Our unwanted guest got shot out of our exhaust this morning!

Our stowaway is no longer here

Our last night on the Loop, thinking about how drastic our lives are about to change while trying to fall asleep, I heard something crawl around our boat. I could tell it was very close. I yelled up to Ben who was watching TV "There's something crawling around on our decks!". He jumped up and heads outside, sees nothing, checks inside, nothing. Back to TV watching for him and my battle with settling down to sleep, I hear the scratching sound again!! I yell up to Ben, he checks outside again, listens again, no noise. Darn it! I swear I heard something!! Then the noise seemed to stop, or did I fall asleep??? Either way the next morning (the day we crossed our wake!) Ben was doing his engine room check and heard the critter! EEK! Only it was not on our decks but in our exhaust hose. Ben said he could actually feel it scratching the hose! At that he sends me to the aft deck to watch the exhaust for a critter, like a muskrat, to come out. Ben starts the motors and a bunch of 'critter things' came out such as twigs, grass, leaves and mud but no sighting of a critter. NOT GOOD! If there is, and we are pretty sure there is a muskrat in our exhaust, it will die in there from the carbon monoxide from our motors. We totally do not want that. If you have ever encountered a dead animal then you know the smell is so awful and rancid it could knock you out. That is the last thing we want happening on our boat.
We did not see the critter come out of the exhaust when we started the boat, but we had a three-hour run and hoped it would have been pushed out along the way. Well, this morning we got our answer! While Uncle Kevin was over checking out our boat which involved starting the motors. Kevin was outside listening to how quiet our motors are and yells inside to us "Hey, your stowaway has been evicted!!"...Huh? What? We run outside and there it was, a dead muskrat floating behind our boat. I felt sad for the poor ugly guy, he thought he found a nice spot for a home in our exhaust and we ruined it for him. We took him for a far ride from home and now there is probably some muskrat-missing-critter-poster out there asking for his whereabouts. I hope the critter Gods can forgive us.
As sad as it was, it was a huge relief to see him floating outside of our boat. We dodged a bullet on that one! We are just happy he is out of there.
We immediately ordered muskrat guards for both our exhausts. They make them specifically to prevent critters from entering into the exhaust without affecting the performance. For those of you boating in fresh waters, heed this warning...say no to critter stowaways!

Our new HurleyMarine Muskrat Exhaust Guard. This acts as a screen to prevent these critters from making our exhaust their home.