Rock & Roll Night

So, let's tell you of a different night as mentioned in a post before. While we were anchored in Šipan bay, a really nice place but also known for not having a really good anchor ground. Just to explain, if you drop an anchor the anchor should dig into the ground so it will hold properly even with stronger winds, the anchor chain itself with its length takes away stress from the anchor.
We were anchored at about 3 meters depth and during the evening the wind started to pick up because of a thunderstorm. We could see the lightnings in the dark. Not being able to sleep we sat in the cockpit this gives us more oversight, security and more time to react if needed. At around midnight the gusts became really strong around 50 knots the boat started to rock and roll and even a local guy the owner of a smaller sailing yacht next to us was on deck checking the weather and the anchor chain. At once Bettina noticed a big charter yacht around 45 foot breaking loose and drifting towards us at an amazing speed. Fortunately missing our stern just for a couple of meters, then they run aground behind us near the harbour wall. After a while of heavy heeling in the shallow water with a big roar of the engine they managed to escape the danger. We decided to turn on the engine and motored against the wind for more than an hour, the little yacht next to us had bigger trouble the drifting yacht ripped out his anchor and as he singlehanded the boat only with a lot of skill and luck he was able to set the anchor again during this really heavy storm. We in the meanwhile tried to hold EraOra with the nose in the wind. Fortunately 3 hours later the wind started to drop and the sea calmed down so we tried to go asleep but because of all the adrenaline only at 5 o'clock in the morning we were able to fall asleep exhausted and happy nothing bad had happened to us or the boat.