The remains of the Tsunami have reached New Ireland on Friday night at about 22.45 with a maximum wave height of about 0.50 meters. In comparison, the week prior to the tsunami, we had a big ocean swell from the same direction of 6-8 feet (1.8-2.4m), which made our surfing guests very happy.
Visibility has been quite good over the last couple of days with an average of 25-30 meters. On Saturday we saw, apart from a myriad of smaller fish, a big school of Barracudas, two Eagle Rays and a couple of Grey Reef Sharks. Sunday, our guests decided to shoot macro and came back with some seriously stunning photographs.Today, they went out for wide angle photos and once again had some stunning results of beautifully overgrown reefs teeming with life.
Nozaki had a bit of a scare when she couldn't get in touch with her best friend Yoshie Goke, but fortunately, this was probably due to overload of phone lines or lack of power. On Saturday afternoon, Nozaki finally spoke to Yoshie and was assured that all was good. Dietmar and Nozaki had a look at Google maps today and worked out that the wave probably stopped about 400m in front of Yoshie's house. We are so relieved! Nozaki's family is further south in Kyusyu and they are fine, too.
I'm in Sydney at the moment, having just attended OzTek Dive Show, and I've been glued to the TV today. The pictures emerging from Japan are horrendous and our thoughts are with all of our friends in Japan.
It's been a cruel year, but I think we really need to stop and think what we do to our Earth. As a friend of ours said "Mother Earth is one pissed-off woman" and she is right. We can't continue to keep on taking. We've got to start giving back!!
Take care everyone, wherever you are.
