Grand Opening night, D-Dock Bar & Grill

[CapnK]

There are sometimes surprising things to indicate that warm weather has at last truly arrived...

Our marina got new management late last year. One of the projects the new manager implemented was to have the dockboys pressure wash the mold and mildew off of the docks, followed by coating them with water sealant. The way it worked out, my dock was the last to get attention, and me being out on the very end, I was the very last of the last. So yesterday I had to do some spring cleaning prior to the pressure washing (read "clean up the pile of accretion on my dock" which had been growing since last winter descended on us). Odd bits of lumber, a milk crate with cleaning supplies and some various bits in it, a window unit air conditioner that I keep around for if I ever have a guest aboard on a hot summers night, that sort of thing.

So I pull off the upper layer, and get down to the a/c. When I pick it up, however, right there underneath it where I'd grabbed sits our old friend 'Mr. No-Shoulders'...

 

Head tucked ostrich-like, down into the gap between dock boards, but body in full view... not a big 'un, just about 2 feet of him...

...and real Coppery colored...

(For those of y'all who don't know, in SC, 'water environment' + 'reddish/brownish/coppery-colored snakes' can = a Very Bad Thing - unless you are into venom as a hobby...)

Nope, I didn't scream like a little girl. I did manage to restrain my jump enough that I stayed on the dock. Good thing, that, since I was holding 20+ pounds of a/c unit in my arms. It'd be kinda hard to swim while holding one of those, I imagine...

After I regained some composure and set the a/c down, I tried to trap him with a board to find out just exactly what and who he was, but he squiggled away before I could get a good long look. Digging through some websites today, I am not sure exactly which snake he was, but have narrowed it down to either a Cottonmouth or a Banded Water Snake. Based on my brief glimpse of the head shape, I am leaning towards the latter of the two.

Either way and needless to say, the rest of the pile removal went a bit slower, with lots of banging of things and looking before the actual picking-up happened...

Later on, I had a couple friends down for sunset. It wasn't just the clouds which made it a Dark and Stormy night at the 2010 Grand Opening of the 'End Of D-Dock Bar and Grill'...

[tomwatt]

If he was a young cottonmouth, he would have displayed more banding/copper coloration than an adult. As they grow up that tends to fade to a murky dark color.
I sympathize, one warm summer evening in Arkansas, I was walking up the (concrete, south facing - I'm sure you know where this is headed) porch steps when I looked down to see a baby copperhead reared up right between my feet. Poor snake never had a chance, as I did a horse-slap movement with one foot, leaped high in the air with my other, crushing and kicking the snake directly onto the spot I landed, spraining my ankle in the fall. I am really glad I wasn't holding an air conditioner at the time.
I applaud your self control at not choosing to go swimming with the air conditioner. I think most of us would have gotten wet in those circumstances!

[Tim]

  Oh No! This just reminded me.

We recently landscaped around the house, where as before this time of year I would weedeat all the grass out 20 feet to give no room for rattlers to move in, I now am going to have a haven for them.

 Big rocks and grasses!!

[tomwatt]

Tim, you really can't win with these things... if you have plain, bare concrete smooth from foundation out to 20' around, the dang things will come hang out on the south side after the sun goes down to bask on the warm slab. Maybe someone should invent some small, motion activated hammers to roll out and smack 'em!