One of the few things I HATE about sailing is dealing with BUGS. I have two stories:
1. The LOVE BUG regatta. One time a bunch of us were doing our Sunday thing and the wind absolutely quit! ZIP!! At this point all the "love bugs" on the planet descended on the fleet, covering sails, sheets, tramps, hair, faces EVERYTHING!!! The result was a fine coating of bug guts on EVERYTHING!!!
2. One fine summer day I waited just a little too long to come in and had to rig down in an absolute cloud of "no see-ums". You had to be there to fully appreciate this horror, but if you ever come to Florida, take this advice: GET OFF THE BEACH BEFORE SUNDOWN!! At least during the summer.
-- Have You Seen This? --
Re: Worst bug story
[Re: fin.]
#74483 05/08/0610:55 AM05/08/0610:55 AM
One of the few things I HATE about sailing is dealing with BUGS. I have two stories:
1. The LOVE BUG regatta. One time a bunch of us were doing our Sunday thing and the wind absolutely quit! ZIP!! At this point all the "love bugs" on the planet descended on the fleet, covering sails, sheets, tramps, hair, faces EVERYTHING!!! The result was a fine coating of bug guts on EVERYTHING!!!
2. One fine summer day I waited just a little too long to come in and had to rig down in an absolute cloud of "no see-ums". You had to be there to fully appreciate this horror, but if you ever come to Florida, take this advice: GET OFF THE BEACH BEFORE SUNDOWN!! At least during the summer.
Folly Beach in South Carolina is the worst for no-see-ems. In fact, my brother coined the term "going monkey" down there while we were breaking down my Hobie 18 at 5am after about 2 hours of sleep one morning (that's a LONG story). As we're trying to get the boat broken down with the assistance of Chilli (an honest* homeless guy we accidently awoke from a peacefull snooze under "his" Hobie 16). The nats were really descending on us and kept getting thicker and thicker by the second. While rushing to get the mast down my brother said something about getting to see what "going monkey" is all about - but I was too preocupied and pissed at the world (because of the nats, the lack of sleep, a hangover, and having salt and sand in every sweaty crevice of my body) to ask what he meant. About 5 minutes later, we both had peaked our threshold for dealing with the no-see-ems and were running down the street waving our hands over our heads and jumping in the air in an attempt to escape the enslaught of miniscule bugs that must have teeth 10 times the size of their bodies. Immediately I realized what he meant by "going monkey".
As far as the love bugs, my parents house, on top of a high peak all by themselves in TN, was completely inundated with them two years ago...most outside walls were completely blanketed. They come back every year - but have never been as bad. They get in every nook and cranny in the house and we still find them everywhere. Word of advise...they stink when they're dead.
*Chilli, who did genuinely pitch in, later asked for a couple of bucks to buy some beer when the store opened. I never had a homeless guy ask me for anything other than food money and was so impressed that not only was he actually helping without any promise of a return, he actually was truthfull with what he wanted to buy. I gave him a $20...then again, maybe it was the fact that we were done with the boat and escape from the nats was near.
Jake Kohl
Re: Worst bug story
[Re: Jake]
#74490 05/08/0601:24 PM05/08/0601:24 PM
. . ."going monkey" . . . we were breaking down my Hobie 18 at 5am after about 2 hours of sleep one morning (that's a LONG story). . .
Would you be offended if I named my boat "going monkey"? That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time!
I think you need to tell this "long" story!
Between "going monkey" at Folly Beach- Jake; and "being shot down by the babes at the Coconut"- Matt; there is another Great Ameican Novel in the manner of "Cannery Row".
Re: Worst bug story
[Re: fin.]
#74491 05/08/0601:31 PM05/08/0601:31 PM
Up on Lake Erie we have muffleheads and mayflies (aka Canadian soldiers).
On light-air days in mid-summer we are sometimes swarmed with muffleheads. They don't bite, but they land on everything and crawl around on you. They are strongly attracted to yellow, and I will never forget the year we were in the Sandusky Steeplechase on an all-yellow Hobie 18, and we were wearing yellow life jackets. The muffleheads LOVED us!
Mayflies are born in the water of the lake and when they are mature, they suddenly rise up out of the lake in great swarms. Rick got to experience this up close once when sailing in a distance race on a Corsair 31. It was a dark and windy night, and the boat was going very fast. When these mayflies started swarming up out of the lake, they were hitting the sailors in the face and smashing themselves on the boat, leaving soggy, slippery corpses everywhere. In a big mayfly year, they pile up in drifts in some lakefront towns.
At least both the muffleheads and the mayflies have a very short season, so they are not a common or ongoing problem.
Re: Worst bug story
[Re: Mary]
#74497 05/12/0609:56 PM05/12/0609:56 PM
I don't have a story, but in Maine and other parts of the Northeast we have Horseflies (aka green-heads). I suspect that these devilish flies are in other parts of the country. as well.
Unlike mosquitoes which sting, these persistent pests have teeth and they land on you with jaws wide open!!! Worst of all, they ignore bug spray. In fact, I suspect they consider bug spray more of a supper bell than a deterrent!!!
There are not green headed horseflies in South Carolina that I have ever seen but they certainly are in the northern part of West Virginia where I grew up. They especially like to bite when your skin is wet like when swimming. They really hurt.
Re: Worst bug story
[Re: SunnyZ]
#74499 05/13/0602:33 AM05/13/0602:33 AM
In my other life, I have obtained and briefly tested Autan, or Picardin, a new mosquito repellent originally from fancy German chemists in Europe. It is at Wal-mart, etc. Johnson & Johnson claim it works on Stable flies (the grey ones that look like house flies, but bite). This appeared to be the case when I tried it at my lab last week. I guarantee that the old reliable deet repellent is absolutely useless for stable flies, but remains excellent for most species of mosquitoes and biting midges (the correct name for sandflies & no-see-ums especially near salt water). So who will try Autan for saltmarsh-breeding greenheads or other tabanids that bite sailors? Please respond on this forum!
Dacarls: A-class USA 196, USA 21, H18, H16 "Nothing that's any good works by itself. You got to make the damn thing work"- Thomas Edison