Sunday, January 3, 2010

Fleazing in Charleston...


I know at times, the cruising life looks like it is always fun and exciting. The truth is it's much like life on land. There are ups and downs, good times and bad. We're right now in a difficult period with harsh, unexpected weather. And now fleas.

First, the picture above isn't what it looks like. It's just what it feels like. Last night, all of our water intakes froze solid. The ice destroyed one filter and nearly took out most of our outside copper pipes. Being from Maine, we should have known better. It was a dumb mistake that took hours of heating to undo. Everything is working now although I still can't feel any sensation in my fingers.

The flea situation is minor but we can't seem to shake it. The entire boat has been extremely cleaned and vacuumed. Both dogs were bathed with special shampoo - and neither were happy about it. All sheets, bedding, etc. have been washed and dried. And tonight, Dylan is still scratching and we're still finding a few fleas. It's not bad yet and we really need to look hard to find a single flea but we know we shouldn't find any. Tomorrow we need to be more aggressive.

With 20 degree weather facing South Carolina through the upper half of Florida throughout the entire week, we feel like it would be dumb to leave. I can't imagine pulling up an anchor in weather like we're experiencing. I'm also not sure how we'd stop our outside water from icing up when underway in freezing weather (new project to self - add shutoffs and drains to outside water). Right now, I'd rather see the temperature change back to it's normal 40+ degree lows before moving.

It isn't always fun.

6 comments:

Bob said...

You guys need to get the HE double L out of Dodge! (Charleston)It's cold here in Stuart, but only in the upper 30's at night (no freezing pipes) and in the 60's during the day. We hope it gets warm enough to start moving South SOON! Sounds like two dog (no fleas) nights.

Ron Rogers said...

You need RAID Smoke Bombs which leave no oily residue or perfume. Leave the boat for 4 hours. George just had a flea problem - a first. The vet had me give him Top Spot PLus once at two weeks instead of monthly and gave him a flea PILL. No more fleas. He had even gotten a minor skin infection from them. They were not on his back/bum - they were on his belly!

Sheila and Bill Corbett said...

No flea problem with Riggs. In fact, rat terriers don't get fleas, but I've heard that a flea can get a bad case of rat terriers.

Ron Rogers said...

The RAID product that I mentioned is called the Fumigator.

MV Red Head said...

We feel pretty strongly in not using chemicals, especially pesticides, as a first step in combatting our minor flea problem. There are some really excellent benign ways of dealing with the problem. We don't use things like Frontline or other flea and tick insecticides on either of our dogs. We know this opens the door fleas exposure but it makes for a much safer environment.

Chicken Boys said...

I was looking for a local map and stumbled across your blog. I see you came through our area in October (Belhaven, NC). Hope you enjoyed your visit to ENC!
~Randy @ www.chickenesque.blogspot.com