As we head south from San Francisco we start to hear these critters scurrying, clicking and scratching on our hull. The further south we get, the louder they become. Maybe, as we head into warmer water, they get bigger. Or, perhaps they have infiltrated to the bilge. Checking the bilge, or retrieving stores from the bilge has been avoided lately…

Yes they are every where!!

My number one cruising phobia is a cockroach infestation. Those indestructible hard shelled-prehistorics give me a serious case of the heebie jeebies! Whatever is making that clickety-clack ruckus seems to be particularly active at 1am when my internal clock has decided to provide me with a wake-up call ….and when the mind likes to run amuck. The clacking seems deafening; definitely coming from the bilge now with numbers surely doubling since falling asleep. Multitudes are crunching our bilge veggies, pooping, breeding and spreading some kind of horrid prehistoric disease. Stomach curdling!

Righto! Action! Call up Yachtworld, we’re selling the boat!

Okay, that was a 1 am thought. Regaining some objectiveness after coffee, a few seriously tentative inquiries are made (hate to have phobias confirmed).

What? A very common little 9mm swimmy thing? Making all that noise? Called a Snap-shrimp? Yep… that’s what I thought all along!

Very cool dude, snapping those fingers to the tune of life!