"Something's not right...ALL STOP!"

It was bound to happen, I guess...we hit a sinker!

We are heading towards a rendezvous with friends so were we compelled to get underway. With only 3 kts of wind on the nose, we motored (I can hear the sailing purists squawking now!). Two of us were on deck, looking out for pots and watching for lobster boats when we felt a shudder--something wasn't right. Frank immediately stopped the engine and we looked around for a pot. He cranked it up again and it still didn't sound right. After a few seconds, a banged up pot floated away astern of us. Uh oh. It looked like it had been hit before and was likely underwater when we hit it. I grabbed the GoPro to take a quick look--we had line wrapped on the prop. The line looked loose and we grabbed one end that was floating alongside the boat to try to free it by pulling. We put the engine in reverse for a split second to see if that would help, but it was still stuck. SWIM TIME!

The kids came on deck to help with lookout while Frank checked the charts against our drift, I grabbed our heaviest wetsuit out of the bilge and started suiting up. The water wasn't super cold at 65F, but just in case it took a while to cut free I wanted to be warm. I donned a wetsuit, hood (I hate cold!), boots, fins, mask, gloves, and a weight belt, and jumped in with my trusty knife. I'm a decent free diver and polypropylene line is pretty easy to cut so I opted to go without a tank (we have one onboard for emergencies like this!). Thankfully, it was a quick job! One loop of line was hooked on one of the blades of our folding prop, but otherwise it pulled right off. I was done in two dives and didn't even have to cut it!

What went right?

We stopped almost immediately.

We had room to drift, swells weren’t bad, and seas were not rough.

We had the GoPro charged! We were able to quickly get a peek before getting wet.

Even though the gear is tucked away in the bilge, it only took a few minutes to go from diagnosis to the 1st Mate being ready to swim. Always be ready to swim!

The line was loosely wrapped, but hung up on our folding prop. Didn’t even have to cut it!

The kid crew stopped school and became lookouts in a hot minute. One was looking out for sharks because he thought momma looked like a tasty seal!

With a little more wind we would have tried to sail/fold the prop to slide it off, though I'm not sure it would have worked given the one loop around a prop blade. Also, that wetsuit was awesome in the PacNorWest, but it was a little overkill here--it was way more than I needed and made me too buoyant (but I was warm!). What we really want to know is why was there a pot out here without weighted line??? It must have been a really old pot or something.

All is well now--Frank checked the shaft seal when we got underway and everything is as it should be, and the vibration is gone! We made it to Linekin Bay for some well-earned adult beverages!