Snake warning

[Ozzie]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-26/ ... /102774880

Just reading this and thought I’d share. I don’t have to deal with this on the mooring, but I know many forum members keep their Investigator under a nice tarp in the backyard. Anyway worth noting it may have picked up new residents over the winter as it’s nice and warm underneath.

Marvin the paranoid android says “be careful”.
This is an eastern brown!!!!

Photo ABC News

It is expected to be a very hot summer and snakes are already in tourist mode.

Yonks back we had a near two metre python take up a sunbathing stance of our caravan roof. I would have left him alone but he was big enough to take out Grizzlegutz our dog. So a two hour struggle with the soft end of a flat house broom (taped to the end of a two metre pool pole) ensued as I tried to gently steer him into the bush 100 m away. He didn’t come back, but we don’t leave the dog, who’s only 7kg outside on his own in summer anymore. The dog was here first.

Snakes are important to the environment……especially in someone else’s environment.

[no way]

Who says those on mooring need not worry. Years ago, one Saturday morning paddled out to No Way on the mooring and here is a 1 meter Olive python curled up on the outboard bracket - was known in the area. He figured he'd found a good restaurant as swallows had built a nest there previously. Went back ashore and got neighbor and a boat hook to try to remove the offender. Was not easy, flicked him into the water a couple of times but in a flash he's back up the stern mooring line - at one point he got into the cockpit. Finally got him out and herded him ashore where he lay along the water's edge for a while - I'm sure waiting for us to disappear. The biggest concern for me was that I would normally have gone to the boat on Friday night, and the first thing I would have done would be to take the motor cover off and lower the engine. Reckon I would have been at the south pole of the moon years before the Indian spaceship.

[Ozzie]

Who says those on mooring need not worry.

Probably me, but I humbly apologise.

I will check the anchor well next time. I had the hatch off for a while years ago and it had a seagull nest in it.

[Peter T]

I can remember years ago on Arthur's Lake in the highlands of Tasmania, my dad and I were out in the middle of the lake ( at least 1 km from shore). I looked out over the lake to see what I thought was a loop of rope bobbing left and right just like as if it was the top rope off a mooring swaying too and from.
As we got closer to it, we realised it was a very large brown snake ( one of the deadliest) out there swimming across the lake. As we got closer to it, it turned and headed straight towards us in the boat. Dad reckoned to hit it off with an oar, but I had visions of it coming straight up the shaft of the oar and into the boat with us.
Motor in gear and out of there quick smart I can tell you.