Well we spent another sleepless night being thrown around
broadside See pics. I stayed up a little longer because once again I was able
to sleep during the day. Jim however is functioning on about 2-3hrs sleep and
he is getting rather exhausted. This morning was pretty harsh but things
settled a bit by lunch time so Jim braved the cold water to see if he could get
this stupid line cut off. The new forecast by this time was calling for squall
warnings so it's not getting much better. Anyway he went down there for a bit
but the movement of the boat, the cold water and the exhaution were too much
for him; so he came back in and had some warm tea. It was an hour or so before
he could stop shivering. Now next options, lets call for a diver. So I tried
calling Providence Bay marina but the service is so bad out here, I could not
get through 1 sentence before the call was lost. Now what? I text Stephanie the
number and our coordinates and asked her if she could call them to let them
know what we need. Which of course she did. Then the fun began. We get call on VHF 68 from Purvis Fisheries. They
are the auxillary coast guard for this area. We explain that what we need is a
diver to come cut some line off the prop and they tell us we must call the
coast guard. We call the Coast guard and quickly tell them we are in NO
distress. WE are anchored safely, we have provisions and no one is hurt. We
tell them we have already communicated with Purvis and explained our dilemma
and they would send out a diver. Being aware of the time of day and the weather
we also explained we were not in a rush
and this could wait until tomorrow. We did not want someone risking anything
for this non-emergency. Shortly thereafter we here Purvis talking to the coast
guard on the VHF, We cannot here the whole conversation but the gist was that
Purvis was awaiting an order from the coast guard to come out as a rescue while
the coast guard was telling them we were in no danger and that there coming out
would be as good Samaritans not as a coast guard rescue. Next we get hailed by
Burnt island rescue and they again clarify that we are OK anchored securely and
no one is hurt. Again we reiterate yes we are fine, this is not urgent and it
can wait until the AM. Finally we get hailed by the Coast Guard to get an
update on our situation. Again we say all is well. No worries and no need to
monitor us. We finish by agreeing that we would hail them should are situation
change but at this current time all is well. Man it sure is nice to know we are
so looked after if we actually did need urgent help.
Meanwhile, Jim
sees two guys going for a swim on the shore. He jumps into the dinghy and
motors on over. He offers them $100 bucks to come dive and get this line
uncaught. Chris; a young man maybe in his mid 20's agrees to do so. When he
gets here, he explains he is from Costo Rico and is not used to this cold water
but would give it his best shot. He dove a few times but was never able to get
the line cut. After about 30 min or so, Jim tells him to stop trying as it is
too cold and the wind is picking up again. We gave him $ 50 for is trouble but
we are still in the same predicament. Oh and it wasn't until the diving was over that we found out the water temperature was actually 49 F Burr. So now a quick e-mail to Bruce to see if
we drive this thing with one prop not spinning will it cause any damage to the
transmission. Bruce says no. Then Burnt Island tells us the wind is supposed to
die down early in the morning and then pick up again in the afternoon. So if we
can make it there in the AM they will have a diver available to us. So new
plan. We drive on one engine to burnt island tomorrow am and hopefully all this
ridiculousness is over with. Time will tell.
As bad as it sounds I would still swap. The Grand Banks are just relentlessness and you still have the Micky of vodka. Stay safe.
ReplyDeleteCan you put your position each day?
ReplyDelete