Crab Pots

Many of the places we have sailed on Kentris have been populated with crab pots. We've seen them in the Pungo River and in the Chesapeake Bay. We've also seen a bunch in the Gulf of Mexico. But usually you can find a path or channel or another part of the body of water you're in that is free of them. That is not the case here. Except in the short channels that pass through a very narrow area, say between a mangrove island and a 1 foot shoal, any piece of water is fair game to the crabbers. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them. It's darn near impossible to avoid running over them, especially in our rather wide catamaran. In fact we have already caught two on our prop in the short time we have been in the Keys.

The first one had no float on it, just the polypro line. How were we supposed to see that one? Getting it off required some serious maneuvering. We were sailing into what was to be our anchorage for the evening when we noticed something wasn't right. Stop the engine, take the sail down, and carefully back up to see if it will fall off. That sometimes works if the rope is just around the rudder. Nope, that didn't work. We were able to get the pot on board using a boat hook and, since that engine was off, we thought we could just go on and anchor, then deal with it. Nope that didn't work either because the motion of the boat through the water made the prop turn which twisted the rope into even more of a mess and threatened to pull the pot right back in the water. Next step was to get in the water with a knife to cut the thing off. Tom donned his mask, overboard he went and was able to dislodge the rope from behind the prop without too much trouble. We tied an empty plastic liter bottle to it so it would be visible and no one else would have the misfortune of running over it later.

The second one was a little less complicated. Same scenario as before only this time after we took the sail down and stopped, the float (yes this one had a float and we still ran over it) and pot fell off as hoped. Of course, while we were drifting around at the mercy of the crab pots, another one floated under the boat. Fortunately, it came out the back with the first one as we slowly moved away from them.

So this afternoon we anchored early between two pots (at least they are good for marking your position so you can tell if your anchor is dragging) and took the dinghy out for a spin along Long Key, just south of Channel Five. There were lots of floats in the detritus along the coastline, some loose, some still attached to severed lines. You kind of wonder what the story is behind each of them. Did they break loose in a storm or, more likely, were they cut by a high speed power boat by accident, or cut on purpose to free a less powerful boat from their entanglement? Whatever the case, we thought it would be fun to collect the better ones and string them up as “art.” We found seven pretty good ones and have them on a string on the trampoline. For some reason, Tom wouldn't let me hang them from the back of the bimini.  Now we'll probably get arrested for stealing them.

And, into every cruising life, a bit of rain must fall. It's raining in paradise. But just some light showers.