It was Sam (you may know him if you've been around TMM a while) who was being 'helpful' on the phone.

We'd just left Road Town on our way to Cooper when I saw this bit of 'rubber' hanging down from the top of the cockpit door. I gave it a gentle pull to see if it was loose and it shrank into the door which I instantly recognised as not normal behaviour for rubber. First thought was that it was a lizard of some description. After thinking about it for a short while, I went inside and looked at the other end of the door track and could see this tiny head with a forked tongue waving about. That was when I phoned base to see if there were any venomous snakes in the BVI. Having established it was very unlikely to be dangerous we decided to keep an eye on it and continue to Cooper to deal with it then.

When we got to Cooper, two of us dressed in thick gloves, covered as much of our bodies as possible and got a bucket and a cover ready to contain the visitor. I gently pulled on the tail and it came out fairly easily but that was when the fun started. It wriggled like mad in my hand so I dropped it straight in the bucket. Unfortunately the person assigned to cover the bucket wasn't ready and the thing was out and into the cockpit in an instant. Fortunately someone ran inside the salon and slammed the doors shut behind them (very heroic) so the snake couldn't disappear inside the boat. That would have been a nightmare. The rest of the crew was trying to get as far away as possible leaving me to deal with it but he snake seemed to have a self preservation instinct, found the sugar scoop steps and slid down into the water. It headed straight to shore and presumably lived happily ever after on Cooper Island. Very exciting start to a vacation.