Monday, September 17, 2012

Cruising, Part Deux

The other day we decided to go ahead and take the boat south this winter.  The plan is to get the boat down to Florida before Thanksgiving, spend a few weeks around New Years exploring the Keys, then take it over to the Bahamas for March and April.  It will be a bit of a trick to get it down there given a variety of other commitments, but I guess that's part of the adventure.

So now the scramble is on to get a bunch of work done before we leave - yup, all the stuff I thought I had all fall and winter to do now needs to be done in two weeks.  And since the boat is currently hauled while the bright work gets done, I have only a few days to do everything below the water line.  Inspections, cleaning, replacing zincs, and most important, adding line cutters.

If anyone wants to crew for part of the trip down the coast, let me know.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Stow-aways Discovered, and Expelled!

Even after flushing a bunch of lobster trap debris out of our props back in Portland (see Portland, ME), there was still a noticeable wobble in the boat.  Much less, but still noticeable.

For the past week or so the boat has been getting a much needed refresh of its varnished exterior wood, and to make the job easier, the boat yard hauled her. And guess what we found?

Entangled trap lines

Entangled Trap Lines

You would think we would have at least gotten some lobsters out of all this?  It took close to 15 minutes to cut it all loose and the result was a pile of line the size of a watermelon.  Normally I'd feel guilty about trashing someone's trap lines, but not this time.  If they are going to lay them out so densely in northern Maine that you can't navigate through them, then trap loss will just have to be a cost of business for lobster men.  Everywhere else it's not a problem to dodge them, but up there the only solution is sharp cutters and more throttle.