5 December – Palm Coast Marina, Palm Coast, Florida
We are constantly learning lessons with this lifestyle, and today we were reminded to definitely trust our instincts when something with the boat feels different.
We were beginning to talk ourselves into believing that everything was fine and second guessing our need for a diver. Maybe we should just take off and head to Daytona Beach and see how things are feeling today if the divers don’t show by 9:30.
But no, it is better to be safe than sorry and the divers did arrive at 9:15. It didn’t take long for him to come back to the surface saying, yeap you snagged something, and it is HEAVY.
Going back down he unwrapped the styrofoam float and line from the rudder and pulled and pulled and pulled some more on the line trying to find the end. Frustrated, and with no leverage while int he water to pull the heavy weight, he threw the line and float up on the dock, and Bob kept pulling what was over 20 feet/ 4.5 meters of line until he finally found a lead weight attached to a large steel crab trap (2’x2’x1.5’/ 61cmx61cmx13cm). It took a lot of effort for Bob to raise the 20 pounds/9kg of trap (with crabs inside) and weight off the bottom. 
As a precaution to getting our prop snagged by fish traps we had invested in razor shaft cutters, which are designed to cut the offending line before it can wrap around the prop. But in this case, somehow the line did not get wrapped around the prop but rather the float must have gotten caught up between the prop and the rudder. And so it was firmly attached and we dragged.
It blew our minds that we had been dragging this thing for over 20 miles. We felt sorry for the crab inside.
We were definitely thankful that we trusted our instincts and didn’t talk ourselves into “letting it go” and seeing what happens.
After securing the trap to the dock so as not be a hazard for other boats until the diver would be able to dispose of it safely, we untied from the dock and were on our way to Daytona Beach by 10:00.