Tsunami warning

We were woken out of a sound sleep this morning by a phone call from our friends on The Dorothy Marie. They wanted to make sure we had heard the tsunami warning issued by the Coast Guard. We saw the news of the 8.4 Chilean earthquake while watching the Olympics last night, but assumed it would come to nothing for us in Hawaii. Glen and Sally had already decided to depart Maui this morning so they just left a little earlier than planned. After seeing the warning on NOAA and listening to the Coast Guard reports (potential first contact for the Big Island is 11:19 AM local time), we exited from the harbor during the first siren warning at 0600.

We are now hove to just off the harbor entrance waiting to see what develops. We've seen a few early bird charter boats returning to the harbor to disembark their passengers. Our friends on Our Country Home were preparing to leave as we passed them on the way out of the harbor. My parents were asked by their ocean front condo manager to move the lanai furniture inside, and they are packing to leave until the warning is over. We were all supposed to get together for breakfast at The Big Island Grill this morning, so maybe it will have to be for dinner instead.

We are happy to be away from all the dock talk/speculation, and the hourly sirens which scared Ziggy up through a small hole to the forward part of the chain locker - a place I don't think he's ever been to before!

Linda