We were settling in at almost 7 pm last night when a call on the radio asked if anyone could confirm or deny a tsunami warning. A boater onshore had heard a rumor and was quite concerned. We sent out Sailmails to family in the states with Internet. Other boaters were doing different searches also to learn more.
Shortly thereafter we heard the official Port Captain "emergency" call to evacuate the harbor immediately, go 20 nautical miles out to at least 100 meters of water deep. They anticipated the wave hitting in 2.5 to 3 hours. Reports from home confirmed that there was an 8.2 magnitude earthquake off the shore of Chile, so we pulled up our kayaks and dinghy and headed out for deeper water.
There was quite some stir and hubbub going on in the harbor as everyone made sure everyone else had been notified, dinghy's going up, anchors going up, etc. It was an orderly departure, but a mass exodus at the same time. Based on prior tsunamis, I'd much rather be on a boat at sea than onshore!! One boat was not responding. They must have been onshore without their radios on. He later came into contact and it turns out that the police onshore were evacuating town.
They obviously weren't letting people down to the water and back to their boats. So, the mother and 3 kids went with the evacuation plan in town and went inland to sleep in a shelter, but the husband and crew member slipped past security, ran for the dock, grabbed their dinghy and got their boat out of the harbor also. Nice move. I bet they had more excitement than anyone else. We went out and anchored, most people continued out as far and fast as they could go for those 2-3 hours. They traveled at around 7 knots, so would just barely make the recommended distance by 3 hours. One boat was traveling at 9.9 knots leaving me to conclude two things - 1) they are a fast boat!! 2) they must have been scared and running full motors! One boat I know had been waiting all day for their ZARPE (exit paperwork from the government/port captain to say you left in good standing). They were calling for it during the evacuation with no success. Rumor is they left last night, haven't seen them with all the returning boats this morning. Hope they have a nice trip and no problems on the other side checking in since they chose to not make a big round trip to pick up their paperwork.
Later reports indicated that we were expecting 5.5 to 6.5 foot waves. No problem, we were in over 100 feet of water, that size wave won't break or cause any issues. At 9:30 pm, we pulled up anchor and at 10 pm we headed in. All was well, nothing detectable, even in town fortunately. Glad they sent the warning, seemed very efficient and successful way to notify people. We got some sleep last night, other boats that went out and stayed out didn't fare as well, but they are fine, just tired.
We had a nice school morning reviewing where Chile is and what a tsunami is. Kids were quite interested which always makes school easier. We also learned to count to 10 in French, yes, no, hello, hi, and how are you. We’re off to a good start in French for the kids (I hope). They've picked up a little Spanish, but I think they can do better. If we go to French Polynesia with some language skills, they can try to communicate. With no skills, they didn't really try, just depended on us to translate. So, new plan in French speaking, we will arrive with a subset of words on which to get by and expand!
I see incoming emails with more info about the tsunami in the queue, but haven't been able to get Sailmail to download it yet. I'll try again while I send this message.
Shannon
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