Mark -
All I can say after our post-China odyssey of 30 hours plus through air travel, Covid, Paxlovid, Heat Wave and brain fog - WOW!
You folks out there really do live in another dimension! I had to go all the way to China last week to watch 105 mph Typhoon Wipha (our first) blow street signs, bicycles, trees, and even a few witches across the front of our all glass hotel room on the 20th floor in the Marriott near the Selene Yard. We stayed in that day and drank beer and ate burgers courtesy of Wayne Goldman. Then Terry and I spent four great days in Hong Kong, enjoyed (ha?) the three leisurely United Airlines flights, got sick with Covid, diagnosed and treated, and are now in bed and recovering.
And here on the Chesapeake Bay we just get stuck in the mud. Maybe too close to D.C. Such a boring existence!
We are glad the tsunami never got to what it could have been, considering the massive size of the earthquake. I can identify with the concern you must have experienced when deciding what to do. I have been there and it seems we go to automatic pilot at that moment and just do what needs to be done. I have been very concerned, and yes, frightened, at times like that, maybe four or five. And then the urgency button is auto pushed and you just do it. Thank God when it happens that way.
Glad your are all safe!
Jack
Jack Burgess, Shangri-La 5388
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Hey Jack:
I realized that I posted our story just to the association board members, not to the general forum. My mistake. I was kind of in a hurry!
We were anchored in a protected, but shallow (by Northwest standards) anchorage just inside Queen Charlotte Strait last night. Queen Charloote Strait is the 20-mile wide strait that separates the northwest end of Vancouver Island from the BC mainland coast. That area of the coast was covered by the "advisory" (which is a deceptive term because it's the second-to-the-highest level of warning below "Warning"--which means RUN TO HIGHER GROUND NOW.
Roseanne had read about the earthquake and tsunami on-line (thanks, Starlink), but at that point, the tsunami warning was lower level. At about 6:30 that evening they upgraded the "Watch" to "Advisory" (the next higher level) and the Canadian Coast Guard got on Channel 16 saying that coastal communities should activate their emergency plans and evacuate marinas and beaches.
Roseanne and I looked at each other and agreed.....we need to leave! The anchorage we were in was relatively protected, but you probably recall that in the Japan Tsunami, the first thing that happened was that a lot of the shallow marinas and coastline were very quickly completely drained of all water--only to have the wave come back in and over-run boats laying in the mud. Given that our anchorage was only about 20 miles from open ocean and 20 feet deep, we decided it was best to get out of there into deeper water.
The advisory area also stopped at the inner (east) end of Queen Charlotte strait. We knew it would take us till about midnight to get to that end of the Strait, but we'd be in deep water the whole way. The big challenge in this area is that the waters are just infested with large floating logs that are very difficult to see at night.
So, we ran pretty fast (for a Selene) toward the east end of the strait and then slowed down as it got dark about 11 pm. We had picked an anchorage we knew that was at the extreme southeast end of Queen Charlotte Strait and therefore should be out of the danger zone. We had also been told that the wave, if it was significant, should come ashore around midnight.
We got to the anchorage in the dark and picked our way through the narrow rocky passage that enters it using the charts and radar, and then got the anchor down in a deep part of the bay. We quickly crashed and went to right to sleep and never felt a thing. Considering that we had just rounded "Cape Caution" (one of the two open-ocean segments on the way down from Alaska) that morning, and then pulled anchor at 7 pm and ran till midnight, we were pretty exhausted!
As it turned out, it was a non-event, but there was quite a bit of text chatter among those of us cruising in Alaska as we all compared notes on our plans.
So....that's a first. I've never run from a tsunami before. Admittedly, in this case, a 6" tsunami, but still......
Mark