It was crazy for a half hour, and is still a little strange here 2 hours later.
The water receded about 5' in 5 minutes, and then came back in in another 5 minutes. And the cycle repeated itself a few times over the next hour. It was really strange seeing the rocks grow out of the water, and the current was really really strong, about 6-8 knots, in an out, with some eddies thrown in. We were actually scared to death. As we saw the water receding, we were also getting worried that we might end up on the bottom at some point. Fortunately we started out in about 15 feet of water, so even with a 5' drop we still had plenty of water under our keel.
We got the engine going and ready to get underway, but the current was so crazy it would have been suicidal to get underway in those conditions. We also had a boat coming in from offshore, and they hung around outside watching for any big waves.
On the morning radio net, we heard that the port captains in the other Galapagos ports had rousted all the boats in the early morning hours and made them go to sea. They were all milling around outside in deep water this morning. The same in Panama and the boats along the Central American coast that we talked to every day on the radio.
We keep watch on VHF 69 (a nice quiet frequency) to be able to talk to our friends, but didn't have Ch16 on. So we are not sure if our Port Captain tried to tell us to leave. There are no other bigger boats in the harbor here this morning, but that's not unusual for a Saturday morning (they are all in Santa Cruz normally on Saturday changing passengers). The two fishing boats tied to the big yellow mooring ball are still there, however.
Anyway, we are safe. Hopefully there are no more earthquakes in Chile (or anywhere else nearby).
(2 Hours later... we are still seeing the water in the 'basin' sloshing about. But still no problems. The town at Puerto Villamil was evacuated to the hills, so when we went ashore to send some emails, we found nobody there! But the townspeople are coming back now, so I guess we're out of the woods).
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Glad you guys are ok - and sounds like an amazing experience!
ReplyDeleteUp here in Victoria, BC, we're trying to decide how to deal with it - we're already forecast to be at a fairly high tide when it comes through, so I'm not sure if the boat should be left tied up to the dock, or if we should head out for a motor into somewhat deeper water...
Ugh.