Anchor Upheaval

A few days ago, we had just arrived at a bonfire on the beach and were standing around chatting with a few of our friends when our boat neighbors pulled up in their dinghy, yelling for us. As they were getting in their dinghy to head to the bonfire, they witnessed a boat anchor in front of us, back down until they were practically on top of us and then pull their anchor back up - only their anchor had hooked onto our roll bar and they had pulled up our anchor simultaneously! We jumped back in the dinghy and rushed back to our boat. As it turns out, there was a small boat that had anchored right off our bow, and in the process of anchoring, his engine had given out. He was drifting right towards our boat, so he just threw the anchor overboard to stop himself. When he got the engine back up and running, he was going to reanchor and had hauled in his anchor. Only, to his surprise and all the boats around us, I am sure, our anchors had become entangled and he had brought up ours as well! He did the only thing he could and quickly threw our anchor back in the water. One of our other neighbors quickly came over to make sure that he got his anchor set and that our boat wasn't dragging. By the time we made it back to the boat, the situation was under control and we only had to back down on our anchor to insure that it was, in fact, dug in and secure. We spoke to both neighbors and the situation was explained, apologies doled out and then we headed back to the bonfire. It was quite an experience and certainly not one I want to repeat! Thank goodness for our awesome new Rocna anchor that held the boat steady even while sitting on top of the sand - the situation could definitely have been worse!