Flying fish, curry and the odd Tsunami

Posted On 14 May, 2014

Here’s an update from Ben

12:07 UTC 13/05/2014

Position – 05° 15N 105°38W

Course Steered – 091°

Wave Height and Direction – 1m coming from N

Wind – WSW 6kn

Miles to go to Panama – 1658

Miles covered from New Zealand – 6790

Average speed – 11.3kn

Fuel burned 12:00 11/5/14 – 12:00 12/5/14 – 509 l

Here we are, well inside the ITCZ, an extremely weird place, thousands of miles from land and finding spectacularly varied conditions. One minute things can be like a mill pond – just tiny, long rolling waves with little or no wind. The next, you can be heading towards a tropical squall with loads of rain but still not much breeze and, consequently, no notable rise in wave activity. At other times, we find ourselves running into relatively heavy seas and much stronger winds. The boys don’t seem to mind, but that stuff doesn’t go down at all well with me.

We have now definitely picked up the counter-currents we’ve been hoping for and are making the most of them while they last. I’m astonished at how even half a knot behind you can make such a difference to your ETA over the sort of distances we are dealing with.

We’ve had more flying fish on deck although, as Tom suggested, we only seem to find them in the morning after they’ve been drawn in by the lights. I still haven’t seen one hop aboard in daytime.

Sleeping arrangements: we’ve sorted ourselves out to suit our needs, really. I have moved onto one of the sofas in the main saloon which is more or less central to any roll and pitch and makes for an easy ride. Jeff the engineer sleeps up forward in the master cabin, Matt is back aft in the engineer’s cabin, Tony also gets his own cabin abaft the main saloon, while Peter is up top on one of the other sofas.

Regarding night lighting at the inside helm station, the Furuno and the Maretron both have night modes which change the display colour to ‘red night vision’. We have red lighting available in the wheelhouse, but we seldom use it as we favour a red LED torch when we’re logging progress at the end of our watches.

We hope you enjoyed your curry the other night, Tom. Oddly enough, that’s what was on the menu tonight – Chicken Tikka. Matt lashed this up using a packet mix, but for a bunch of sailors far from land, it was none the worse for that.

Ben

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Thanks, Ben. We’ll look forward to your next. Tell us about noise levels and how often you do engine checks down in the engine room itself. On such a long passage, does Jeff change the oil, etc in the main engine? If so, how often? Do you have to stop the engine each day to check levels as we used to do, or does Mr Maretron deal with that these days?

Meanwhile, we’ve been monitoring a lively exchange with the skipper about an underwater earthquake.

From Reuters

(Reuters) – A powerful earthquake struck in the Pacific off the coast of Panama early on Tuesday, shaking buildings, but there were no initial reports of major damage or casualties.

The quake of 6.8 magnitude hit about 130 km (81 miles) south of the western city of David in Chiriqui province at a depth of 10 km, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

An official from Panama’s emergency services said goods had fallen off shelves in parts of Chiriqui but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties in the area.

No risk of tsunami was seen, the official said, but added that authorities were continuing to monitor the region.

Email from Chris at Berthon to Peter

Peter

The below information is taken from tsunami.gov and http://ptwc.weather.gov/ NOAA’s National Weather Service tsunami information site.

I have had a look around the internet for more information and have copied some bits in below –

Here’s a position for the disturbance taken from earthquake.usgs.gov

Location – 7.249°N 82.330°W depth=10.0km (6.2mi)

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ABCnews.org

The U.S. Geological Survey says an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 has hit just off the coast of Panama.

The quake, which was at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles), was recorded at 1:35 a.m. (0635 GMT). Its epicenter was in the sea, 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the city of David.

No tsunami warning was issued and there were no immediate reports of damage.

Hope all is well, I will keep reading up on information and let you know if I find anything else.

Chris

From Peter

This is about 45 miles away from our course, so would be really grateful if you could keep an eye out for reports of after shocks?

To Tom,

I have a few of your books on board but can’t find any reference to how to deal with quakes!

Can you advise!

Kind regards,

Peter

From Tom to Peter

Ahoy Peter

Don’t tell my publisher I’ve left this out. She’ll probably fire me and hire a better-looking, younger man. I wouldn’t know a Richter Scale if it jumped out and bit me on the bum, but good news awaits from Chris. All I can say is, sometimes it’s better not to know when there’s nothing you can do anyway.

As Sam Weller observed, ‘What’s done is done and can’t be helped, as the Turks says when they cuts the wrong man’s head off!’

Enjoy the Chicken Tikka,

Tom

From Chris

There was a bulletin that was sent 5 mins after the quake saying no threat of tsunami at all.

The below bulletin was published at 8.40, just 2 hours after the quake.

TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT NUMBER 1

NWS PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER EWA BEACH HI

840 PM HST MON MAY 12 2014

TO – CIVIL DEFENSE IN THE STATE OF HAWAII

SUBJECT – TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT

THIS STATEMENT IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. NO ACTION REQUIRED.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME – 0835 PM HST 12 MAY 2014

COORDINATES – 7.0 NORTH 82.4 WEST

LOCATION – OFF THE COAST OF CENTRAL AMERICA

MAGNITUDE – 6.8 MOMENT

EVALUATION

BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA A DESTRUCTIVE PACIFIC-WIDE TSUNAMI IS NOT EXPECTED AND THERE IS NO TSUNAMI THREAT TO HAWAII. REPEAT. A DESTRUCTIVE PACIFIC-WIDE TSUNAMI IS NOT EXPECTED AND THERE IS NO TSUNAMI THREAT TO HAWAII.

THIS WILL BE THE ONLY STATEMENT ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS

ADDITIONAL DATA ARE RECEIVED.

And judging by the last point I don’t think we will hear of more information.

Looking at historic data in the same area over the last 5 months there have been 10 quakes ranging from 4.3 up to 6.8.

I will keep on looking for information.

Chris

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What times we live in !

Tom