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Fascination rapidly turned to disgust, which then disintegrated into anger and a need to
do something about this ever burgeoning population of bristling vermin. I would get out
the cockroach hotels from the cupboards where they were stowed and laid them about the
sink. The cockroaches were fairly used to these cardboard houses of death and avoided
them very smartly. Some of them didn't, and they got stuck but not nearly enough for me.
I was repulsed and embarrassed by these seething little stowaways. We were sitting watch-
ing them one night when I suddenly remembered I had several rolls of double-sided sticky
tape in my meager art supplies. I went down below and fished around and brought a roll
through to the galley.
“Now we will see whose boss around here!” I crowed.
“Yeah right, they'll probably lift their legs all over it more likely,” returned Gavin, sar-
castically.
I peeled off strips and laid a barrier of this tape all around the perimeter of the sink. I tested
the stickiness of the exposed side of the tape with a finger and was convinced my plan
would work. I turned out the light and returned to the cockpit.
Radio Australia was in full swing with the top twenty Aussie hit parade while we watched
eagerly as the cockroaches started to venture forth. A few brave ones went scurrying up to
the tape, sniffed it in contempt and walked across. Well, halfway across they got their front
legs stuck. They tried to back out, but the tape held their front legs firmly. They had no
option but to try and blaze forward. This was their undoing, and they almost all came to a
sudden standstill. Then another would approach from the other side and its fate was sealed
as well.
We watched in amazement and delight as more and more of these dinner plate raiders
launched themselves unsuccessfully over the wall of death. Soon the tape was full of gyr-
ating cockroaches of several different species, all doing the hokey pokey in time to the
tunes on Radio Australia like some miniature bug discothèque. There were the squat, ugly,
yellowish-brown ones that had pale stripes on their undersides. They were a lot more ag-
gressive than their solid brown counterparts. The dark brown ones were the largest and had
the annoying and sometimes frightening habit of just flying to where they were headed.
When the tape was full, I went below, peeled it off in long strips, and threw it out to sea.
“Good riddance, and don't come back!” I yelled after them. I then repeated the process.
During the ensuing couple of weeks, I am quite sure I must have wiped out ninety percent
of the cockroach population by doing this.
The following morning we were visited by hundreds of porpoises all hobby horsing around
us. Their gasping breathing through the blowholes in their heads was a little unnerving at
