Squalls, a Fouled Prop, and Injuries in Mljet, Croatia

(Note: This post was originally posted to our Facebook page on September 16, 2022. I’m including it here because it deserves to be in the blog, too. We’ve been updating our Facebook and Instagram pages regularly with stories and photos, but I’ve been negligent in writing blog posts. More to come soon, including a summary of our Atlantic Ocean crossing!)

Today was a hard day. TLDR: We got hit by a surprise, intense squall while tied to shore, fouled our shore tie in our propeller… and then to really make it all fun, I sliced my finger fairly significantly with my sailing knife underwater trying to cut the line free. We are all fine now, for the most part. I’m bandaged up and both engines are working. No scratches on Coronado!

The full story…

I had been telling a sailing friend recently that I wanted to be more transparent on our posts and share the challenges and not just the highlights of our adventures. It isn’t something we do intentionally – the good times and wonderful moments we have sailing full-time are often peaceful and incredibly picturesque. We take photos of those great moments to remember the beauty we see. When the shit hits the fan, there is no time to take photos of the chaos, nor do you want to sit and dwell on the experience later by making a long post about the stress of it all.

But I also realize showing only the beautiful pictures isn’t the whole story. So we are going to make more of an effort to share the good and the bad. And with that in mind, today was a real shit show my friends!

We are on the beautiful island of Mljet. We hiked the lake yesterday and visited the monastery. A significant storm is making its way down the Adriatic and we’ve been looking into spots on the island with good protection. There was a forecast for gusts and thunderstorms today, but we felt confident about our anchor holding and our shore ties, so we’re going to wait until tomorrow to move, just before the storm is scheduled to arrive. The rain in front of the storm did mean we were staying on the boat today, which was a blessing in disguise.

It was a calm morning. I was reading a book and enjoying the sound of the rain when I heard the wind pick up. It all happened so fast. We looked up and the boats that had been deeper in the bay were suddenly *very* close to us. We went outside to check if they were dragging their anchors and a huge, unanticipated gust blew us back forcefully. Our anchor held, but we were dangerously close to the rocks on shore.

John did the right thing and immediately started the engines. I jumped up to release our shore ties to give us more forward mobility. Port side came off fine – the lines float, and still being attached to shore I threw the boat end of the line into the water and knew we would come back for it later. (This was an emergency procedure we had actually talked through before it happened… again, thank goodness!)

But then we felt a thud and the starboard engine died. Complete stop. We were meters from shore, wind blowing hard, rain in our face…. and we had one engine.

John’s first thought was that we hit a rock. He yelled for me to quickly get the starboard line released. But when I tried, it was already detached from shore and it was stuck under our boat. I knew almost immediately the floating line had somehow gotten wedged *under* the boat in the wind and it was now fouled in our prop. Shit!

John did a great job getting us off the shore on one engine, and I threw on a bathing suit and grabbed my sailing knife to dive down and cut the line off the propellor. But as I jumped in the water and started maneuvering, the tip of my *very* sharp sailing knife grazed the finger on my other hand. And that tiny motion left a huge gash in my finger. I won’t repeat the words that came out of my mouth, but they would have made a Chicago gangster proud. In a moment of bravery, I kept going and dove down under the engine anyway, to at least take a look and see what we were working with. Sure enough, our thick blue floating line was wound tightly around the entire propellor.

As I came up for air, John told me to get back onboard. We were being blown close to shore again. It was too hard to hold her steady against the strong wind. I grabbed a towel to apply pressure to my hand and then headed to the bow to start picking up the anchor. John wanted to move and try to get us anchored again and safe so he could go in and deal with the prop and my injury.

The wind and rain were relentless, but we managed to get our anchor up and made our way deeper into the bay where we wouldn’t have shore near us. (On our first spot, we had been tied to shore and the only forecasted wind was going to be blowing us *off* shore… but you know. Squalls could care less what forecasts say….)

The first drop of the anchor wouldn’t hold. Too much grass under us and the anchor was just slipping. We contemplated going out of the bay into the open sea to sort things out, but with only one engine, we decided against this.

On the second try, the anchor grabbed. I was bleeding, freezing in the rain like a little drowned, injured mouse… but the wind was still howling. We had to try to get the line off. John stayed at the helm in case the anchor slipped again – he would need to carefully maneuver with me in the water. I wrapped the towel tighter around my bleeding finger and dove in again. I had one side free and started unwinding the wraps on the prop. I was swallowing sea water and coughing like crazy every time I came up for air (it’s *really* hard to hold your breath and wrestle a strong line stuck underwater – anyone who has had to do this know exactly the feeling Im talking about ) but I was determined. So close, so close, one last wrap that was really dug into the prop shaft… and I took a deep breath and went back down and pulled on the damn thing with all the strength I had… and it came free!

I surfaced. “It’s off!!!” John helped me quickly get on board. And boom. Engine stated right up – we had full maneuverability again. We were ok.

A hot shower and a painful cleaning of the wound followed. Luckily the blade was so sharp it just made a deep slice along the surface. We have a great first aid kit. Iodine, steri strips, and sterilized gauze for the win. I will keep a very close eye on it and keep it clean and dry. No more ocean swims for me for a bit, though.

John swam under Coronado after administering first aid for my finger and the boat is 100% fine. Not even a scratch. John also had to get in the dinghy and rescue our life ring which blew off somehow in the storm. He circled the bay and found the little, white, U-shaped ring floating on rocks near the opposite shore. We’ve now nicknamed him “Wiiillllsssooonn” (cue Tom Hanks in Castaway) and all he is missing was my bloody handprint.

The weather has passed, at least for the moment. Tomorrow should be rough, but we have a good plan and a reservation at a strong mooring ball in a protected cove.

We stayed incredibly calm and level headed during the whole experience, which we are very proud of. It was scary and stressful for both of us. It also reminded me how critical it is to *move slowly*, even in emergencies. Injuries happen fast, and they can quickly make a scary and dangerous situation even *more* scary and dangerous. We did well and we are all ok. And I’m sure there is another beautiful anchorage and an even more beautiful day right around the corner. But yeah, today sucked.

Thanks for listening. – HRM Anna