We woke up intending to sail from Sidney to Esquimalt, having finally found a weather window that would allow us to sail South and then West without encountering over 30 knots.
Carol got out of bed first and turned on the weather on the VHF radio and heard a Tsunami advisory. I jumped out of bed and we turned on the FM radio hoping for more information. Shortly afterwards my mother called (good show award!) to make sure we were aware of the situation and we called friends in Victoria harbour to spread the word to them.
As we listened to more information we realized that the advisory was for the West Coast of Vancouver Island only, not the inside (where we were) and not the East side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (where we were headed). We decided to wait to depart until after the wave was expected to hit and, assuming nothing happened, we would head out for our day of sailing.
Nothing happened and so we headed out. We later heard there were some burly currents in areas of Esquimalt harbour and some tidal variation that morning but otherwise that area was unaffected.
For us, the major lesson learned was that unless you are monitoring your VHF 24 hours a day, or are lucky enough to be up early listening to weather when the warning comes out, word-of-mouth is the only way we would have found out about an event like that. Scary. Remember this the next time you are thinking of being rude to your neighbors!
Carol got out of bed first and turned on the weather on the VHF radio and heard a Tsunami advisory. I jumped out of bed and we turned on the FM radio hoping for more information. Shortly afterwards my mother called (good show award!) to make sure we were aware of the situation and we called friends in Victoria harbour to spread the word to them.
As we listened to more information we realized that the advisory was for the West Coast of Vancouver Island only, not the inside (where we were) and not the East side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca (where we were headed). We decided to wait to depart until after the wave was expected to hit and, assuming nothing happened, we would head out for our day of sailing.
Nothing happened and so we headed out. We later heard there were some burly currents in areas of Esquimalt harbour and some tidal variation that morning but otherwise that area was unaffected.
For us, the major lesson learned was that unless you are monitoring your VHF 24 hours a day, or are lucky enough to be up early listening to weather when the warning comes out, word-of-mouth is the only way we would have found out about an event like that. Scary. Remember this the next time you are thinking of being rude to your neighbors!
I actually texted your old phone number when I saw the news at 6 AM Eastern time, but I figured it wasn't going to get through. Anyway, glad you guys are safe!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jessica for thinking of us.
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