Westport to Destruction Island

The voyage of the Sea Crest continues. We left Wesport at approx. 9 am. The morning was a beauty with minimal winds and swells from the NW at about 4 - 5 feet. This was our first experience towing our tender ( the AquaSport); a 17 foot center console sports fishing boat. The Sea Crest is our "home" and the AquaSport our "sports car". Dave had special tow lines made for this task. We left the marina with the AquaSport tied to the starboard side of the Sea Crest. Once we were in open water, in the bay, we hooked the AquaSport to the tow lines that we had already secured to the stern. It was a fairly simple task, and she towed nicely behind us all the way to Destruction Island.

Shortly after crossing the bar in Wesport we came upon a virtual minefield of crab bouys. Dave was at the helm and navigated successfully past the first onslaught of bouys. We headed for deeper water (150 - 250 ft) hoping to avoid the crab bouys, but to no avail. A derect bouy, black with seaweed and difficult to see, got wrapped around our port prop. This gave us no option but to run on only our starboard engine; drastically reducing our speed. We pulled into the lee side of Destruction Island at 8 pm.

Having spent time here before, Dave was mindful of the best place to anchor and obstacles to watch out for in doing so. Setting the anchor was a quick task for Dave (salty dog that he is...) after the anchor was set he went to work catching our supper! In no time at all we had sea bass in our fry pan. It made for some tasty eating...

Among Dave's many accomplishments, he is a Master Diver, so he had brought along his dive gear, however, the one thing that we didn't have aboard was air tanks. Dave made two attempts to snorkel down to the prop to cut off the snagged crab lines, but the line was so thick and gnarled that it was an impossible task without the air tanks to prolong his time underwater.

After prying Dave out of his wetsuit, it was time to hit our bunk. The Island offers some protection from the sea, but our home rocked us gently back and forth to sleep...