Critters

One of my favorite things about liveaboard life is the wildlife we have surrounding us daily. I'm a sucker for cute animals and the bunnies, mama ducks and her ducklings, and Mr. Muskrat swimming on his back are too cute to explain. We have herons, ospreys, and squirrels in our daily view, as well.

Yet, I also forget that we are also surrounded by not so cute-and-cuddly critters - like the big black snake coiled around one of our pier boards last week. Just the sight of him makes me shriek and jump back a few paces. I respect snakes and their role, but I prefer to be far far away from them (or not know that they are around me). This snake was hiding out eating some eggs underneath the pier, and at one point poked his head up through the pier boards just as I was coming down the dock. At hearing my yelp, hubby jumped off the boat to find the snake.... and hold it?!?

My husband is a critter-catcher, and he has a fine history of scooping up snakes and admiring them. Me, I prefer to run and hide (or in this case, hop on the boat and grab a camera). This one was a big one, not agressive (as I'm told are all black snakes), but was more than happy to slither out of my hubby's grips and head back into the water where he belongs.

Hopefully, he'll enjoy being in the water so much that he'll avoid heading back to our pier. I'll take in the views of furry critters any day, but snakes - not so much.