Lets wait a minute

Yes there was a full Tsunami alert here in Nicaragua, the government even sent in trucks to evacuate everyone.

Run to the hills

Screw being evacuated, we left with all of our belongings and climbed the hill, positioning ourselves with a few beers to watch the show/town get destroyed. The anticipation was like when I go fishing. For a certain time I was really expecting it to happen at any moment, visualizing the surge, my heart pumping etc. Some locals near us got info on their mobiles that it had hit El Salvador and that it would be here soon. But still no information on size – nothing but tension.....although amazingly still a few dudes out surfing!

The sun hit the horizon two hours after the forecast time for the wave so the crowd communally dismissed the chance of the tsunami's arrival and left the hill. I was in the last group to leave.

It would have been spectacular viewing

On the way back

We had just crossed the river when we noticed the tide starting to go out very quickly. It rushed out so quickly that the river (tidal) was flowing too fast to cross and this meant we were stranded on the far side next to the town. The hill was just the other side of the river so I gave the shout that if this is going to be it, we'll have enough time once the river empties to cross and get up the hill before the wave comes........

For sure amigos – that was a minute of tension.

With no internet in the town due to no power that day no one had any idea how big the wave was going to be.

The river

The sea retreated only about 20 cm when the flow stopped and turned the other way for another minute. It was nothing more than what it would be like if the tide dropped a foot in 1 minute and then took another minute to return to where it was.

I was kind of gutted, I'd already missed a small earthquake while I was out surfing one day and now after spending the whole afternoon in anticipation of a witnessing a disaster first hand, all I got to experience was a 20cm surge.  

With no access to news we all went to bed thinking that the quake in Japan couldn't really have been that bad – how wrong we were.