We left Newport bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Tuesday afternoon. We were fully provisioned and prepared for a 30-hour sail to Coos Bay. We anticipated a combination of motoring and sailing as the wind was suspected to be inconsistent from the east. The sky was orange with smoke and very eerie.
Around midnight, under motor, we heard a loud clunking, and our motor shut off.
We had run over a crab pot, fixed to a line & buoy and coiled the rope tightly around our propellor shaft, enough to shut off our little diesel motor Greg. With a newly acquired anchor, we got bashed by waves for a bit until we were able to cut free the crab pot but still had a rats nest bound around our propellor.
We did our best to sail, staying optimistic about fixing things when the sun came up, or sailing into the next safe harbor. When I woke up for my 2:30 am shift, it was clear that wasn’t going to work. Winds were too light to make meaningful progress, the odds of us sailing across a dangerous bar to calm waters were slim, and the prospect of having one of us dive and cut the prop free in ocean swells without a mask or goggels while the boat bashed up and down in the waves seemed too dangerous.
So for the second time in a short journey, we hailed the Coast guard. They were professional, sympathetic, and asked all the protocol questions about our vessel taking on water, having food, life jackets, other hazards etc.
They sent the same model ship out to us, tied off, and began the 5 mile tow into Florence.
We got into Florence at 5:30 am, humbled and pretty worried the trip was over. The motor was bound up, and wasn’t all that trustworthy to begin with.
No one in town had any dive gear. the best we could come up with were youth sized swim goggles at the dollar store.
Joe dove in with his tiny goggles, and a freshly sharpened knife. Praise God, and a big shoutout to Joe’s tenacity. He was able to slice through the corkscrew of rope and free the prop shaft.
Amazingly, the shaft wasn’t bent, and the motor restarted with a cough and spun corrrectly and freely in forward and reverse. We were back!
A few hours of planning, organizing the boat, and a pizza dinner sponsored by Nelson, and we were ready to ship out. We called the draw bridge in Florence and scheduled an opening at 6 AM Thursday morning. Ready for the next stretch.