Landmines of the Sea

Well, we finally made it out of Astoria last Thursday morning for our long delayed trip up the coast. The seas were initially a little rougher than we preferred, but mellowed a bit as we made our way North.

Everything was going fine until about 11PM at night, about halfway between Astoria and Neah Bay, when we heard a loud clunk. Against all odds, we had managed to drive the boat perfectly between a pair of crab pot floats and had them firmly wrapped around our rudder. We immediately put the engine in neutral and tried to untangle ourselves to no avail. Fortunately, the floats had somehow missed our propeller, so we had no engine damage, however, with the line wrapped so tightly around the rudder we could only turn about 1/2 the normal radius (and it was possible it might get worse). This was fine for where we were, and we were in no immediate distress, but we didn't want to risk the entrance to the Straights of Juan de Fuca, which can be a little bumpy, in our now impaired state.

We contacted the Coast Guard and informed them of our intent to proceed to Grays Harbor, which was about 40 miles behind us. We proceeded to Grays Harbor at substantially less than full speed to reduce the loads on the rudder, and hand steered instead of using the autopilot, which is pretty tiring. We made the entrance to the harbor at about sunrise, and the Coast Guard sent out a boat to escort us in through the bar, in case our situation suddenly deteriorated. Once inside the bar, the Coast Guard tied us up along side to tow us into the marina, as we didn't feel we were manueverable enough to get in by ourselves.

Our compliments to the Coast Guard, they were polite and courteous, and as far as we're concerned a good use of tax dollars.

Even tied up to the dock, and Nancy going around the boat with the kayak we were not able to unsnare the line and floats. We had a diver come out to the boat yesterday to free us of the now many times cursed floats, and to check for any damage to the boat. It took him about 10 minutes to cut us free, and he could find no damage.

So, we are going to take the time in Westport to try to find and fix a very loud rattle that we first noticed at the start of this trip. It only happens at close to full speed and in waves. It makes it impossible to sleep at night, and difficult to use the VHF radio below decks when underway... fortunately we had a good quality handheld that we could use to keep in touch with the Coast Guard throughout the night.