Position: 8 degrees 18.0' N 79 degrees 54.25' W
(Las Perlas Islands, Panama)
Tsunami!!
Around 8:30 AM today one of our group of boats in the anchorage was
zipping around in their dinghy telling everyone to leave NOW. There was
a tsunami warning issued for the Las Perlas Islands, right where we are!!!
Needless to say we didn't need any explanation but immediately picked up
our anchor and headed Aspen out to sea. The deep water offered us the
protection we sought from the large waves that were generated from an
8.8 magnitude earthquake near the coast of Chile.
Quickly looking at our satellite emails there were 14 of them waiting
for us - all from NOAA telling us the expected time of impact - in
approximately 15 minutes!
Motoring out into the open ocean we slowed Aspen to a crawl as we sat
and waited. It didn't take long before we saw some waves pass
underneath our boat. Since we were in deep water the waves barely
affected us but only rocked us a little on their way toward shore.
Luckily the waves appeared to be minor as they made their way onto land.
Then our satellite phone rang and it was Bob, who Steve is working with
in Denver, telling us about the possible tsunami heading our way. Then
the phone rang again and it was Tim telling us about the earthquake that
he was watching on TV at his hotel in New York City. Isn't technology
great?!?
After waiting over 2 hours for the last of the waves to sweep past us we
headed Aspen once again into her anchorage off Isla Del Rey in the Las
Perlas Islands of Panama. We were safe from the tsunami!!
Hopefully we can now continue on our journey. We plan to sail to the
Galapagos Islands around the 2nd of March. This will take us about 9
days of sailing and we will pass the equator and enter the southern
hemisphere.
So if you would like to keep track of us you can go to two places:
1. Our blog at: http://steveandmariasailingaspen.blogspot.com/
2. Or you can log onto www.yachtplot.com and login as a guest
The vessel name is: Aspen
The password is: aspen
We will try to submit our position report every day.
Sail on sail on Aspen
Steve and Maria
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