Alright, I figured I would wait a while before I told this one to anyone. Nobody likes being a rookie, but I can look back at it and smile – it’s amazing how fast you learn on your first few voyages… I figure y’all will get a good laugh at this, at least. I had just purchased my first big boat, a 1979 Catalina 27, and she had surveyed well for her age. After a restless night of attempting to sleep, Saturday morning came and I felt like a five-year-old on Christmas morn. I rushed to the marina, sprinted down the dock and commenced puttering. An hour and a half later, I was ready to depart. I had a checklist that I had created, similar to the ones that I used when I flew small airplanes. I reviewed the list and read it off, checking off each item. “SAILS - set for quick deployment, BATTERIES– aft for starting, IGNITION – on, BLOWER – on and running, CHOKE – full for start, etc… Once the engine was running, another brief checklist, and then we threw off the stern and bow lines. I looked behind me to clear my blind spot and dropped the Atomic 4 into its cacophonous reverse gear. My previous boat was a Prindle catamaran, so getting 7000 pounds to lumber out of the slip was still a chore for me, even though I had a practice run with the owner. The vessel continued to trudge out of the slip in reverse until she cleared the slip. I reached down and engaged forward as the 30 hp engine spun the prop in the opposite direction. “And away we go…” I said smugly, throwing the tiller over to the far side of the boat. Everything was going very smoothly. Smooth turned to rough though, as the engine seemed to slow down, chug, and then rapidly speed up as if in neutral. All progress stopped, and a sinking feeling entered my stomach. Looking down at the water around the stern, I could see no propwash. I had a bad feeling that we had just lost the prop. More importantly, I could see that our reverse momentum was carrying us slowly toward a walkway that connected two docks. I prayed that we wouldn’t run into it. Luckily, a man was there to give us a hand and fend us off. The fact that the man was the harbormaster was not pleasing – looking like a rookie is bad enough, but infront of the guy who runs the place? I must have pissed in Posiedon’s Cherios that morning, or something. At least the guy held my boat while I dove on the prop. Everyone in the cockpit at this point was completely uneasy, but I wasn’t all that confident myself, as I had never had to dive on a boat before. Once below, to my extreme chagrin, I realized that I had fouled the prop. A line was left dangling over the port stern, and had gotten chewed up as we engaged forward. Not knowing what to do, I came up for a breath and asked for a knife. As the crew rummaged around for one, I dove again and tried unwrapping the line. It began to budge as I rocked the screw back and forth, and a subsequent dive freed it altogether. Well, what a relief! I told the harbormaster I’d be more careful next time, and departed. On the way out of the harbor, I noticed a nice blue fender in the water behind us. A cursory glance at the lifelines indicated it was mine, so we swung back to get it. In the process, another fender came untied. And I thought I had used bowlines! Back to the dock to tie up and retrieve the wayward fenders. And put some sunscreen on to hide my embarrassment. After collecting myself, the rest of the day was a blast. Nice sail, good people, good company. The morning though… what a killer.