For the few of you that may have noticed, there was a big earthquake off of American Samoa this morning and a subsequent Tsunami warning went out for the whole neighborhood. The warnings here in New Caledonia said we'd be "hit" at 9:16 this morning, but they did not give any advice on how severe the "Tsunami" would be. I guessed that it would probably be minor, if at all present, but images of Thailand and Indonesia a couple years back kept flashing before my eyes, so we decided to take the most prudent course. Sophie took the kids to school, which is on high ground, and I took the boat out into the lagoon in deep water by myself.
9:16 came and went and there was no excitement, so I brought the boat back to the dock and tied her back up and settled back in.
For those of you who may know him, former Autodesk colleague, good friend and fellow sailor Wayne Hodgins aboard his yacht "Learnativity" was in Pago Pago harbor in American Samoa at the time of the quake and he is safe and sound (Wayne's blog here). There was a lot of damage from the tremors and a big tidal wave in the town there, so he is apparently helping out as best he can. Wayne is sending Twitter updates via his sat phone regularly. We wish everyone there the best of luck.
