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A Monster of a Problem

We’ve made great time yesterday, with an average 24-hour run that will be over 150 nautical miles, I will need to check at midday. We had a nice breeze for most of the day, steadily sitting at around 7.5 knots with 12-14 knots of breeze on the beam. The wind died off during the evening, so we dropped the sails and carried on motoring. There were a lot of fishing boats last night, not compared to Asian standards, but we could see six or eight at once, which seems like a lot for the Pacific. Presumably, they're local boats from the Galapagos. They had no AIS or visible navigation lights other than large white lights they used for fishing.

I woke up for my watch just before sunrise, and Adam handed over to me and went to bed. I did a quick check of the instruments and surroundings before putting the kettle on. I then followed with my usual morning routine of chanting internally “COME ON!!! WHYS IT TAKING SO LONG????!! HURRY UP!!!” while staring at the kettle. Standing in the galley looking aft, everything was gray and gloomy with a bit of drizzle, and visibility wasn't great as the sun wasn't quite up yet. I noticed we were being chased by a huge sea monster. I could clearly see its back breaking through the water about 100 meters behind us. Its thrashing tentacles and huge beady eyes were focused on its prey: me! But it couldn't quite catch the boat as we were going so fast. Very bravely, I went outside for a closer look and realized it was a long line stuck around the starboard rudder, dragging behind with its floats.

We stopped the boat and pulled in what must have been hundreds of meters of nylon string, line, and hooks. A few meters were caught around the rudder, and one of the hooks had caught in the line, so we couldn't get it off. I jumped in the water and immediately jumped straight out – it was absolutely freezing! Luckily, Adam is an avid diver and was traveling with a wetsuit. He volunteered to jump in and managed to get the line unwrapped from the rudder! It's lucky the line went on the starboard rudder and not the port side as we're using the port engine. I'm sure the line cutter on the prop would have dealt with it pretty quickly, but it's further drama I can do without, especially while I was still internally screaming at the kettle.


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