Whangaroa and Tsunami........

Up the Canyon, near Lane Cove Cottage. Whangaroa.

Paul and I spent a lovely evening at the Whangaroa Gamefish Club on Saturday night, we had anchored of the township of Whangaroa. We did a load of washing, a bit of shopping for fruit & Veg and had showers. At 2am my Mother called (we had signal) to warn us that an earthquake had occurred in Chile and a Tsunami was supposedly coming. We got up and listened to the latest news on National Radio, the Tsunami was expected at about 7am. So off we went back to bed, but we got very little sleep.
At 6am we were up and listening to the radio again, we decided (Paul the skipper) to head out to sea, and spend the day sailing back to the Bay of Islands. This meant we were leaving Whangaroa 2 days earlier than planned, and the sea conditions were not in our favour. The forecast was for Easterly winds 15knots, and a 2 metre easterly swell, all well and good unless you want to go in an easterly direction.
Needless to say the day was a wee bit rumpty, and the sail was not the greatest. Eventually we motorsailed from the Cavalli Islands to the Nine Pin, we then turned off the engine and hoisted some more sail from there to Opunga Bay. We did not see any sign of Tsunami activity/surging, from all reports any activity was reasonably handled.
So we are now on a mooring at Opua, we are going to rent the mooring for a few months and keep Kabuki up in the Bay. Paul is having to go back to work on the 15th March. I will stay on the boat in Opua and He will commute from Opua to Whangarei for work each day. This has all happened earlier than planned, as one of the guys at Paul's work left unexpectedly.
We still have nearly 2 weeks before we need to get serious again, what a bummer.




Whangaroa Harbour morning mist.