Sea Monsters

Sea Monsters
Those of you who follow along here and have read much what I have written, know that I am afraid of the sea monsters. I believe they lurk below the boat, particularly at night, following along as I sail, or swimming around me when at anchor, and stare up at me, eyes a few inches below the surface, and watch me. They have that ability, you know. They wait for me to go below, in daylight, or any time at night, and then bang on the boat, or slap it a few times. I imagine the ones with tentacles do the slapping. The hard knocks I hear, well - I don’t know what they are using to make their “Knock. Knock” but surely the “Smack. Smack. Smack” sounds come from tentacles. But, rest assured, they are there. I believe many of them resemble the Space guys from the Simpsons, but are much more hideous and repulsive to view.
On this passage, one of them became impatient with me - perhaps angry that I was not paying attention, or maybe it has not mated for a few thousand years, seeing as how scarce they are. Off the coast of Puerto Rico, I was sailing between 6.8 and 7.2 knots, just gliding along. I was busy in the cockpit, if you can believe this, sewing stronger threads into 2 courtesy flags. It was mid afternoon with sunny skies, and warm air. When, WHAM!. A monster grabbed hold of the bottom of Annah Foster, and held on tight. A tentacle must have grabbed hold near the depth sounder, as it went into alarm immediately, and when I dropped my sewing and scrambled to the helm, I saw a reading of 4.3 feet. (Annah Foster’s keel is 5.25 feet, so I was either aground in 4,000 feet of water, or a monster had me. Within about 4 or 5 seconds, AF had come to a complete standstill and swung hard and fast 90 degrees to port. The monster had me. It must have been a soft fleshy monster, and not a hard boned one, because there was never any big bang or crash, when we stopped.
I was so confused and confounded by what had happened, and only glanced over the side a couple times briefly, so I never saw what had me in its grips. AF, sails up, and sideways now to the waves, was starting to be struck pretty hard by them and was listing a bit as well, but dead in the water. I got the sails down as quickly as possible, but still seemed to just sit there, motionless, although I think I was drifting now at .5 knots.
Any of you who have seen AF, know that I have some equipment aboard, or rather stuff that most folks think is folly, ie: the metal detector, or underwater camera. Aha! I fooled them. Whipped out the camera - well actually it took me about 20 minutes to find it and dig it out of the forward head, and put it all together on the stern. Battery dead. Run an extension cord to the stern and plug into the inverter. And voila! I can see the bottom, and rudder, and prop of Annah Foster, without putting one toe into the waters, where the monster is surely still lurking, waiting for my rash decision to dive into the Caribbean Sea, in 4 or 5 thousand feet of water, to inspect the damage. Or cut away that tentacle, still sticking to the keel. There was nothing to see.
Seriously, though I think there are two fears in boating: lightening strikes and hitting something you cannot see adrift, just below the surface. Whether it be a submerged tree trunk or part of a dock in the Chesapeake, or a container slowly rusting and sinking to the bottom as the air escapes, it is a hazard. The sailor has no control over whether he hits it or not. He cannot see it. Sleeping whales and containers that have fallen off cargo ships are the 2 big ones, but tree trunks, parts of docks, and in my case, I believe a drifting long line fishing net, perhaps are more common than we know. Striking a hard object, such as a container, at speed, will certainly let some water into the boat, fast and cold and sink you. A good way to turn a good day at sea, a bad one.
When it happened, by the time I had my head about me, it was apparently too late to see anything beneath the boat. AF was rolling back and forth hard, and she probably just shook it loose from the keel. The depth sounder is dead, and on the port side, so the bulk of it must have slid down that side of the keel.
A few days after this happened, the winds died out, and I decided to try motor sailing, and cranked up the Perkins. When I engaged the transmission, all was fine, but a few minutes passed and I started to get a chattering noise from the stern, and when I looked, the bearing at the stuffing box is chattering, and the propeller shaft is hot. So I had to shut her down quickly. The stuffing box is the place, hopefully waterproof, where the propeller shaft exit’s the boat, and in my case passes to a 2nd bearing called the cutlass bearing, in a bronze support arm, and then the prop is aft that.
I am sailing on, and in fact, write this at sea on my 9th day out, but stopping in Roatan, where I will dive on the bottom, and can get hauled there, I understand by the same marina that services the Honduran Navy boat/ships. Thru friend, Paul, exchanging emails via the SSB, the arrangements are being made, and I am expected there, and someone will come out and tow me into the bay to a mooring.
And if I find that big tooth, like the one in Jaws, or see sucker marks from the tentacle of a giant squid, you can be sure I will take pictures and post them here, just to prove it to you doubters out there.
Update-6/28/10 I arrived safely at Isla Roatan yesterday afternoon, was met and towed in, and AF is safely tied up at a dock. I dove on the bottom in crystal clear water a few hours after arrival, and found an 8x12 chunk of paint missing, about 2/3’s way back the keel. (By the way, Roatan is absolutely beautiful and the waters, so far, are incredibly clear.) Perhaps what I struck was more solid than I thought. The prop shaft bearing trouble seems to be air trapped in what is supposed to be a sea water cooled bearing, as there is no sign of bending or out of alignment on the shaft. After letting the air out, I ran the engine in gear for 20 minutes with no apparent noise or over heating at the bearing. Unfortunately, when I hooked up shore power, I found that I must have a short in the AC circuit from the external plug to the bus, as I dimmed the lights along all of the dock and made something smoke inside AF. So that is my new trouble. Also, my throttle cable broke a few days out at sea, and I must remove it for repair here locally, or a new one will be shipped from the mainland within 3 days.
So, I have successfully sailed the entire length of the Caribbean Sea, all under sail, and fought 2 or 3 days through the birth of Tropical Storm Alex. It was quite a trip - fun most of the time, but always exciting. I AM going to dive on the bottom again, and look more carefully for the teeth marks, or other evidence of my sea monster.