Sunday 28th February

 
At 6.30 am on Saturday morning Jack was woken by an email from Richard, a BWR director, stating that a tsunami would hit the Las Perlas islands at 10.00 am due to the earthquake in Chile. About an hour later Duco from Briet made an urgent announcement on the VHF detailing the same information but also with a predicted wave height of 2-7 ft. As Duco was involved in the Thailand tsunami we all followed his instructions to weigh anchor and get at least a mile off shore and into deep water. We all bobbed about in 25-40 metres of water for 4 hours until we were sure that we were safe to head back to land. Continuous updates were being sent to us by the BWR team but we felt quite safe out in deep water. We aren't sure if a wave did hit the Las Perlas or not or whether it had disappeared between us and the Galapagos. The Galapagos reported a wave 1.2 metres in height but that is about 900 miles away from the Perlas islands. In the commotion Scot Free, who were anchored at Isla Contadora with Perrigrina and Spirit of Nina, got stuck on the rocks while pulling up their anchor. The tide was just starting to rise which was a good thing but they couldn't wait as time was running out before the tsunami was due to hit. A power boat managed to pull them off but in the process the keel and rudder were quite badly damaged. They're now trying to decide whether to turn back to Panama or continue and wait to be hauled out.
 
I think people were thinking that a wave of 2-7 ft wasn't actually that serious as we all thought we'd just rise over it. This would be true if we were at sea but when the wave reaches land it pulls all the water back from the shore and increases significantly in size. So it really was essential that we moved away from land and into deep water as the prediction of 2-7 ft would be much larger were we still in 5 metres of water 10 metres off the beach! Here's an interesting fact we've learnt tonight: a tsunami travels at approx. 600 miles an hour!
 
Most importantly everyone is fine. Also a tsunami warning turned out to be a good hangover cure. Everyone was too pre-occupied to feel ill!