So on January 30th we arrived in the Cape Verdes! Finally we were safe! Nothing bad could happen to us! Wrong.
When we arrived, we anchored because we heard nightmare stories at the pontoon. “We didn’t have a dingy but the kayak will be enough” We thought. But the wind there was a nightmare. We could barely row. Luckily for us that Eric and Karin had a dingy and took us to the shore with them. My dad and I went with them so we could go shopping. Nothing happened. When we came on board we were greeted by my worried mum who convinced us that we had to move because a guy nextdoor came to her and said that we were in the ferry’s way. We moved Mistress then, after half an hour, we went to the floating bar to have a drink and some food with Karin and Eric. Big mistake.
When my Eric, my dad and I went to move her on the pontoon, she wasn’t there. Where is our boat??? We wondered anxiously. Our house had completely disappeared. There were two options: The anchor didn’t hold and Mistress had started drifting or our Mistress was stolen. We hoped it was the first so we went past a wreck in the direction of the wind for ages hoping to find our Mistress. We saw a sailing boat in the distance near an abandoned ship. Then we saw some guys on that boat. Then we saw her name. It was Mistress. We went as fast as we could towards her, hopelessly watching to see what’s happening. We instantly thought of the worst until we realised that those people was actually saving her.
Mistress had safely passed by the wreck but she couldn’t pass by the abandoned ship. Mistress was in distress. There were some fisherman on another abandoned ship who saw what happened and hopped onto the foreign sailboat to help her. When we got there, they had just managed to pull Mistress out of danger. We went on Mistress – thanking them – and then started the motor. They also helped us park on the pontoon. We then thanked them again giving them some money for saving our boat. Karin and my mum initially wondered why there were so many people helping us park Mistress. When we told them the story they were speechless. Several minutes after it was night.
Most worriedly this is not the only story of losing a yacht at the anchor. We’ve heard many more. Someone actually told us that “There are two things you cannot trust: women and anchors”.
