Yesterday Australia received a Tsunami warning.  As far as I know we have never received one before.  Maybe because the early warning centre in the Pacific was only set up after the 2004 Tsunami’s.  So yesterday, the Soloman Islands were affected by an earthquake and a Tsunami and we received a warning.  No-one knew what to do with the warning.  No-one knew what it meant.  I live near the sea… as in a short 2 min walk away.  Now we are on a cliff but I wasn’t taking any chances.  I was nervous. I got to the car and drove to the ridge.  I rang my partner. He was content to stay at work, being a suburb or two away from the water’s edge.  I drove up to the top of a small mountain (compared to mountains elsewhere in the world I think this counts as a small hill) None- the - less, if I wasn’t going to be safe there then we were looking at a wave that would have decimated most of the Australian coast!  

Whilst on top of the mountain I drew.  I drew some water flowers and used the drawing as a basis for the ATC shown above.  I was very fortunate to also witness the graduation ceremony of students from NAISDA.  They performed some aboriginal dances. I found them facinating to watch. They had a truly fine balance between being relaxed but totally alert and in performance mode.

 And the Tsunami?  It didn’t reach Australia.  We got a very small rise in water levels and the beaches were closed.  We now know that a Tsunami warning does not mean that one is imminent.

The people of the Soloman Islands were not so lucky.