It was 5am. The moon was still high and illuminating the lagoon. We were both awake. I'd heard a bird fly past earlier. David was listening to the wind generator turning in the strong breeze and felt the need to check how much power was going into the batteries, as you do when you can't sleep. I listened to him walking around and then closing the main companion way hatch and the fly screens. Why? Was it raining? Were there mosquitos? No. We had a bat in the boat.
When David had been looking at the voltmeter with the torch he glimpsed what he first thought was a large moth fly past his head and into the galley area. We know there are bats in the caves in the rocks and have seen them out flying at night so he went and sat in the cokpit and waited for our visitor to return. Sure enough a bat with a 6” span swooped under the bimini and through the companion way into the saloon. Cheeky little monkey. Or bat.
We had a good giggle about it and even more laughs later because David called the morning cruisers net and asked if anyone knew of any health issues associated with bats in a boat as we'd had one fly in in the night. A dour Dutch voice came back with “If you get bitten you have to have treatment for rabies”. I think our biggest danger is the other cruisers laughing at us and our floating bat cave. David is now Batman and I'm Robin. We travel in our batmodinghy, have batbikes in the batcave and have an electric bat bat (upgraded from mosquito bat) to swat them. To David's amusement I keep humming de de de de de Batman!, Bat Out of Hell and 'there's a bat in my kitchen what 'em I goin' to do? It was a day full of puns.
There are 7 types of bat on the island and while we don't know which one ours was, I'd like to think it was a Bulldog bat. Holy mackerel!!!
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