After leaving Montserrat we enjoyed a nice 4 hour sail to Guadeloupe. We had opted to travel along the west coast of Montserrat and later learned that another boat choose the East side due to the marine exclusion zone; their passage took 11 hours. We were fortunate to have known travel through the zone was approved at that time just as long as you did not stop. Knowledge which clearly saved us some time that day.
There are always plenty of fishing nets around the islands and we try very hard to avoid them. We snagged one that morning for the first time. Jeff was at the helm and realized right away that he had gone over a net and quickly put the engines in neutral to stop the props from spinning. He then grabbed his snorkel mask and hopped overboard. Luckily there was just a line over one shaft which he cleared quickly and was back on board and underway with little drama. Good thing as we were just reaching the exclusion zone! We recently heard a fellow boater talk of having to dive in and unfoul their prop during a night passage – didn’t sound like fun… Continue reading