//WL2K The night watch is a strange time.

Strange dealings are afoot on the good ship Palarran. I began to suspect some sort of foul play when a mechanical issues arose off the Oregon coast.

In the middle of the night, a wire connecting our altenator to our

regulator had gone bad. After spending a day or two at the docks in

Newport, OR., and fixing the issue, we took off again. Only to have

another, smaller, but just as urgent issue show up the next night just off Coos Bay, OR. Another altenator wiring issue. We diverted to shore and fixed it easily enough.

I began to get the feeling that some force, great or small was trying to get this boat back to shore.

A little before 2am Friday the 23rd I came up on deck to relive Tawn from the watch. After putting on my foul weather gear I grabbed my sailing gloves. It was a little bit colder that night than previous nights, so I decided I might need a warmer pair. I grabbed my super warm rubber gloves.

As I slipped them on, I noticed something was stuffed into the right hand glove’s thumb. I could just get my thumb in there, but it was not very comfortable. The gloves being an older pair of gloves, I put it down to them just being worn out and probably a bit of the insulation had broken free and had lodged it’self into the space at the end of the thumb hole.

Just like anyone reading this, the situation was driving me crazy after about three minutes. I took the glove off and turned it inside out. Jamming my index finger and thumb as far as I could into the thumb hole I was just able to pinch the offending bit of insulation. I gave it a tug and it all came out as one piece.

The only light in the cockpit was the dull glow from the chart plotter. In that little bit of light, the small piece of glove insulation I had in my hand looked like a wadded up bit of paper towel.

Probably an old snot rag, I thought.

Just as I was about to toss it overboard, something about the feel of it did not make me think it was actually a old wadded up paper towel. I flipped on my headlamp and was astonished to see, there, in my hand was an extremely small pair of tighty whitey underwear.

Size xxxxsm to be exact.

Far to small to be worn by anyone currently, or that has ever crewed on Palaran. In fact, to small to be worn by any human being at all.

These underwear obviously belong to a squirell. No doubt about it.

As I sat there staring at this incredibly small pair of undies, I

realized….they were brand new. Never been worn.

Point of fact: Squirels arms are far to short to properly wipe their bums, so their underwear tend to get a little, shall we say,….racey after a few wearings.

“A-HA, I belive I have solved to riddle of the mysterious wiring issues.” I said that aloud, but quickly relized that I was the only one awake, and talking to one’s self in the middle of the night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a sure way to be labeled insane.
So I did the rest of my deducing silently, in the comfort of my head.

This is the deduction I came to. It would appear that we have a squirel that has stowed away on board. He is trying to make his way south. His reasons for stowing away are his own, and a complete mystery to me. But he must have been down to his last pair of underwear and decided that instead of going “Commando”, he would sabatage the boat’s engine so he could get ashore and do some much needed shopping.

It was just that simple.

I sat there for the rest of my watch, smug in the fact that I had so

masterfully deduced the mystery. And more than a little peeved at the

inconvinience to which this little bastard has caused me.