26 – 27 April 2017<\/p>\n
Once it was established that we weren\u2019t going to venture to the Bahamas this season, we sat in Key West for a few more weeks.\u00a0 We had every intention of moving north again and heading back to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and then further north during the summer.\u00a0 But as we started making initial plans it became evident that neither of us were really too excited about making the journey again, traveling along the same routes and seeing the same sites one more time.<\/p>\n
We started looking at different options, and with recommendations and guidance from other cruising friends we decided to head west and north, to explore SW Florida.<\/p>\n
First stop would be Marco Island.\u00a0 The passage from Key West to Marco Island appeared to be a pretty straight shot.\u00a0 The distance of xx miles meant we would depart Stock Island Village Marina in mid afternoon and arrive at Marco Island after sunrise so we would be able to navigate the respective channels in daylight.<\/p>\n
We untied the dock lines and headed off.\u00a0 The promised wind never did materialize and so we motored on.\u00a0 As we left the channel of Key West into the Gulf of Mexico all was going well.<\/p>\n
We will admit that we were a bit naive and didn\u2019t really expect any crab pots in the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico, but we were wrong.\u00a0 Just as the sun began making its way over the horizon we started seeing the daunting traps and said – \u201coh f-ck\u201d.\u00a0 We sure hope we won\u2019t hit one in the dark.\u00a0 While we still had light we safely dodged line after line of the traps.\u00a0 They seemed more gnarly than ones we are used to seeing along the coast and in the ICW.<\/p>\n
We continued on making great time through the evening thinking we were safe in 55 feet of water until the inevitable \u201cthunk\u201d was heard around midnight and the speed dropped by a knot.\u00a0 Uh oh!<\/p>\n
We assumed we were dragging a pot but there was nothing we could easily or safely do to rid ourselves of the offending object and so we plodded along at the reduced speed, frustrated and hoping no damage was being done to the boat.\u00a0 We also hoped like hell that we wouldn\u2019t pick up a second one or that the dragging trap didn\u2019t trap another.<\/p>\n
8 hours later we found ourselves at Marco Island, being greeted by playful dolphins (a sight we haven\u2019t had for a while) and navigated up the channel to Marco Island Marina.\u00a0 As we knew we had the trap in tow, we opted for a bow in approach to the slip.\u00a0 Bob did have difficulty steering in the tight quarters due to the rudder being hindered by the line, but we made it into the slip safe and sound without incident.<\/p>\n
Later in the day we came across a couple of divers who were working at the marina, and asked if they could dive our boat and free us from whatever we dragged in.<\/p>\n
The diver started at our boat, and unwrapped the line from around the rudder (again the trap slipped behind the propeller and was lodged between the propeller shaft and the rudder – urgh!).\u00a0 \u00a0 Then he started pulling and pulling and pulling, but couldn\u2019t find the trap.\u00a0 He eventually got out of the water with the line walked down 4 slips away and continued to pull until he was able to retrieve that trap that was in the middle of the fairway.\u00a0 This must have been over 65 feet away from the boat!\u00a0 He hauled up the cage which he said had to weigh at least 50 pounds and filled with mud.\u00a0 For all this trouble we were hoping to at lest find a couple of stone crabs inside. but instead he only found a pig foot which was evidently used as bait.\u00a0 Having no use for the trap ourselves, the diver was happy to take it off our hands for his own use as long as he promised not to put it in the middle of a channel.<\/p>\n
We hope there is no lasting damage to the rudder, but won\u2019t know for sure until the next haul out and in-depth inspection, and we are hoping to not require one of those for a while still.<\/p>\n
For now, we will enjoy the serenity and hospitality of Marco Island for the next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
26 – 27 April 2017 Once it was established that we weren\u2019t going to venture to the Bahamas this season, we sat in Key West for a few more weeks.\u00a0 We had every intention of moving north again and heading back to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, and then further north during the summer.\u00a0 But … Continue reading Heading West & A New Body of Water<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1301"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1301\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dreamtime-sailing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}