The past two or three weeks I would often see a wasp or wasps flying around inside my boats salon area. This kept happening so yesterday I decided to put my full attention to what was going on. The wasp would gain entry to the cabin through the gaps in the cabin entrance door.

I watched it squeeze itself in through the door. It would then fly past me sitting in a chair by the lower helm station. It disappeared down into the galley area. When it flew past me and squeezed back outside through the cabin door I moved down into the galley area.

I waited a few minutes. Then I saw the wasp outside which then made its way back through the gap in the door and into the cabin area. It then flew down into the galley area and disappeared behind the sofa on the port side of the cabin. I waited for it to leave again.

Then I pulled the sofa away from the wall. There stuck on the backside of the sofa was the beginnings of a wasp nest. These were mud daubers as the roughly 3" by 3" at that point nest on the backside of the sofa. I peeled it away from the sofa back and walked outside and tossed it into the water.

I then sat back down in my seat and waited. Shortly thereafter a wasp came back inside through the door. It flew down and behind the sofa. This time it spent a lot of time back there. It probably wondered what the heck happened to my nest. When it flew out into the cabin from behind the sofa I was waiting with a fly swatter. I started hitting it and continued to hit it until it stopped moving. 1 down.

A few minutes later another wasp came aboard and when it left I followed it outside and swatted the heck out of it. Not sure if I killed it or not. I will check behind the sofa next time I am aboard the boat. My main reason for killing them is obviously they do not belong inside my boat. I am also allergic to wasp stings. Not seriously so but enough so that it does cause me minor problems. I have not been stung by a wasp since the mid 70's and being a lot older now I could maybe have a more serious reaction to being stung.

It was an interesting day.