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
|