It was a slow day today. Very little wind – but we managed to keep sailing all day. Except that is, for one minor detour when I spotted one of those really big ball fenders floating out there in the wild blue yonder. It was about a quarter mile off our port side, so we decided to check it out. We turned the engine on…

I started turning left – and then suddnly realized that that would put us in a gybe – duh! So we brought in the mainsheet and set the main amidships and started to furl the code zero as we turned.

The code zero got all tied up and wouldn’t come in – so we pressed on with a half in-half out sail and headed for the fender.

As we approached we could see it was from a fishing boat – with a long length of floating line attached. I approached slowly slightly downwind of it and then turned into the wind and alongside – but not close enough – Laurie couldn’t grab it.

Shit! We’ve still got the fishing gear trolling behind – and now the line is lying right over the floating line attached to the fender… I speed up to get the line away from the fender and motor upwind. The code zero now decides to unfurl itself so our attention changes to that and after a little, we manage to get it furled (helps when you let the sheet go dumb-ass!

Attention turns to our fishing line, but in the melee it has now managed to get itself wrapped around the keel, the prop or the rudder – or all three for all I know. We pull in the lure and sure enough the line goes taut and I have to cut it to freee up both the rod and the lure – leaving a length of fishing line somewhere down on our underbelly.

I turned the boat around and this time our approach is better and we bring aboard the fender – a beautiful big pink one, and about 30 feet of horrible stinking line, full of barnacles and little crabs! We can’t leave it floating around the ocean waiting for some unsuspecting sailboat to run into it at night and foul their prop – so we ift it aboard too and bag it. We now have a big smelly line in the cockpit locker, a large pink fender adorns our stern and our fishing line is somewhat shorter than it used to be!!

This evening we’re ghosting along at about 4 knots in 7 knots of wind. Dead downwind using 3 headsails – the code zero on port, genoa poled out on starboard and our storm sail lashed amidships to attempt to stop the rolling. The storm sail isn’t doing what it’s supposed to! 🙁

Cheers!