by Darin Hagre
First Mate aboard the Belafonte in Honolulu
[The following is a personal, on-going account of the events of February 26-27 2010; which were set in motion by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile. We took our boat, the Belafonte, to sea to avoid possible damage that may have been caused by a destructive tsunami. This is that story. It’s very much a work-in-progress, and we invite you to periodically check back when this article is updated!]
February 26 2010, a Friday night, was pretty much business as usual for the crew of the Belafonte. I had just picked up Indiana from work, and we had stopped at the Zippy’s on Nimitz Highway in town to grab some dinner before heading back to the boat and calling it a night. Nothing out of the ordinary for us. But little did we know that the greatest adventure, and biggest experience that the Belafonte would ever undertake was just beginning.
In our typical nerd fashion we got back on the boat, flipped open our laptops and hopped on the interwebs. I’m a pretty big Twitter addict, so naturally that was one of my first destinations when I got online. After checking my @mentions, I found talk of an extremely powerful earthquake that had just hit the South American country of Chile, and of an impending tsunami that might affect us here in the Hawaiian Archipelago.
Living on board a boat is no doubt a unique experience. Nothing is considered ‘ordinary’ out here, and everyday is anything but mundane. When you wake up every morning and step onto the dock, there are schools of tropical fish underwater looking up and waiting to greet you. And when it’s windy outside, you don’t just hear it’s howl as it slams up against the windows, but you feel it’s force as it nudges your boat from side to side. That’s partly why the threat of a tsunami, no matter how distant or how minor it may seem, is a very real threat to your day-to-day life. The one that was generated over the weekend was no exception, even though we now know that it’s danger was to be short-lived.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, located just a few miles down the road in Ewa Beach, issues tsunami warnings and bulletins for nations and territories surrounding the greater Pacific Ocean basin, including us here in Hawaii. (You can subscribe to their alerts, which are sent and issued as soon as geologic events around the world happen) It’s from one of their e-mail alerts that we first learned about the actual tsunami threat, a whole 15 hours before it would hit in Hawaii — leaving us plenty of time to safely prepare.
And as it turns out, we would need much of that time. See, the Belafonte serves several purposes: both as a floating creation studio, and as a home for it’s crew of myself; the captain Indiana Thomas; and his girlfriend, Sade Villatora. While it’s still a fully-functioning seaworthy vessel, there was some definite preparation needed before taking her to sea (and for her longest voyage yet under Indiana’s stewardship).
After the initial realization that the tsunami was imminent, we quickly set out a plan of action for the next several hours. Quickly realizing that time was of the essence, we prioritized which items were of most importance, and which tasks were non-essential. We quickly realized that if the tsunami were to indeed hit O’ahu, we’d need survival supplies and food aboard to last for several days. While we keep small amounts of foodstocks on board; most of it required preparation with our microwave, which would be of no use to us at sea.
We came up with a list of non-perishable food items, and using an emergency reserve fund, sent Sade out to retrieve them while Indiana and myself prepared the boat’s systems for an early morning departure.
Once we pushed away from the dock, and were drifting down the channel, I went downstairs into the main galley to check on a few things. While I was down there, Indie instructed me to grab our
As we reached the open ocean and passed the last marker buoy, we shut off our engines and began to drift, just as the sun was beginning to rise over O’ahu. There was a silence… broken only by the rolling of ocean waves and the banging of ropes against the ship’s mast. Suddenly, a whale’s distinct cry could be heard off of our port side bow, just a minute before the crisp morning air would be sliced by the sounding of all 176 civil defense sirens on the island. Their warning not a test this time, and the distinctive shrill sound seemed to go on indefinitely. On the horizon, flashing blue and white lights could be seen —the signal that the island-wide evacuation had officially begun.
Literally dozens, if not hundreds, of ships and vessels left their ports on O’ahu and took to the sea. It was almost as if anything that could float and was seaworthy, and could go, did go. There were cruise boats, booze cruises, barges, oil tankers, sailboats, fishing boats and tons others.
While our boat might sound large at 37 feet long, when you’re out in the open ocean of the Pacific, it might has well have been a canoe! The waves rock you from side to side, and Indie and I found ourselves fighting seasickness for the first few hours of our journey… just trying to find a place that wasn’t rocking errantly was proving a difficult task indeed.
At around noon, when actual tsunami waves were expected to impact the island O’ahu, the ocean became calm, and we were able to get some rest in. Indie and I had been up for roughly 30 hours straight at this point, having both worked full days at our jobs and not having a chance to get any sleep overnight while we prepared for the tsunami. After about an hour at sea, and with the threat of destructive tsunami waves passing, we decided to return to port. We estimate our farthest distance at roughly 4 or 5 nautical miles from the Ke’ehi Lagoon, in waters nearly 100-150 fathoms (600-900 feet) in depth. It would take roughly 2 hours return journey to port; and on our way, we sighted the Lady Leanne II in distress, having overheated her engines.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: While our boat and our way of life may have been spared, the people of Chile’s was not. will need help with recovery efforts. We strongly urge you to help by donating to the American Red Cross.]
The Belafonte 