It is the prerogative of the pensioner to rant about how stuff isn't made properly anymore. In this spirit the skipper finds himself in an advanced stat of grumpiness about neoprene. His wetsuit, which he's owned for only a little over twenty years, has shrunk. This despite careful adherence to the washing and care instructions provided with the garment.
Thus there is much cursing as the skipper prepares to enter the 1200 metres of water under the boat with a dive tank on his back and a sharp knife in his hand. The nearest land is some seventy miles away (not counting the seabed) and a calm sea prevails on a hot and sunny Mediterranean day providing close-to-perfect conditions for removing the polypropylene rope which had become entangled with the propeller some twelve hours earlier whilst XII Bar Blues was motor-sailing north from Alcudia bound for Port Napoleon.
In fairness it was probably a touch unlucky, and certainly unexpected, to find a lobster pot float in over 2000 metres of water and even unluckier for this to happen at the exact moment of changing watch. The skipper wasn't quite quick enough to the gear lever hence the wrap.
All this has brought on more ranting on the subject of polypropylene. Made into rope, it produces cordage that floats so when the aforementioned lobster pot float comes adrift from its trap the result is hundreds of feet of dangerous line hanging around, invisibly, on the surface of the ocean. The skipper thinks the stuff should be banned.
If the Great Entanglement of 2014 (after Bristow of the Evening Standard) was the low point of the passage then perhaps the highlight was the sighting of what we think was a small pod of Fin Whales. The flares on the refinery in the Golf du Fos we're a pretty welcome sight too !