The other day I was on the boat alone with Taj, who had a 104.9 fever, when I happened to poke my head outside. The afternoon winds out of the west in La Cruz had picked up as is normal for this time of year. Boats are known to drag with these winds and recently SV Rage sadly found itself on the reef just outside of the Marina La Cruz, so I thought it might be wise to take a peak every so often to make sure we weren’t dragging or anyone near us. Sure enough, our new neighbors, SV Ensueño was dancing around quite irradically. I watched it for a while noticing that the angle on the anchor line and the snubber line didn’t seem quite right.  The wind waves were bouncing the boat about and the swell picked her up as well. I saw the moment Ensueño broke loose. I watched for a few minutes to make sure. It didn’t take long to realize that they were indeed dragging as she slowly started to drift back and dance closer to us. 

The couple had left in their dinghy about 45 minutes prior to all of this.  I immediately called out on the local hailing channel (22) on the vhf. “Attention Fleet, attention fleet, this is Josie on SV Shawnigan. The boat next to us, SV Ensueño is dragging.” Immediately Ron, on SV Sundancer responded asking for details of boat location and if anyone was on board. Not two seconds later, Ron, Jose on SV Cartago and Nick on SV Cielo Grande hopped in their dinghies to assist. Within 5 minutes we had 6 hands on deck, including Christian, who heard me hailing for assistance from shore. Together, they started the engine and pulled up the anchor. With the help of nearby people on their boats, Ensueño was safely re-anchored in a new location. 

Later that afternoon, Christian ran into the owners of Ensueño on shore. The very nice older couple had no idea this all had happened. Both are very expierienced sailors and were surprised this happened to them. They felt lucky and thankful so many people came to help. The next day on “the net” Ensueño extended their gratitude to the entire fleet, knowing that it wasn’t just the six people onboard helping, but that the entire community. The sailing community is always willing and able to help, even though we might have never met.