On-the-Road Tales

While Hauru Point was facing directly west, I was unable to get too many decent sunsets due to the fact it was lashing cats and dogs by late afternoon many days. Another benefit of Pacific life – tropical downpours. The wall opening in my room allowed me to fully appreciate the overwhelming volume of nature as the storms intensified through the night – usually at about 0300 am while slipping into deep REM. I would get up in the morning to find the tents outside flooded into oblivion. Eventually those people realized the weather was not breaking and moved into rooms. On my finally evening, I was chatting with Tina in reception and she happened to drop to The Swede and I that she heard a brief newsclip that there was an earthquake in Japan and that a tropical depression was headed for Vanuatu. She ended the thought by saying, ‘that could mean a tsunami here.’

What??? “well, it has happened before, but do not worry if that is the case the police will go around the island with a megaphone. We are ok because the campground owns land across the street on the mountainside and we can run over there.” As this ridiculous escape plan sank in, I wondered what in the hell I was doing on a speck of volcanic rock in the ocean. Ignoring news for the past 3 months did not seem like the best plan as potentially impending natural disaster raced towards us. The Swede was trying to grill her for more information but her response was “we will just have to wait and see.” Early predawn I was awakened by rain which eventually morphed into hail, thunder and fierce wind. Had I not known about the maybe disaster – I probably would have flipped over and went back to sleep. Instead I got up to look outside expecting water lapping at the door and grabbed my passport just in case. The sky was a sick sort of color but I was reassured that a large wave was not in sight. Wildly intense storm but it eventually passed and I was never so glad to see the break of dawn and brightening skies.

I never found out if Vanuatu got their depression or if the earthquake did much damage but it definately gave me a better appreciation of the necessity of early storm warning systems. Stateside, I take for granted a sturdy house resistant against floods and a car outside the door to get away from danger. When you are on an island, without any form of transport around it or off it – weather is a whole different beast. Still can not decide if it was better to have known what was coming and not be able to get further info or have been ignorant since I did not have much in my power to do anyway – but the feeling of uncertainity will not be one I forget soon.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 2:51 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.