Becalmed.......

Out here today, as it has been for the last few days, not much wind for
us. Strange how a place that can sometimes blow a storm, can at other days,
be totally becalmed. We have been motoring for the last few days. Watched
the moon grow full and casting her magic spell over us. And the days turned
into nights and visa versa. Clouds come and go, and we are patiently
waiting for the wind to pick up a bit. Our lures have not produced any fish
now for days, only our props caught some rope a few nights ago. By some
rope, I mean a huge tangled mess of rope from a fishing trawler.

I just took over watch from Tim, and we were trotting along nicely at about
7kts and 20kts of wind in our sails. At about 21h15 the boat slowed down
drastically, hardly making 3kts. I let our more sail, but no improvement in
our speed. I remembered a similar situation years ago on another crossing.
he boat speed and wind speed not making sense. At the time I looked
backwards and our water bucket was blown overboard, and a line that was
attached to the boat and the bucket, was as tight as a guitar string. It
was also at night, and no ways I could pull the bucket in by hand. Stopped
the boat by going into a hove to position, retrieved the bucket, and
carried on. On Island Home we don't use a water bucket to scoop seawater,
we have a deckwashpump and hose that we use when we need seawater, much
safer than a bucket. From the helming seat I looked back but could not see
anything in the water as it was a fairly dark night. I decided to start a
motor and see if we could make better speed with a motor, and as soon as I
engaged gear, I felt that something was wrong and turned the motor off.
Walked to the back of the boat, peered into the water, and a meter below
the surface I noticed that we have snagged some rope with our props or
rudders. I fetched the boat hook and tried to lift the line, and it was far
too heavy to hook and lift.

I woke Tim and Geoff to assist as we were in a bit of trouble. Trying to
depower the sails I tried to tack through the wind into a hove to position,
but the weight of the rope were were dragging would not allow it. And
neither could we use a motor to assist, as our props were tangled with
rope. We furled in the head sail, which slowed us down a bit more and kept
the main sail as close to the wind as possible. By then Marina, Phil and
Scott were also up and watching us trying to free Island Home from this
mess. Geoff, Tim and myself were pulling together and after a while we must
have pulled over a hundred meters of 20mm thick rope onto the one side of
the boat, here was hardly any space left to stand. We were hoping to bring
all the line aboard to see what was at the end of the line, but eventually
it got so heavy that we decided to cut the rope. The lined we heaved aboard
we also cut loose and left a few meters to work with. The bunch of rope on
deck we tossed back into the ocean. By this time we had our gears locked
into reverse to stop any turning of the props to prevent them from getting
even more entangled. We tied the loose ends of rope on deck, furled out the
genoa, and after about two hours we were on our way again, sailing fast and
free, and it felt good as always.

As it got light the next morning, Geoff, Tim and myself were up and
assessing the situation. We first took some underwater pics on the GoPro
and studied them on the iPhone. Our starboard side have untangled itself
and was free, which was a great relieve. On the port side one of the props
blades had some rope twisted around it, and we first tried to untwist it and
pull it loose from above. It was difficult as the boat was still doing 2kts
after we turned once again into a hove to position. A bit too fast to jump in
and cut the rope loose, ad the water was also fairly cold, 18*C to be exact.
We furled in the head sail, dropped the mainsail, and with our free motor
at idle speed could keep the bow pointing just off the wind which slowed us
down to under a knot. Slow enough to dive in and Geoff was getting dressed
for the freezing operation. While he was still looking for his wetsuit, we
tried the boat hook one more time as there was very little motion through
the water. When we tried previously the momentum of the water would push
the boat hook back, and by sheer luck,we managed to free the prop from the
rope and with great relieve watched it drift away. Just to make sure we
took a few more underwater pics which confirmed that our operation was
successful. Started the motor, engaged gear, and again to our great
relieve, found there was no vibration on the prop, which meant no damage
was incurred. We hoisted the main, unfurled the genoa, set our course, and
sailed away from what could have been a far more serious situation.

We are currently less than 1300nm from Fremantle and are doing a fair speed
under motor. When we sniff a bit of wind, we let the genoa out a bit, which
is just holding. Our weather forecast predicted quite a bit of strong
winds, but it faded out before it got to us. It looks like we might get
sailable winds later today, and we are ready. Fortunately we have more than
enough fuel to run the motors when necessary, and it is quite pleasant
motoring over a smooth sea, sun shining, a few birds around the boat. The
nights are also fairly pleasant, so all in all things are going well on
Island Home. Life at sea, at it's best. Another ten days at most and we will
reach our destination. Although we are all fairly relaxed at the moment, we
still keep a watchful lookout for ships. As we get closer to Australia we
will stay sharp, and only once we are safely tied up at the marina, will we
let our guard down. Hoping that on the next blog I can report about some fish
caught. We have changed hooks on our lures, have changed some lures, and I
have just spotted a flying fish, a good sign. Until then, enjoy the weekend
and the week ahead. Greetings from the big blue.