I was in the aft cabin helping August remove a few difficult screws and Paige and Andrea were in the main cabin and forward head working away when the scream finally came. It was the admiral who discovered our stowaway! I quickly made my way forward with visions of blood or some other trauma flashing through my mind. How do you hurt yourself with a screwdriver was all I could think. As I arrived on the scene I found the Admiral attempting to mount a courageous attack. There she stood in her finest combat attire, a screwdriver in one hand and the vacuum in the other. She was definitely shell shocked, and seemed unable to make the final offensive or lead her troops into battle. I hurriedly glanced at Paige to see if perhaps she was the victim, however a quick glance revealed no blood there either. I didn’t understand. What had happened? Where was the injury, who had suffered it? Very slowly the admiral pointed with the screwdriver. In almost a whisper she slowly mouthed the dreaded word. Cockroach!
Now to be honest I am not the greatest fan of creepy crawly’s either, but this is our home damnit, or will be eventually and as the Admiral, I would expect that upon finding a stowaway, she would immediately take charge and either arrest said stowaway, or make them walk the plank or something, but in this case, I assume she felt that it was time to delegate responsibility to those beneath her. Paige, was already at the top of the companionway preparing to abandon ship and refused to come below to meet Carlos. I quickly grabbed the vacuum and put an end to Carlos forever. Or at least until we have to empty the vacuum. Well, of course Carlos mounted a strong offensive and absolutely refused to go down the hose, and as soon as I shut the vacuum off, he fell out of the end of the nozzle onto the cabin sole. This inspired another round of “war cries” from the peanut gallery, brave souls they are. By this point now, The admiral, August and Paige were all gathered around the companionway and I could tell by the look in their eyes that it was each man for themselves and they would take no remorse in leaving their comrades behind, or trampling overtop of each other in order to make their escape.
Eventually the screw that we had sucked up previously, fell out of the hose as well, and both screw and castaway were consumed by the trusty shop vac.
By the way, I forgot to mention that Carlos the Cockroach appears to have been dead for several years. Carlos, prior to his passing, found the only dry spot in the entire boat, tucked way in behind a piece of the pegboard that lines the inner hull, inside the head cupboard and was slowly mummified
It was only a matter of time before we found him. All of the indications were there, and the further we dug into the bowels of Akupara, reducing and eliminating places of cover and discovering new exciting secret locations, the higher the odds were that we would discover him!
We have found approximately 30 cockroach motels and at least 10 spots where there was cockroach paste, that brown sticky poisonous bug killer had been smeared in high traffic areas. So we knew at one point in time Akupara had a serious case of stowaways.
So the good news I guess is that the previous owners took the issue seriously, but the bad news is that with all of the hiding spots, we were still a little worried about finding them. Thankfully, when we finally did find Carlos the Cockroach yesterday, his days had ended peacefully a long time before.