The Birds

21.9.08  Yesterday I spent three hours cleaning the boat, soiled by bird shit. Today, oil change was on the agenda, using the new Jabsco oil change electric pump cum flat jerrycan. This is supposed to make the dirty job easier and in a way it did. I still had black oil dripping in places unintentionally and it was difficult to tell when all the oil was sucked out but on the whole – an improvement.

Jabsco oil extractor

Having finished that, I went out of the engine room to find that the BIRDS were at work too! The decks were again covered with bird’s poo. I hosed the decks and continued to my next task – washing the dinghy and trying to find the source of the leak in the starboard compartment. I removed the outboard, took the dinghy out of the water and started working. I did not find the leak, but when I finished the job I was surprised to see the decks covered again with bird’s droppings! In the fifties there was a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, the suspense cinematic master of that era, called The Birds.  In that movie the birds attacked and terrorized people. I noticed that the ketch to my right had stays between the two masts and that many birds found them to be THE best olace in the neigbourhood. Some, for lack of space were perching on my mast. All the other boats on the dock were free of the nuisance! All I needed to do was move away from “Ocean Friggata” to get rid of the Birds.