Never a dull moment, it seems. We’ve been in Tonga for about a week and a half now. We left the mooring near the town of Neiafu because there was some “weather” coming: a low pressure system with high forecast winds. Because it’s difficult to know how well-maintained a mooring is, we prefer to rely on our own anchor in those situations. So, we went over to a sheltered bay and dropped the hook. Happily, the system weakened before it reached us. However, then there was a new “development”. On the 30th (the 29th for most of you) a massive earthquake struck the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. Now, the Kamchatka Peninsula is 4500 nautical miles from Tonga, so what’s the big deal? Well… The earthquake was the problem. It was the fact that the earthquake occurred under the ocean floor. Quick science lesson (nerd alert!): a quake tsunami is a movement of water due to an earthquake. There are four conditions necessary for a tsunami to form:

  • The quake must be magnitude 6.5 or higher
  • The quake must occur under the ocean floor or close enough to the ocean to cause movement of the earth’s crust into the ocean
  • The quake must be be shallow (less than 70 km. below the seafloor)
  • There must be significant upward movement of the seafloor over the quake

Well, the Kamchatka quake met all of these conditions-easily. It was massive. And a tsunami did occur. Now, when you think of a tsunami, you probably think of this:

But that’s not really the tsunami. The tsunami is just water displaced upwards and outwards from the center of the earthquake. The problem is when that water “finds a bottom”. You know how when you go to the beach and there are waves? As you wade out, the waves are breaking, but once you get past that area, the water is calm-just moving up and down. Well, that’s exactly what happens with a tsunami. The water just moves calmly along-until it finds a shallow area (you know, like land!). Then it turns into waves-often massive waves. There’s a cool formula for it, but that would definitely be TLDR.

Now, you’re thinking “Bob, you’re nowhere near Russia. What’s the big deal? Get over it.” Well, it’s true that it started far away. But water can move very, very fast. As in, over 600 mph! So the tsunami was forecast to reach Tonga about 8 hours after the earthquake. And, OF COURSE, that meant after dark. Because bad things always happen at night. Well, not always, but pretty often.

This is the data from the sea level monitor in American Samoa as the tsunami passed.

So, we had to decide what to do. Do we stay where we are or do we head out to deep water. A tsunami in deep water is no big deal-it usually passes completely unnoticed. But we also had the low pressure system passing by, so the winds and waves were up and heading offshore was not going to be pleasant-of course! Looking at the ocean monitoring systems, it appeared that the tsunami waves were going to be small: 0.3-1 meter (1-3 feet). So we decided to hang tight. Happily, that was the right decision. We stayed awake on anchor watch until about midnight and all we saw was a rise in the water level of about 6 feet. And no weird currents in the bay, which can also happen with a tsunami. So, we made it through our first tsunami! We’re definitely getting the t-shirt.

We need the Tonga version!

Since then, we’ve been enjoying Tonga and fixing stuff (of course). We spent an evening ashore enjoying a feast of Tongan foods (including a roast pig!) and a demonstration of traditional Tongan dance. We snorkeled the reef and saw a lovely coral garden. We also heard whalesong while snorkeling! The humpbacks are migrating right now. Alas, no sightings. Everyone else seems to see them, but not us so far…

A starfish in the coral garden
A beautiful landscape-wreck notwithstanding
Traditional dance
An enormous, and beautiful banyan tree-see all those trunks? It’s all part of the same tree!

As to the fixing things… Well, it’s mostly been minor stuff. But a rig inspection did uncover a serious problem: our forestay is failing. The forestay holds the mast up, so it’s kind of a big deal. Hopefully, we’ll make it intact to Fiji, where we can have it replaced. So, instead of hanging in Tonga, we’re looking for the next available window to get west to Fiji. Sigh… Seems like we’re ALWAYS rushing somewhere. But we need the right weather window-nothing too sporty so we don’t stress the rig. But that window won’t open for at least a week, so for that time, we’ll enjoy the amazing beauty that Tonga has to offer-and maybe see a whale!