Tsunami, Cyclones... where's the volcanic eruption!!

It's definitely been a week of dramatic natural events... The middle of last week saw our second cyclone: Cyclone Becky. The name was a suprisingly fitting description- a little bit of wind and rain, a few banana trees blown over and that was about it. More of a tropical storm than a cyclone really but another opportunity to batten down the hatches.

The more interesting of the two came with the magnitude 8 earthquake in the Solomon Islands yesterday.

In the morning I headed down town to do banking, post office etc. There seemed to be a buzz in town and it was impossible to get a taxi so I started walking back to work. On the way back I bumped into a women from aquamarine who told me a tsunami was on the way, so it was off to Aquamarine to have a yarn with the dive boys and suss out exactly what was happening. The shop is situated in a little bay overlooking the main wharf so a good vantage point to observe, maybe not so great if the tsunami was big. The boys checked the internet and apparently it was to hit Vanuatu around noon... so we kept an eye on the water levels.

Anywho, over a period of about half an hour, the tide went completely out, came back in to full tide, ebbed and was full again. the second time the tide went out, Brian, one of the dive boys, was sitting in a boat tied up to the jetty. One minute the boat is bobbing in the water, the next, its sitting on the sand. Once this happened and after the mild case of panic passed, we jumped in the van and headed to my house, which is safely on a hill overlooking the harbour.

All the boats headed for the channel, including a large container ship docked at the port... An ominous sign.

However, after an hour or so, the boats go back and it looks like Santo is saved from certain disaster! Very interesting to have seen a tsunami, even if just a small one here...