Yesterday, the 27th of February, the news was full of the Chillean earthquake and impending Pacific-wide tsunami.  In the end, the tsunami never transpired, but the news channels and experts kept up the heat until the forecast tsunami-hour had passed Hawaii, 3 hours after the expected time in Panama.  Naturally, we alerted the BWR fleet and they all headed out to deep water.

Here is a description of their day from SV Aspen - Steve and Maria joined the fleet in Shelter Bay, Panama:

"S/V Aspen – February 27, 2010 – Log #29
Position: 8 degrees 18.0' N 79 degrees 54.25' W
(Las Perlas Islands, Panama)

Tsunami!!

Around 8:30 AM today (13.30z) one of our group of boats in the anchorage was zipping around in their dinghy telling everyone to leave NOW. There was a tsunami warning issued for the Las Perlas Islands, right where we are!!! Needless to say we didn't need any explanation but immediately picked up our anchor and headed Aspen out to sea. The deep water offered us the protection we sought from the large waves that were generated from an 8.8 magnitude earthquake near the coast of Chile.

Quickly looking at our satellite emails there were 14 of them waiting for us - all from NOAA telling us the expected time of impact - in approximately 15 minutes! Motoring out into the open ocean we slowed Aspen to a crawl as we sat and waited. It didn't take long before we saw some waves pass underneath our boat. Since we were in deep water the waves barely affected us but only rocked us a little on their way toward shore. Luckily the waves appeared to be minor as they made their way onto land.

Then our satellite phone rang and it was Bob, who Steve is working with in Denver, telling us about the possible tsunami heading our way. Then the phone rang again and it was Tim telling us about the earthquake that he was watching on TV at his hotel in New York City. Isn't technology great?!?  After waiting over 2 hours for the last of the waves to sweep past us we headed Aspen once again into her anchorage off Isla Del Rey in the Las Perlas Islands of Panama. We were safe from the tsunami!!

Hopefully we can now continue on our journey. We plan to sail to the Galapagos Islands around the 2nd of March. This will take us about 9 days of sailing and we will pass the equator and enter the southern hemisphere."

[Three of Aspen's emails were from BWR, passing on the NOAA information. We also called a few Iridium 'phones and asked them to spread the word. We do try to look after our folks!]