Boating Mishap

The photo above shows a line repair...more about that after I explain how the line was damaged.

Touch of Gray departed her home berth on Thursday, April 27th for somewhere north, dependent upon weather and how far we could get. First, we stopped at the Des Moines Marina for fuel. It was much windier than we expected and we hit some pretty snarly water on the way. What we didn’t know, was that our bow line had knocked loose from the rail at some point.

When Nick began to back into the fuel dock, I was standing on the swim step ready to step off. We both heard a horrible noise and the engine stopped. The boat hit the dock quite hard, then Nick was able to use the thrusters to get her into the dock. The dock hand was there, saw what was happening and helped us in. He noticed the bow line was taut and disappearing under the hull and said he thought our line was tangled in the prop. We immediately determined we’d need a diver, hoping it was as simple as that. Our friend Steve Z., who is a diver, had left the marina for home just a short time before we got there. I called him but he was already quite a distance down I-5 and we didn’t want him to have to turn around. He mentioned we’d find many divers' business cards at the office. Nick called a few and left messages, as well as popped in at CSR (boat shop there at the marina). A guy from CSR new of some geoduckers at the marina and connected them with us. So…we hired one of them on the spot. He borrowed a dry suit from a buddy, and a mask from us, and jumped in the water with his knife. After about 20 minutes, he had the line cut from the prop. Easiest $350 he ever made, no doubt. The engine started right up.

We got fuel, and at that point our nerves were a bit frazzled and it was still very windy, so we decided to just stay there for the night. (We were lucky...this whole thing could have been a lot worse.)

But wait…there’s more! We had dinner at Wally’s with Steve and Tracey. After we got back to the marina, we stopped by the geoducker's boat because he had told me he comes in every evening with shrimp. Sure enough, they offered us some. Then, they offered to take Nick out to get some crab. The circumstances were not ideal, it was getting dark and the guy had been drinking beer. Nick went for it – said he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go out with these Native fishermen. He had a blast and came back with seven crabs, a few of them bigger than we’ve ever seen. (They were at 150 feet!) We ate two the next night and they were very delicious! The other five we cooked and saved for the group at Friday Harbor. (We may have come close to breaking even!)

The next day we motored all the way from Des Moines to La Conner, and stayed at the marina. (No room at the AT dock.)

When we got to Telegraph Harbour Marina on Thetis Island for the AT rendezvous, we parked beside our friends aboard Salish Nomad. I figured Dave would have an idea about how to fix our line. The diver cut it and the end was frayed, but there was still a good 25 feet left. Definitely worth saving.

I trimmed the frayed end, then Dave wrapped a small piece of blue painter's tape around the end to secure it. Then, he cut about a 1 1/4 " piece of electrical shrink tubing, slipped it over the end (over the blue tape) and used a heat gun to shrink it to fit. Then he melted the end with candle lighter. Whole thing took about 5 minutes. As the photo shows, the shrinky stuff is red, so I was able to measure what was left and mark the line for future use.