Stymied

Thursday 16 March, 2006

On Tuesday night, we moved to Luperon's outer anchorage, in preparation for a 9 PM departure. On a historical note, Columbus anchored here way back when. The night departure is necessary because the southeast trade winds often die down at night, making travel to the southeast possible. Amanzi was travelling with us, and was leading the way. They stopped suddenly, and radioed us to do the same, as they were about to run into fishing nets. We anchored near the middle of the outer bay, and settled down to wait for a few hours. A catamaran we know came out around 9 PM. Trying to navigate around the shoal spots, the cat found itself over the fishing net. It tried to back off, but ended up winding the net around the prop. They lost both steering and power.

At this time, I went to the bow to see where the net was in relation to us. It was draped across our anchor chain - a drift net. It was slowly encircling the boat. After some polite discussion, we decided to up anchor and drift out of the net, then start the motor and head out to sea. We needed to ensure that we did not drift too far, as a shoal was close by. This worked OK, but an added stress was the fishing buoys we passed on our way out.

We got out OK, then proceeded to bounce around in the 6 foot seas. The wind was more than expected, and on the nose. We were doing no more than 2 knots, which wasn't enough to make our next port in time. We decided to turn back, and ended up anchoring in the exact spot we had left that afternoon.

We think we'll try again Friday, when the forecast is a little better. We expect to end up on the SW coast of Puerto Rico, in either Mayaguez or Boqueron, possibly on Sunday night.

The cat, BTW, was able to dive and remove the net from their prop in the morning. They left that afternoon.

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