Tsunami - Fellowship and Feelings

Ronja
Jan Morten Ruud
Sun 28 Feb 2010 13:09
Position:
00:44.669S, 90:18.606W
Dear readers, Some days are not as other days, and little did we know when we went to bed what the next day would bring. At 02:20 the phone rang for the first time without anyone paying any attention, well at sleep. At 02:32 the captain wondered what the heck is ringing out in the salon? It was Frivind, our weather router that called with a straight message: Jan Morten, there is a Tsunami coming your way - it will hit you in approx. 4 hours. Suddenly I was awake. After thanking Frivind for the warning we contacted Rally Control in World ARC. They were already well into the situation, assessing the newly information for all of us. Given our situation, with the whole family with us, we decided to get ashore and not take the boat out to deeper waters. At 03:15 we were standing ashore and we quickly found a taxi. How do you explain to a taxi driver that only speaks Spanish and we not? I had a small chart of the Island and just pointed to the middle of the Island. We used 20 minutes before he started to drive. After another 20 minutes we come to a small village, were there where some people partying in the street - and there we found one that could speak English. Having breached the language barrier everything went easier. One thing was for sure, our taxi driver thought we were just crazy, we believing there was a Tsunami coming our way. Big was his surprise when he heard on the radio the Presidential order to evacuate the whole city Ayora due to a coming Tsunami. Then he was quite eager to get us out of the taxi so he could go and pick up his family. We ended up in Bellavista, the same city that the officials used at the evacuation base. During the whole process we followed our other friends it the World ARC on the VHF, the most of them decided to taking their out to as deep water as possible. It was not an easy task, given that all the boats where moored with anchor both in the bow and stern. There were several quite dramatic situations to follow on the VHF, but after an hour they were all on the way out. At this time the port master had closed the harbor and ordered everyone to either take the boat out to sea or leave the boat and get ashore. Suddenly we heard Rally Control again on the VHF, they we had not been able to hear for some time. They had, after being out to each of the ARC boats, securing that they either went to sea or to shore, also evacuated to Bellavista - arriving some hours later than us. It was great to find some of our own group in the whole situation. The Tsunami where scheduled to arrive at 07:13. We got regular reports of the situation at sea level, and it become soon clear that it was not a large wave that had hit the Island. More specific details was not possible to get, it was just a lot of different rumors around of different happenings (such as that the whole harbor had been emptied of water - not good for the boats). Around 08:30 the tsunami warning was released and we had to wait for 1 hours after that until we were allowed to go back to the port. The port where still closed at this time, due to abnormal situation in the sea around Galapagos. There where an oscillating surge of 2 meters that went in and out with some minutes interval. She surge around in the harbor was just amazing and dangerous. Great was though the relief, seeing Ronja exactly at the same spot, floating as normal before we left. We could just not wait to get out to her and asses the whole situation. Three of us where able to get hold of a water taxi, and we urged out to check the boats. Ronja was first up. She had sadly got some damages from a nearby boat that must had collided during the waves/swell. The bow roller in front where bended, the push pit in front on starboard side also bended and some scratches in the paint on the front starboard side. Luckily none of the damages seems to be serious and can quite easily be fixed. We will start to deal with that the first thing tomorrow. Some final words: We had thought about Tsunamis back home, easily concluded that it was only to get out at sea. We had not in our wildest dreams believed that we would be part of one. When the situation suddenly appeared, we found our self to be quite unprepared. - What depts do we have to get out to, to be safe ? - How do we get anchors up at night when we are anchored both in the bow and stern ? - Is it sure that we there will be no other effects of a Tsunami out at sea ? - Had a real discussion what to do if a Tsunami threat was eminent. If we had had solid data on these questions, we would probably be heading out to sea instead. Regarding the depts, Mads - our weather router called the Norwegian authorities. They told us that it was regarded that one should be between 200-300 meters to be safe for all situations. The greatest depth that we could reach was approx. 160 meters. Later we had a lot of input from our other World ARC participants that 100 meters is more than sufficient. We will now find solid and hard data on these questions - so we are not uncertain for the next warning (which is highly unlikely that we will experience again). |