We have been on the move this week from St. Thomas to Vieques to mainland Puerto Rico. With the exception of one day, it was a quiet week spent eating lots of good food and jumping into the marina pool. On Monday, the Pirate Museum in Charlotte Amalie finally opened so we got to see lots of treasure from ships that had sunk in the St. Thomas area. It was a small museum but it was very interesting and worth the visit. The gift shop had a lot of jewelry made out of old coins which tempted me but I settled for a deck of pirate cards and moved on! Tuesday was our day of good and bad excitement. Our plan was to head over to the island of Culebrita for the night which would have been an easy three hour jaunt. Until the anchor excitement occurred. On Galt, we have a winch (called a Windlass) that pulls up the anchor when you step on a button. It is usually my job to step on the button while Bill guides the boat forward slowly. I stepped on the button as usual and the windlass began to haul in the anchor. It was chugging along nicely until the anchor just stopped. The windlass was still working and spinning but the chain would not budge. Bill came up to look and we decided the anchor was hung up on something. In the past when the anchor has been hung up on a rock or something unknown, Bill just maneuvered the boat around until the anchor pulled loose. No matter which way he tried to move, the anchor would not budge. So, Bill grabbed his snorkel gear and dove overboard to see what the problem was. Whenever someone in snorkel gear resurfaces and asks for a sharp knife, never a good sign! The anchor had become entangled in a huge pile of old chain and rope that someone had left on the bottom of the bay. Bill managed to hack through the rope which was holding us to the bottom of the bay to let the boat float free. He climbed back onboard and we proceeded to haul anchor. The windlass continued to struggle so Bill was manually hauling the chain as I stepped on the button. As the anchor came out of the water, we saw a mass of huge chain encompassing the entire anchor. We were discussing next steps when a man went by in his dinghy. I waved at him for assistance and he was kind enough to come over and help us unwrap the mess. I was very concerned he was going to lose a finger because each time he pulled loose a section of the chain, the weight of the chain would immediately drop and drag into the water coiling the remaining chain even tighter around the anchor. After several dicey minutes, he had safely extracted the anchor and we hoisted it aboard. We began chugging our way through the anchorage into the main channel when….the engine stopped. We have not had engine issues recently as Bill has figured out how to the be Larry the Lehman Engine Whisperer but our luck was definitely running low on this particular morning. Bill dashed down and worked his magic and the engine roared back to life with no further issue. However, given how snake bit we were this day, we were nervous about heading out to a deserted island for the night and decided we should not push our luck. So, we voted to head straight for Vieques which would have some options should we need further assistance.
A few minutes into the trip, Bill asked if I was going to cast out my fishing line. Since we have not caught a fish in over a year, I doubted our luck was going to change but Bill said, “Maybe it’ll be our lucky day since the morning was so bad!” I cast out the line and after an hour of dodging seaweed patches, I got tired of holding the rod. I tied the rod to the bench and ignored it. About five minutes later, the line whirred and Bill said, “Must be a fish!” to which I replied, “Nah, it’s just going to be a large patch of seaweed”. Then, the line started to spin off the reel at top speed and we knew we had definitely hooked a fish! I grabbed the rod as Bill helped to untie it from the bench. Bill slowed the boat to reduce the pressure on the line so I could begin to reel. For the next fifteen minutes, I would wait for the fish to relax the line so I could reel in a bit before he tightened his pull again. Soon, my arm strength gave out and I handed the rod over to Bill. He played the pull and reel game for the next fifteen minutes and we still had no idea what we had caught. I only knew I was going to be very mad if it was a barracuda! As Bill got him close to the surface, we could see it was definitely not a barracuda and it was something BIG so the excitement kicked into full gear. Bill handed the rod back to me and I would reel as Bill hand pulled the line. The last minute it took to get the fish over the rail and onto the deck were tense because at this point we knew it was an amazing tuna and if it kicked off the hook after all this work, we would have been devastated! Finally, the tuna flopped onto the deck and Bill ran to get the rum. When you poor rum into a fish’s gills, it numbs the fish so it is not in as much distress. While Bill took care of the fish, I collapsed onto the bench exhausted. After taking our prize pictures, Bill went to put the fish in the refrigerator and the fish was so large that Bill had to take off the tail to fit it in the refrigerator! We don’t have a scale on board but we judged it to a 20 to 25 pound black fin tuna. With our luck on the positive side, we sailed our way into Vieques where Bill cleaned the tuna and I vacuum sealed and froze 12 meals from it! So, our rough start to the day ended in victory and we both slept very well on Tuesday night after downing several Advil each! The rest of the week was easy going and we visited several restaurants on Vieques that we had enjoyed on our previous trip and then we sailed over to mainland Puerto Rico into the Palmas Del Mar Marina where we will spend the next month preparing to cross over to Bonaire. The marina has hot showers, a pool and multiple restaurants as well as a Walmart down the street so Marina Sally will definitely be enjoying her stay!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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