When I wake up, the light is peculiar and I realise immediately what the problem is – thick, thick fog. Again. Wonderful. This is now our eighth day in Maine, and our fourth in fog. Who said the best time to visit Maine was August?
Anyway, we pull the anchor up and slowly slip out of the anchorage, fog horn blowing. I assume my position at the chart table and Mike puts on his waterproofs and sits at the helm. We motor for nearly half the distance. There are dozens of little islands, rocks, lobster pots (although less in this part of the journey than previously) and lobster boats, some of which are visible on the radar, but all are invisible to the eye until the last minute. Oh how we enjoy those few hours.
Then, in almost the blink of an eye the fog lifts and suddenly being able to see around him (and see two yachts and four fishing boats within a quarter of a mile – scary) distracts Mike and for one second he takes his eyes off the pots in front of him and we slow right down. He puts the engines into neutral, then into reverse, one by one. Immediately a lobster pot float pops up and away from the port side and for a while it seems like we are free. Then the engine starts to vibrate – I can hear it rattling the cooker – and I rush outside to tell Mike something is still wrong but he’s already shut the engine down. Looking over the side I can see a rope trailing from our port side – bugger.
Mike tries pushing it down with the boat hook, then pulling it up with the boat hook so he can cut it but the current is pulling us forward putting so much tension on the line that even when I put the boat into a gentle reverse, the tension won’t ease enough for him to pull the line up and cut it. Either the bloody pot is caught on something or there’s some enormous sodding lobsters down there.
Eventually the tension becomes too great and the boat hook is pulled out of Mike’s hands. Mike says it will float. I look around and there’s no sign of it. Anyway, there’s nothing for it but for Mike to go in the freezing water again armed with a knife and a sudden hatred for seafood.
The line frees easily and after a quick shower off the back of the boat, we set off again. It’s amazing. There are lobster fishing boats all around us and not one of them comes over to help even though it’s obvious what is going on. Too late Mike realises that he should have tied a knife to the boat hook and cut through it below the water that way. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?
Oh and the boat hook goes to a watery grave. It is obviously not a floater.
It can be a very small world out on the sea sometimes. We start to pick up a signal from a huge yacht called Scheherazade, the very one that we followed out of the town cut at St Georges, Bermuda. One of the customs officials pointed her out to us as we left and told us to follow her to Maine and here she is, approaching Boothbay Harbor.
All the way back to Judith and Joe’s I am panicking. We have no boat hook. How the hell am I going to pick up the line for the mooring ball? Mike says I should use the broom. At the look of horror on my face he realises I think he means my green floor wizard but he intends for me to use the grotty one for cleaning the outside of the boat. Phew.
The fog is starting to close in again but we know where we are going this time and as we get to the house I go to the bow armed for hooking business with a broom. I look stupid. I feel stupid. Even more so when I realise that the bloody thing won’t even reach the surface of the water, let alone slip beneath it and grab onto a line.
Mike shouts at me to lie on the trampoline to get closer. I don’t like this and I feel really stupid when I’m lying there waving a broom around when a boat full of tourists pass by. Why is there a stupid Brit sweeping the sea surface? I can almost hear them.
Anyway, I grab it on the first go and manage to get myself back up without dropping either the line or the broom and get us tied on.
Oh what fun today has been!
Even though it’s Thursday, we pretend it’s Friday and have a curry. We feel we’ve earned one.
Oh, and no photos. Grey is just so tedious!
Position: 43 deg 15 min N, 69 deg 38 min W
Distance so far: 1786 miles
Love reading your adventures!
ReplyDeleteI have a tip for picking up a mooring ball with no hook on a Cat. Have Mike back up so you can pick the ball up from the transom. Then walk it to the bow. We did this in the BVI a number of times and it worked like a charm - almost easier than using the hook.
Yes, we've used this method before and it does work well but Joe has no float on the end of his line and there was a danger that the line would get sucked under and wrapped around the propeller (or that I'd fall in leaning over to get it - klutz that I can be sometimes). Thanks anyway.
ReplyDelete