Well, the day got off to a great start. We got up bright and early, ready to make tracks for Victoria. All was well; we headed out of the harbor shortly after seven. All of a sudden, THUMP! It sounded as if we'd hit a piece of wood. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. A piece of very heavy, submerged rope (hawser) had caught in the prop and twisted around it. The engine was laboring and the whole boat shaking. Roy turned off the engine and we dropped anchor -- in 116 feet of water! Actually, we were lucky; it could have happened in much deeper water or in heavy wind and waves. Fortunately, it was totally calm and fairly warm.
I got in Roy's Royak and tried to pull the rope off with the boathook, but it wouldn't budge. Roy had to suit up, dive, and cut it off with a sharp knife. The actual cutting took a few seconds, but the whole process, including pulling up 250 feet of anchor chain, took about 3 hours. Jofian is very lucky to have an expert SCUBA diver on board.
There might have been some damage to the propeller; we weren't able to get quite up to full speed.
Due to the delay, we didn't quite make it to downtown Victoria, but we made it to the suburbs. Dropped anchor in Arbutus Cove. In the morning, all we have to do is bop around the peninsula and we'll be in downtown Victoria.
Most of the afternoon, we had straddled the boundary. Our left feet were in the U.S. and our right feet were in Canada.
We were dismayed to see a pall of sickly, yellow-green smog hanging over the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. It probably came from Bellingham and Everett. First smog we've seen in weeks.
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