There's always something new on every cruise - PART TWO

Could this be the invasion path?

Our second exciting first was when we discovered that we had a stowaway onboard in the form of a mouse (only one we hope). We're not sure how it got on board but it could have climbed down our shore tie line when we were anchored or came aboard at the dock in Little Current. I know it's a mouse because I saw it the first night at anchor in the cockpit but thought it scurried off the back of the boat into the water. On Thursday morning we noticed that some paper towels that were under our shoes on the floor appeared to be shreaded. Sheri also discovered that a small piece of my prized Mackinaw Island fudge had been eaten into as well as some hot dog buns so we knew we were the victims of a full mouse assault. Not knowing if the mouse returned to shore during the day, we went through everything that we had to determine if we had been violated further. Not finding any more damage we decided to secure those items in additional wrapping (zip-locs) to add more difficulty to the next assault. I also installed a makeshift critter guard on the shore line so that it would be foiled upon his return to the boat if that was the case. On Friday we woke up and everything looked pretty good except we found another food violation so this meant war. When we got to Killarney we picked up a couple of mouse traps that we will deploy in hopes of snaring the little beast during tonight's escapades. I might add that these are not the wimpy capture traps but the good old fashioned ones that will slam down and crush the little bastard's head.

UPDATE - After setting two traps on Friday night that were baited with peanut butter (local recommendation), I was like a kid at Christmas when I woke up on Saturday morning. With great anticipation I entered the main salon only to find the traps as I left them with no mouse in them. I will put them out again tonight in case he just wasn't hungry the first time. It could be that he did leave the boat during the day and is back in Mary Anne Cove waiting to climb on someone elses boat.

FINAL UPDATE - After setting traps for three nights we believe the mouse left the house (boat) when we left Mary Anne Cove. We will choose our shore tie locations carefully or avoid them all together in the future.