Newbie Liveaboards Beware of the...

[charles_reed]

>I'd even got sufficiently desparate to consider overwintering in Finland (temperatures there should put paid to them).

You can put them in a freezer for years and they will be fine when defrozen, unfortunately.

Not the brown ones - though Periplanata can hibernate and the eggs of all of them can survive UK winter temperatures - but not -18C for weeks.

Hence the choice of Finland (and family there to keep an eye on the boat).

 

[charles_reed]

My NE Italian lagoon area was notorious for mosquitoes and, as you say, dusk was the optimal activity time. The local authorities, recognising the very real threat of them to the lucrative tourist industry, embarked on a determined effort of eradication, which has been largely successful. Instead of the black clouds of mosquitoes in the marina as the light fades, individual ones appear and are deterred by most commercial repellents.

However, a far more aggressive variant is now breeding in Italy, the Asian Tiger mosquito (aedes albopictus), which feeds at any time, not just dusk and night as the indigenous ones do. These are devils, fast and persistent, unlike the local species that are a bit dozy, usually easy to spot and swat. They also seem immune to a fumigator that I use in the cabin and that was successful with other flying insects, including mosquitoes.

One advantage (if you can term it that) is that Aedes isn't a secondary host for Falciparum, but it is a carrier of a whole raft of yellow-fever viri. Nasty!! - it's a pretty poor flier as well - about 150m from the breeding site.
In fact very similar to our dear native Culex which, if you've been in Scotland or Finland in the summer, can make you long for the dozy Anopheles.

 

[charles_reed]

There is a chap around here flogging little battery driven plastic boxes which emit the sound of a male mosquito (if you hold your the box to your ear you can just about hear it). You just attach it to somewhere and....hey presto!

I am told that it is the female mosquito which causes the problems and when they hear the sound of a male, they bugger off for fear of being seen to.

Might work, I suppose. Don't know how it would deal with any nymphomaniac female mosquitos though.

I'd love to see the original studies on which the boxes are "based".

It's the nectar-eating male which is attracted (probably by the whine) to the female. This is the normally accepted thesis, with some published work to justify it.

The male is the quiet one!!!!

 

[whipper_snapper]

One advantage (if you can term it that) is that Aedes isn't a secondary host for Falciparum, but it is a carrier of a whole raft of yellow-fever viri. Nasty!! - it's a pretty poor flier as well - about 150m from the breeding site.
In fact very similar to our dear native Culex which, if you've been in Scotland or Finland in the summer, can make you long for the dozy Anopheles.

I am just back from 2 nights anchored a few yards off an impressive wall of impenetrable mangrove.

As always I slept on the trampoline. The first night there was a breeze, so I had no problems.

The 2nd night was dead calm and slightly hazy, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes. I am still rubbing anti-histamine cream into my arms and legs

Now I wait 10 days for the malaria....or the dengue...or....

 

[dancrane]

That fellow Charles Reed...

Re Mosquitos
Sir, you sound biologically informed...if you're familiar with the hell mosquitos represent, what would your own solution be? We may not be reluctant to kill them by the thousand if the option is there, but mainly, we just don't want to be pestered and poisoned by the little fudgers. Do you have any clever bio-chemical ways to keep them semi-permanently at bay?

 

[whipper_snapper]

Re Mosquitos........Do you have any clever bio-chemical ways to keep them semi-permanently at bay?

No!

Repellants are helpful but far from perfect, I never use them because I hate the smell and feel.

Sleeping under a fan generating a strong breeze is very effective and dramatically cooler; but I like to sleep on deck when I can.

The only sure remedy I know of is to screen the cabin with netting and spray inside before nightfall. Even then one of the little barstewards will find its way in and drive you crazy.


Edit: Of course the real solution would have been to move the boat a few more yards offshore. We rarely have problems when anchored, you don't have to be far off shore to be completely out of mozzy range.

 

[charles_reed]

Re Mosquitos
Sir, you sound biologically informed...if you're familiar with the hell mosquitos represent, what would your own solution be? We may not be reluctant to kill them by the thousand if the option is there, but mainly, we just don't want to be pestered and poisoned by the little fudgers. Do you have any clever bio-chemical ways to keep them semi-permanently at bay?

I'm very familiar with the hell that all the biting insects can represent. I was brought up in the tropics!
There are no "magic bullets", sadly - a constant draught, such as a fan, can help as most female mosquitoes are unlikely fliers. The use of a net, around your bed is probably the most efficient. IMHO mesh screens over ports are not worth the cost or aggravation, but there's the comfort of the placebo effect.
I use a repellent - the best last only about 4 hours and usually only affect specific species.

You're best at sea or anchored well off, eschew the fleshpots of marinas and ports.

 

[dancrane]

Sounds like fine advice I won't forget, I prefer to be a distance offshore anyway.

Hard to see how some little critters always get through the screens though; we all know the obsessive care with which we've locked hatches down and netted-off vents and bunks. Is it likely that the odd one or two are in the cabin already, making all the effort pointless?

Maybe some clever devil at Bayer or Eli Lilly can dream up a pill we can take, that makes our blood repulsive to 'em. To the mosquitos, I mean.

 

[whipper_snapper]

Hard to see how some little critters always get through the screens though; we all know the obsessive care with which we've locked hatches down and netted-off vents and bunks. Is it likely that the odd one or two are in the cabin already, making all the effort pointless?

That's why you spray inside after you have closed up. THen wait outside for an hour or so for it to clear. THen provided you have screened properly you should have a bug free night.

Of course you will be bitten while waiting outside unless you start the whole process very early in the evening.

 

[Baggy]

When in your bunk.. just dozing off... then you here that high pitched buzz in your hear...

turn on the light and you see this.. arrgh....

 

[dancrane]

That is just the worst. Pestilential. Great pic though.

 

[mandlmaunder]

Maybe some clever devil at Bayer or Eli Lilly can dream up a pill we can take, that makes our blood repulsive to 'em. To the mosquitos, I mean.

We tried brewers yeast tablets and they worked for SWMBO, but you gotta start about two weeks before you think you will need them and take them every day.

And yes I did try the less condensed straight from the beer approach and it didn't work bot after 5 or 6 beers you don't care what's biting you and sleep through the night quite oblivious to the fact you are being munched on.

After several years in the caribbean it seems that except for a few weeks each year we are no longer on the preferred eating menu, perhaps they get used to the taste and are looking for something a little more select.

Mark

 

[Squeaky]

Good evening;

I had a cockroach infestation for about ten years and tried everything I could find until a friend brought back some "Goliath Gel" from Dubai which I believe is made by Novartis. It was in a small tube and had a small applicator similar to that used for Silicone only much smaller which produced a small daub about the size of a match head with each squeeze of the trigger.

The instructions said to apply one daub for each square meter of space so I turned her loose on my boat making sure it was applied under all the berth and in each locker.

I never saw another live cockroach nor have I seen any since it was used in 2002.

I have no idea of how it worked as we did not notice any smell nor was there enough of it for them to walk in or even eat but I assume it must have had a smell which killed them. The strange thing is that I noticed very few dead ones either. Where they went I have no idea but I can promise you that it worked a treat.

Apparently it is used in Dubai in freighters when they arrive for off loading. It was not cheap - think the cost was around £60 including the applicator which was a well machined item but a tube would probably suffice for half the boats in a marina.

I know that I will try to obtain some again if I ever see another cockroach on board as I learned to really dislike them and all their descendents.

Regards

Squeaky

 

[Heckler]

I'm very familiar with the hell that all the biting insects can represent. I was brought up in the tropics!
There are no "magic bullets", sadly - a constant draught, such as a fan, can help as most female mosquitoes are unlikely fliers. The use of a net, around your bed is probably the most efficient. IMHO mesh screens over ports are not worth the cost or aggravation, but there's the comfort of the placebo effect.
I use a repellent - the best last only about 4 hours and usually only affect specific species.

You're best at sea or anchored well off, eschew the fleshpots of marinas and ports.

Angola
worked there for years, took malaprim (sic) regularly, found out it was ineffective (liverpool school of tropical medicine) was advised the only one that worked there was mefloquine. Liverpool doc said it will make you crazy if you are not careful. Portugoose doc in angola said dont take anything, makes it easier for us to diagnose. Anyway the next thing you know i had P. falciparum. Medivac home and prolonged treatment with tetracyline and quinine sulphate killed the little ******* instead of it killing me. Only prob was that the drugs have knackered my hearing. Wilbur Smith describes black water fever very well. The parasite gets in to red blood cells, when it multiplies it bursts the blood cells and eventually overwhelms the kidneys, hence black water!
Sickle cell aneamia, affords some protection, the little parasite cant get in to the red blood cell to multiply because of the shape of the red blood cell. Paradox eh? you dont die of malaria but you maybe die of sickle cell aneamia!
Stu

 

[dancrane]

Thanks for that, Stu.

Horrendous! If I ever planned to visit equatorial Africa, I now won't.

 

[dancrane]

A mate of mine on a long semi-circum, had distilled some undrinkable booze, from apples and rhubarb and whatever else was cluttering the bilge below his galley. The brew, eye-watering and caustic-tasting, was put aside as 'only for emergencies'.

An emergency finally arose, only by chance. After an intolerable night of heat somewhere off Thailand, a crew-member had opened a hatch and let in a swarm of mozzies.

The crew had depended for malaria-protection, on their hideous airless separation, so the little monsters' arrival put them in a spin. In the absence of anything else to apply to bites, they opened the 'brew with no name', and for a while at least, found some relief, presumably from the cooling of condensation. But...

...as time passed that night, the crew found the airborne miscreants far easier to swat, and noticeably less adroit in their blood-sucking.

I'm embarrassed to say, that another couple of days passed before further consideration was given to the brew's strengths. Only then, did it occur to its creator, that the mosquitos had failed to stab through their victims' epidermis, but had absorbed some very hard liquor instead.

Great thought though, no? And one to justify keeping plenty of the good stuff aboard...

 

[demonboy]

Great post, Dan. Well written and very amusing!

 

[SHUG]

...and don't forget a spear gun for THE RATS!!!!. Reckon I saw more rats than cockroaches around the Med.

 

[Rosa]

Oh, dear! This thread has frightened me! Like many others, I dream of sailing away. I could cope with heavy weather, but not cockroaches. I was a service brat so spent a lot of time abroad, including the tropics. Despite, or because of, this I hate cockroaches and creepy crawlies. I know mossies are more dangerous but I don't find them as repellant.
Is there any hope for me?

 

[charles_reed]

We tried brewers yeast tablets and they worked for SWMBO, but you gotta start about two weeks before you think you will need them and take them every day.

And yes I did try the less condensed straight from the beer approach and it didn't work bot after 5 or 6 beers you don't care what's biting you and sleep through the night quite oblivious to the fact you are being munched on.

After several years in the caribbean it seems that except for a few weeks each year we are no longer on the preferred eating menu, perhaps they get used to the taste and are looking for something a little more select.

Mark

They say vast quantities of garlic, by mouth, has the same effect.