Day 13

From Peter Ver Ploeg:

We got an early start out of Sandy Hook, and enjoyed smooth sailing as we turned South and headed down the New Jersey coast. New Jersey, it turns out, has a fairly treacherous coastline. Fully exposed to the open Atlantic, the safe harbors are few, far between, shallow and small. We made for Manesquan Inlet and the resort town of Point Pleasant, flying along on a broad reach with the sun on our faces and the mercury well above freezing at a balmy 40 degrees. We shed our hats and mittens and basked in the warm, southern air.

Manesquan Inlet is a river mouth, with strong tidal currents and a very narrow, poorly marked channel (always exciting with no depth finder), so we were moving pretty slow as we nudged our way past the breakwaters. After poking around, getting in people's way, and exploring a few false channels, a ferry captain shouted directions to a safe anchorage. What he didn't tell us was the the channel was about 15 feet wide, shoaling steeply to 3 feet on either side. For the third time, we ran aground. Once again, it was at a slow speed and into soft mud, but still, it hurts the ego.

We couldn't back off with the motor so we hauled out the secondary anchor, rowed it off the stern with the dinghy, dropped it, and began to haul ourselves manually out of the muck. Suddenly we were free and drifting quickly down on the current toward the ferry dock, a mere 20 feet away. I raced to the bow to drop the primary anchor, Pete H. gunned the motor to turn us parallel with the current, Chris began hauling in the secondary anchor.

Then, disaster struck. The anchor line fouled on the prop. With a whirr, the secondary anchor was yanked from the water, flying past Pete's head to hook with a loud bang on the gunwale. The motor, bound in the anchor rode, lurched to a sudden stop and we three rushed to the stern rail to prepare to fend off as we bore down helplessly on the ferry. Just before collision, the primary anchor (which had been dragging uselessly along the bottom) snagged and held and we came gently to rest five feet off the bow of the docked ferry. We stood in silence.



There was nothing for it. We couldn't even improve our anchorage let alone continue the trip without the motor. We had to clear the prop immediately and, the only way to do that was for someone to go down there with a knife to do it. Another moment of silence followed this realization. With a sigh, I volunteered.




I stripped down and clambered into one of our survival suits. Pete tied a knife to my wrist and, snorkel mask in place, I dove into the icy water. It took about half an hour, pulling myself down into the current along the rudder, hacking away at the rope binding the drive shaft, popping back to the surface to gasp for breath, diving down again. Pete took videos of the entire thing with his camera and cheered me on from the dinghy. Chris started the teapot boiling for me when I got out.

Pete has been reading a book called, "Two Years Before the Mast" in which the narrator describes his ship's captain as being so tough he was said to be "made of steel and whale bone." Standing in my boxers in the galley shivering and drinking hot tea, Pete and Chris agreed that I could now claim to be made of the same. That made it all worth it.

It was Saturday night so after setting a second anchor off the bow, we headed in to Point Pleasant to meet some New Jersey women and drink some New Jersey beers. Heavy weather tomorrow meant we'd be spending a second night at anchor so, with the promise of a late and lazy morning, we didn't stumble back to the dinghy until 2.

Here is a the link to a video of me clearing the fouled line from the prop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEe7-kQKAYo