying lessons.

Spiders have been more plentiful these past few months it seems. Our rigging is often festooned with webs, some so intricate we take a few photographs. I have taken to dusting anchor and lifelines with my lamb's wool duster-on-a-stick that looks a bit like off-white cotton candy. l spray the haunts of particularly large spiders with Raid Multipurpose Fastkill when I discover the whereabouts of their lairs. Telltale signs are legs of flies. Spiders don't seem to like those parts.

Spider web

Frequent visitors are Welcome swallows that wake me early in the morning in many of the anchorages hereabouts. (Lucky Michel cannot hear their piercing wake up call as they are out of his frequency range.) Ever since I read that they have flown all the way from Namibia to enjoy New Zealand summers I am more inclined to put up with the nuisance value of the beautiful little perching birds even though before collecting rain water I must do a thorough clean up of the deck under the life lines to which they cling with hair-like feet. Shelly says that he prefers the mosquitoes after they have been digested than in flight. But we have seen some boats where the swallows had been overdoing it…

Welcome swallows

As for many other imposters, see our Setsail piece entitled UNWELCOME BOARDERS posted online July 1, 2005.