Tsunami

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Tue 29 Sep 2009 23:38
Just a quick note to say we woke up this morning at 6:50 to the rally leader on the VHF radio warning the fleet that a very large earthquake occured about 200 km southwest of  American Samoa and a tsunami warning was in effect for the entire Pacific island region.  Within twenty minutes, all thirty boats had pulled up anchor and were heading out of the Ouvea lagoon pass to deep water (including Harmonie, of course).   Tsunamis can be devastating to boats and people near shore, but a boat floating on very deep water would only notice an unusually high wave passing under it and nothing more.  We all motored slowly around in water nearly 1,000 meters deep for an hour and a half or so before we heard through the Australian radio news that the tsunami warning had been cancelled.
 
We are back anchored in the Ouvea lagoon and all is well.  It sounds like there was a tsunami triggered by the 8.3 earthquake, but it did not affect this area.
 
That's all for now, just wanted to let those of you who heard about the earthquake and tsunami that all is well with us.  We're off to an island tour now....no rest for the boater tourists - tsunami warning in the morning and bus touring in the afternoon.  Life is good.
 
Anne