Made it into the marina after Ev cleared the prop. We were greeted by dozens of people to take our lines - everyone had a story. One boat that had been anchored near us told us he wondered where we had gone - then realized he dragged more than a 1/4 mile. Another ended up with parted dock lines and became wedged under the pier. There is no power or water in town. Every boat we've met has some damage. We seem to have gotten off easy compared to stripped windlesses, shredded sails, broken wind generators and damage from dragging into each other. The local weather forcaster has been here 11 years and has never seen weather like this.
We're starting to clean up and beginning to get our heads around going through a 100 mile an hour storm. We're preparing for part two. The jet stream has dropped lower and sped up, we were told, which means the chance of further tropical disturbance is high.
The good news is the marina has at least a half dozen kids in it. Maia is off to find them.
Showing posts with label propeller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propeller. Show all posts
February 3, 2010
September 7, 2009
10:00 AM
We were up early again today.
There was no sunrise this time, just sort of a gradual brightening of the grey drizzle. Even though the weather is still acting a lot more like October than we’d like, it’s time to move on. We need to get a bit closer to Neah Bay so that when (if?!) we do get a break in the lows that are marching across the Pacific, we can make a run south.
So we were up at our version of the crack of dawn: 8ish.
We’re not good at getting an early start. I’m not sure why. We’re both more than capable of waking up early to get to say, the airport. But when it comes to getting the boat underway before 10am, we can’t do it.
We’ve tried.
On little Ceilydh we often had passages that would take us about 15 hours. So our thought was that if we could get underway just before the sun rose, we’d be anchored and sipping sundowners when the sun set. Inevitably though we’d sleep through the dawn, wake to bright sun and end up dropping our hook by spotlight.
But today we were up early. And unlike most days, when we watch an anchorage empty out while we’re still in our pyjamas, today we were one of the first boats to get moving. Our first stop was the fuel dock. After two solid days of gales we knew that it wouldn’t take long before the dock had a huge queue. So while the other boats slumbered, we ate our oatmeal and then dressed in our cozy foulies so we could pull up our anchor and get there first.
Then it all went to hell.
For whatever &?&!!*#! reason the !*#$!! crab fishermen lay their traps right through the anchorage. We know this. We watched in shock as one went blasting through the crowded harbour tossing out his line of traps all willy nilly. I think we planned to make a mental note to be aware of this when we pulled up anchor. But it was early and we were sleepy. And we caught one of the lines – but failed to notice it until it was well and truly wrapped around the propeller.
Evan was able to slice the line but when he started untangling it, we discovered that somehow one end of the line had worked its way deep into the cutlass bearing – which for you non-nautical types, is a bad thing. So we re-anchored the boat using the outboard. Then I took a good long swig of my cold coffee (pretending it was something stonger) and we both wondered just how many days and how much money a stupid peice of rope would set us back…
As a last ditch effort before looking for a shipyard that could haul us, we led the crab trap line to a winch and then gave it an almighty tug - pulling it free. Then we tried running the engine and to our shock and delight there seems to be no ill-effect. So we pulled the anchor back up (checking carefully for crab trap lines), joined the now long line for the gas dock and filled up our tanks when our turn came.
Then we headed out of the anchorage – just as my watch said 10am.
There was no sunrise this time, just sort of a gradual brightening of the grey drizzle. Even though the weather is still acting a lot more like October than we’d like, it’s time to move on. We need to get a bit closer to Neah Bay so that when (if?!) we do get a break in the lows that are marching across the Pacific, we can make a run south.
So we were up at our version of the crack of dawn: 8ish.
We’re not good at getting an early start. I’m not sure why. We’re both more than capable of waking up early to get to say, the airport. But when it comes to getting the boat underway before 10am, we can’t do it.
We’ve tried.
On little Ceilydh we often had passages that would take us about 15 hours. So our thought was that if we could get underway just before the sun rose, we’d be anchored and sipping sundowners when the sun set. Inevitably though we’d sleep through the dawn, wake to bright sun and end up dropping our hook by spotlight.
But today we were up early. And unlike most days, when we watch an anchorage empty out while we’re still in our pyjamas, today we were one of the first boats to get moving. Our first stop was the fuel dock. After two solid days of gales we knew that it wouldn’t take long before the dock had a huge queue. So while the other boats slumbered, we ate our oatmeal and then dressed in our cozy foulies so we could pull up our anchor and get there first.
Then it all went to hell.
For whatever &?&!!*#! reason the !*#$!! crab fishermen lay their traps right through the anchorage. We know this. We watched in shock as one went blasting through the crowded harbour tossing out his line of traps all willy nilly. I think we planned to make a mental note to be aware of this when we pulled up anchor. But it was early and we were sleepy. And we caught one of the lines – but failed to notice it until it was well and truly wrapped around the propeller.
Evan was able to slice the line but when he started untangling it, we discovered that somehow one end of the line had worked its way deep into the cutlass bearing – which for you non-nautical types, is a bad thing. So we re-anchored the boat using the outboard. Then I took a good long swig of my cold coffee (pretending it was something stonger) and we both wondered just how many days and how much money a stupid peice of rope would set us back…
As a last ditch effort before looking for a shipyard that could haul us, we led the crab trap line to a winch and then gave it an almighty tug - pulling it free. Then we tried running the engine and to our shock and delight there seems to be no ill-effect. So we pulled the anchor back up (checking carefully for crab trap lines), joined the now long line for the gas dock and filled up our tanks when our turn came.
Then we headed out of the anchorage – just as my watch said 10am.
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