Day 14 - May 29 - Octopus Islands --- The day of OOPS!

Day 14 – May 29 – Octopus Islands   ---  The day of OOPS!

 

Well, this day started out with a bang, or was that a scrap.   The days travel plans were immediately cast aside and most went into ‘rescue mode’.   

Tom and Steve noticed it first; Kotare had not left the bay but they were not where they’d been the night before either.  Hum, they seem to be over the top of the infamous and well-known and marked on the charts Octopus Rock.   Yep, they had attempted to leave the bay but decided they were going the wrong way so turned around and while not look at their chart, or surroundings drove right up onto the rock which was submerged.  

Steve came over to wake Glen up.   We looked out and Glen immediately said, ‘she hit the rock that I’d reminded her about last night’.  We opened the pilot house door and could hear Linda screaming.  She was obviously shaken and wanted Mike to get help.   He came over in Flec to make the report, while Tom, Steve, and Glen were gathering supplies – lots of ropes.    The boat was listing to the port, and the tide was going out.    We had them bring Linda and the dog back to our boats so the women could calm her down.  The guys tied ropes from Kotare’s flybridge and starboard side to trees on shore.   This would keep her from rolling over and off the rock as the tide goes out.  Once ‘secured’ it would be mostly a watch and wait situation for the next 8-9 hours.   Linda was obviously upset thinking she would lose everything, but seemed most worried about needing her ‘computer tablet’, not a purse or stuff like that just her computer.  I called over to Tom and asked him to find/retrieve the computers (Linda’s and Mike’s), he had Mike go into the boat and bring the items back.  With nothing else to be done for some hours it seemed appropriate to have breakfast.    

 

The days activities included keeping an eye on the Kotare and doing other boat projects all day.  The ladies played cards most of the day, the guys did their guy things.   There were a number of trips over to check lines, and when the tide was low and the boat fully out of the water the rescue squad went over to check on bottom damage.   It appears that the shaft, rudder, and prop were fine.  There was about a 20 foot scrap along the keel.   No evidence of any through hull ‘holes’.      And no barnacles growing on the bottom, oh wait those were scrapped off a couple weeks ago in Anacortes in preparation for this trip.

 

Clearly this boat on the rocks became something to check out by all the other boaters passing by or anchored nearby.   I’m sure that many vacation photos will include ‘the boat on the rock’.  Even a whale watch boat came by for a photo op.

Tom who is posting daily to facebook his photo of the day …. Where are we now.   Took a slightly different tone today.  In fact he posted a photo of the “boat on the rock” to the RHYC Facebook page, but did not identify the boat or owner.   There were lots of comments posted – ‘ouch’, ‘that sucks’, $$$, ‘how does that happen?’, and ‘do we know this person’.   He never divulged the name, but did say, ‘yes’ we know and ‘it was tied to me last night’.  

 

Ouch --- Wasn’t Magic!

 

During the afternoon while not watching the boat on the rocks some of the guys helped Dave install a new pump, hose and shower on the stern of Bidarka.  That involved using a saber saw which as most of us know …. Guys do like power tools.   

 

About 4:30pm the boat was back floating.  There appears to be some leaking but even that lessened after the boat was fully afloat.  Which likely means that the weight of the boat sitting on the keel was not helping, but when the weight was gone the pressure on the ‘crack?’ was lessened.     Kotare was able to run and was brought back over to our raft and tied alongside Bidarka for the night.   Mike did say that he was on the bow and after she turned around he saw the rock but it was too late to do anything except hold on.

Lesson  - Watch your charts, look around, and make a plan before moving.

 

The next plan?

 

In the morning we will all head out.  Kotare will head south to Campbell River (about 4 hours from here) where it can be pulled out of the water for full inspection and likely repairs.  The guess is that there will be several weeks of repairs.   We believe that Bidarka will escort Kotare into town.   The rest of us will head north and meet up with SeaLife who have been pushing to catch up after Willards surgery and ‘approval to travel’.