It was right around 10pm, Monday night, October 13th. Pitch black out, no stars. Tawn is in the aft cabin crashed out and I’m still up watching an episode of The Trailer Park Boys on the laptop. We were anchored in a small bay off El Tigre Island in Honduras. There is a small cluster of houses and beach palapas lining the shore about 100 yards away from where the boat is anchored.
As i’m sitting there watching the show, I feel this really odd…. really big vibration. At first, it felt like our engine was running. This was not possible. I then just figured it was another boat motoring past us. But damn, it was a very big boat by the feel of it.
As I was getting up to stick my head outside to make sure everything was OK, and to make sure we were not about to get hit by another boat; the sound and vibration stop.
About half a second later our boat starts,……not sure how to describe this. But our boat started “hopping”. It felt like something large, something very large was trying to pushing our boat straight up out of the water. We were bouncing about 6 inches or so. Up and down repeatedly for 15- 20 seconds.
Living on a boat you get used to the way it moves. Different wind, wave, and currents make the boat move in certain ways. We know what feels right and what does not.
This did not feel right.
I run up the companionway and out in to the cockpit, just as Tawn is waking up and saying “What the fuck is that??”.
Did not have a clue. But I was giving it 30/70 chance that I’d either see a boat bumping up against us or a large angry or possibly horny (I don’t really think it matters which) whale pushing us around.
As soon as I got outside, everything stopped. I had a flashlight, but could not see anything amiss. Nothing. We were just sitting there in the dark anchorage as if nothing had happened.
Tawn came up the companionway behind me and says, “Whoa!, all the lights on the island are off!”.
I turn around and look. She’s right, nothing. Not one light on anywhere.
My first thought was: “Oh shit! Fucking Zombie Apocalypse!”. That was immediately followed by the realization that, suddenly the zombie apocalypse did not seem like it would be as fun as I thought it would. Which surprised me. I’ve always sorta been hoping for one.
As I’m standing there dealing with a bit of an existential crisis, how could I not be stoked for a zombie apocalypse? Tawn got on the radio and called friends of ours on another boat anchored near us. Between the four of us, we figured out that we just experienced an earthquake.
A few minutes later as we were figuring out our “OH SHIT, TSUNAMI!” plan. A big ass thunderstorm rolls through. Crazy ass lightning, torrential down pour, honking wind, the works. We go through our batten down the hatches routine and give a hearty, “Hi ho fuck this time for bed”.
I think Tawn summed it up best as she was climbing back into the bunk: “That was TOO much nature for one night”.
Glad you guys are OK! We heard about the earthquake and wondered if you were affected. Crazy nature!
Yep, it was a bit crazy, but everything is ok with us.
Wow – you moved! I hadn’t checked your location in awhile – you guys must be getting ready to jump off soon?
Not jumping off to the pacific till March. So we got sometime to kill here in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
Heard about your volcano surfing plans – ya’ll really need to get a GoPro for shit like that.