The children’s birthday was just over as Robert and someone else leave with the dinghy towards the anchorage. Where are they going ? We hear that supposedly a yacht’s anchor is slipping and the boat is drifting towards the reef with nobody on bord. !
A few minutes pass. We search the horizont for lights or shadows but can’t find anything. A employee of the marina is trying to get the owner of a (the ?) yacht on the mobile phone. But to no avail. Now Volker also leaves. He’s got Jonathan, the Canadian with him and they also disappear in the darkness. But they took a VHF with them and a few minutes later we get some details: Yes, a yawl drifted out towards the reef and is already hitting the ground with every wave. They try to pull and push her off the reef but need more dinghies.
So I we go out in our dinghy and stop on the way to get another boat for help. But as we’re still talking with the skipper of the danish yacht, Volker informs everybody that they managed to free the yacht that is now been driven back into the anchorage. It seems that the beautiful wooden yawl was moored to a buoy and the rope or chain broke in the night. Luckily our neighbor saw the shadow of the boat drifting by and alarmed the others. Without him (and the help of many) this beautiful, historic ship would’ve been lost.
The whole story of course get’s a differnt meaning if one knows the history of this amazing yacht. The Apollonia was in the news before, when during an atlantic crossing, two people were murdered. The book is available here (german only, sorry).
