12/12-12/13/2016. The Crossing

We left our anchorage at Dog Island at noon as planned.  The crew of Osprey, Steve, Deidra and dog, Trouble,  were heading across with us.  It’s always nice to have someone else out there to talk to and in case of problems.

As expected, we had some swells from the south and winds in the 5 to 10 range.  The forecast indicated that the beginning of the trip would be a bit more uncomfortable than the end.  So if this was the worst, we felt pretty good about our choice to go.

Within the first half hour, Tim emerged from an engine room check to say the mechanical shaft seal on the seawater intake cooling pump was leaking on the starboard engine.  What this means is that we had seawater dripping and spraying from the engine.  We started to count how often we had a drip to see if things were getting worse or not.  In the beginning we were getting a drip every 10 seconds.  We decided to continue on and make regular checks.  Tim had a spare pump, but changing it in route was not a viable option.  As long as the drip didn’t change dramatically, we’d be ok.

The dripping didn’t change significantly, unfortunately neither did the swells.  Deidra was the first to go down.  Steve was manning Osprey on his own.   As dark settled in, we began regular radio calls every 30 minutes between the two boats.  One major event in our favor was the rise of a full moon. She was gorgeous as she lit up the water and kept us company.  But soon after she rose, so did the fog.  The Coast  Guard began Securte broadcasts of significant fog warnings in the coastal areas.  They were right on.  We could see only a glow where the moon hung in the sky and Osprey’s steaming lights were often invisible to us despite them being less than 3/4 mile behind us.

Tim and I took turns resting/sleeping on a bench beside the helm and driving the boat.   While the motion of the boat was not awful, it was uncomfortable.  We had swells from the south and chop from the west that lead to some mixed up seas.  Add to this the fact that we could see NOTHING around us and you have an unpleasant scenario.  The fog was so dense, it drenched everything it touched.  Talk about a bad hair night…….

We had anticipated reaching the outer R2 marker that marks the channel to Anclote River around 10 am.  Instead we were coming in way early.  It was still dark as we neared the outer reaches of the channel.  The fog also intensified.  We slowed way down as we began seeing dreaded crab trap bouys slide by us as we motored in.  Approaching the first channel marker as the sky began to lighten, I put on my foul weather gear and headed up to the bow to try to spot the crab traps before we got too close.  We knew Steve was behind us, but most of the time we were unable to make out the silhouette of his boat.  We had heard that this area was a mine field of crab traps and it truly was.  And then our dread turned to reality.  A sudden change in the sound and vibration of the boat told Tim that we had snagged something on our port side.  We couldn’t see anything, but Tim had a strong sense that something was wrong.  As he continued creeping forward and monitoring the engine temperatures, I warned of a crab trap dead ahead.  As we slowed and tried to maneuver the boat away from the trap, I watched to buoy slide down the port side of the boat only to disappear underneath.  I ran to the back of the boat waiting to see the bouy pop up off the stern……no bouy.  Tim immediately pu the boat into idle and we waited.  Now we knew we had snagged a crab trap; there was no doubt about it.  Tim radioed Steve that we are dropping the anchor.  One of us had to dive and try to untangle the trap so it wouldn’t ensnare the prop.  I was the only one with any type of dive jacket, so I suited up and jumped in.  

Whewwwww.  Boy was that water cold.  I found we had not one, but two lines wrapped around our port shaft.  One was the bouy I saw go under the boat, the other was a black line that was already tightly wrapped around shaft.   This had to be the cause of the vibration Tim had felt first.  After a couple of attempts, I was able to unwrap the bouy we had just caught, but there was no way I was going to be able to get the other of.  It was wrapped too tightly.  Since the port propeller was working before we stopped, we decided to continue in to an anchorage and work on getting the other line off later.  Contining to creep in using radar, we anchored off North Anclote Island around 9 am to sleep off the trip.

Throughout the rest of the day, the fog came and went.  Tim also made a dive to try to untangle the remaining line wrapped around the shaft to no avail.  During one clearing of the fog, we dropped the dingy in the water to take Maggie for a shore run.  As soon as we had the dingy all set to go, the fog rolled back in.  Maggie would have to either wait, or use her AstroTurf.  There would be no potty walk for her.  Bee Haven, a Fleming that was in Carrabelle with us pulled in to share the anchorage and took some great photos of Subject to Change and Osprey in the fog.  We stayed at anchor that night.  We had no plans to venture out in the fog again.