Saturday, 27 February Tsunami warning

Would you Adam & Eve it? Four days after the night of the big blow we are woken by hearing one cruiser in his dinghy telling his friend there's been a massive earthquake in Chile and a tsunami warning has been issued for the west coasts of South and Central America including Panama City.

We must have levitated out of bed. I dashed to turn on the VHF radio. David opened the hatches and went up top. Some boats were already halfway to lifting their anchor and scurrying off to deep water safety. We stopped and listened to the available information; an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, epicentre unknown and warning of a idal wave predicted to reach Panama City at 9.55am. It was just after 8am so we had plenty of time. However, it was not long enough to linger. We lowered the dinghy into the water, turned on the navigation instruments and turned on the engine to motor forward and haul anchor. Then we pointed our noise out to sea and calmly left what would be a dangeous lee shore.
Anchored 4 or 5 miles south of the city and canal entrance are approximately 30 tankers & cargo ships waiting to transit. We felt to be seaward of them would be best and it was 20m deep so a wave could pass under us safely. On the way out we had secured all the hatches and sealed our two water tight bulk heads so should be rolled we'd be a sealed bubble of air. I also had our life jackets in the cockpit. It might have been over the top, but good practice to use all the safety features.
It was a hot, windless morning so once we were far enough off shore we turned off the motor and just sat and waited. There was still over an hour to go until the wave came through. I hung the laundry out. David made another cup of tea and we had breakfast. Then we waited for 9.50am to come around. There was lots of radio chattar with the latest info. I had the camera ready to capture the wall of water coming our way. And we waited. 9.50am came and we waited, 10 o'c, 10.15, 10.30. Nothing. By 11 o'c the general opinion was it was a false alarm and then someone confirmed the official warning had been lifted. One lucky boat a mile further out than us had had a whale shark floating next to it. However, the last laugh was to be on them because someone came on the radio adn reported a friend had phoned to tell them a 7' wave had jjust hit an island 30 miles south of us. Fleet, about turn! Those who'd got there anchors down then had to re-lift and high tail it back out.
Although we were sceptical about this information to ignore it could have been at our peril. Together with the rest of the pack we turned back to deeper water and waited for another hour. Somtime after lunch we were back in the anchorage with a nice spot when we leaned Acapulco almost a 1000 nm north of us had had a 7" wavelet. Smaller thana ripple on a village pond when a duck lands. Oh well, it had been a nice day out.
Panama is now renamed 'City of Adrenalin'.