Sovereign finds a new friend

It has been an interesting week. For those following us on Facebook, you may have seen my post on a narrowly diverted disaster. Several days ago, we were awakened to a strange grinding sound. Climbing quickly out of the v-berth, Mike went to the hatch and poked his head out. "Katie, I need your help." When I looked out the hatch, there was a brief moment of confusion, a boat was on our stern and the grinding sound was where our solar panels touched its pulpit. It was dark and misting rain. I thought a sailboat had ran into us. I turned on the engine. After moving quickly to the stern to start pushing the boat away from us, I realized that we had drifted into a well-anchored boat. Mike moved to the bow and started heaving up the anchor. The anchor buoy line was tangled around the anchor chain. I kept my arms stretched out between the two boats trying to save our solar panels and minimize the rubbing. An eternity later, about 10 minutes, Mike finally got the anchor up. We then motored safely away from the boat that we drifted into and the mast of another boat that sunk a long time ago. With me at the helm, Mike gave directions to get us into the channel. I'm so short that I can't see directly in front. Mike has to stand watch when I'm on the helm. We took the time to drink some water and smoke a cigarette. The rain was starting to come down harder. We motored past the Coast Guard station and then I turned her back towards the harbor. We took our time finding a better spot to anchor and finally maneuvered into a nice open spot and set the anchor again. As soon as we were sure the anchor was set, we started assessing the damage. Our solar panels were fine, we had acquired a solar lawn light from the other boat and the glass cover was shattered all over the transom. It was a miracle that I hadn't cut my feet. Once all was calm, I went down and started the water boiling for coffee. Of course, we didn't really need caffeine to wake us up. The rain stopped about the time our first cup of coffee was ready. Mike kept a watch for the owner of the boat we nudged. He finally dinghied over and left a message explaining what happened attached to the still functioning solar light and some money. Several days later, Capt. Lee came over. He told us how much he appreciated the message and we were totally forgiven. We now have a new friend. Lee is around 60 and has been living on boats since 1976. He has lots of great stories and was kind enough to give us one of his propane heaters. Maybe Sovereign knew that we needed a new friend with lots of experience.