Captain’s Blog

Captain’s Log #31

January 1, 2003 on 4:00 pm | In Uncategorized | Comments Off

A DAY AND A HALF WITH A JESUS FILM TEAM IN THE LIFE OF A CYCLONETHIS WEEK

13Jan. 2003 Monday 0730hrs
“Adju… listen, this cyclone’s going to hit! Get hold of Sam and at least one of the other guys and get over here as fast as possible…. What do you mean, what cyclone? Cyclone Ami, she’s come out of nowhere in the last 12 hours and is heading down on us… we’ve got to get moving.”

Monday 0945hrs
“How much air in that tank Sam? Do you have the shackles? Tie the spanner to that line. Adju, feed the 7/8 inch nylon out through the hatch, there’s 175 feet of it, we’ll double it and shackle the thimbles straight tothe chain, take it around the bollard and back to the cleats. Watch your air, Sam. We’ll use the last of the air out of these two tanks then swap to the new ones. Bill, when Sam and I get into the water and around to the bow,lower that line to us. Ready Sam? lets go.”

Monday 1500hrs
“That’s it guys, 5 hours and she’s as ready as she’ll ever be, nothing more we can do but wait and keep praying - we’ve got one of the best positions aroundand she’s as secure as we can get her and it’s starting to blow. Hey, where’d that Russian ship come from? Don’t tell methey’re dropping anchor right here! That’s less than the length of their ship from us. When the wind shifts it’ll bring them right downon top of us! Where’d all these vessels come from?, they’re running hard in from everywhere - probably fifty or sixty that we can see from here!”

Monday 2000hrs
“Hello Cindy? no… everything’s fine but you don’t want tolisten to the VHF. It sounds like we must be in a different world, I must not be feeling a fraction of what isright around me out here… there’s at least one boaton firein the Harbor.She’s just broke loose and is going in ontop of some of the other vessels… I can see part of the harbor from where I am, but I can’t see the flames. My wind gauge is showing gale force, butthat’s it. I can’t figure out why I’m not indicating anything higher, it makes no sense! My biggest fear right now is this Russian ship - as the cyclone increases and the eye passes, our winds are going to come from the South and that’s going to put them on top of me.”

14th Jan. 2003Tuesday 0600hrs
Long night! The Russian ship has had her engines going continuously and for the last few hours has had to use them to keepfrom dragging anchor andto keep from swinging onto the mv/Galilean. I helped them earlier move one of their people to land. There’s about 6 or 7 vessels ofdifferent sizes that I can see, that are in trouble with their anchor dragging in this wind… ‘wind’doesn’t really describe it!Finally, the Russian vessel gives up trying to hold her position, pulls anchor and moves out… the last I see her is as she disappears around the island I’m using to shield me to the Southeast. I don’t know what happens to her.

Tuesday 0830hrs
Six Chinese fishing vessels break loose from Kings Warf in Suva Harbor not far from where we are. Thereis no logical reason for how minimal our conditions are here on the mv/Galilean… the boats immediately in front of us and over to the rightare dragging anchor! Bynowcyclone Ami has killed peopleon theFijian islands due North of us and people will be lost at sea today. One coastal town is reported at being 9 feet under water at this point. Communication links are going.

Tuesday 1200hrs
I’ve been watching the barometer on theboat falldown into the 900’s as the eye of Ami gets closer and now the barometerstops… it stops!… then slowly starts to rise… few things have ever looked better to me than that rising barometer!At the same timeall vessels have swung about 120 degrees on their anchors and now face due South. The eye is passing.

Tuesday 1400hrs
With Cyclone Ami moving awaythrough the Southern Fiji islands at an incredible 20+kts per hour now, it’s over for us right here! Amazingly… for no apparent reasonit really never got worse immediatelyaroundus than what we usually face at some point every few weeks in the outer islands. Nothing close to anything seriously dangerous for us on the mv/Galilean. Then I talk to Cindy again and sheremindsme ofthe more than one thousand prayer partners whoare praying for us…andthen she says this….”Harmon, for the last three months there have been no new people join as ‘Plank Holders’ (prayer partners)… yet in these very few last hours… since you took the Galilean with the JESUS Film teamand began dealing with this Cyclone…over a dozen differentpeople, representingdifferent groups and familiesand churches, from all across the U.S…. spontaneously, havecontacted me by email saying they felt that they wanted to pray for us, they wanted to join as prayer partners and was there anything immediate or urgent to pray about?”

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He made the lame to walk… He caused the blind to see…
who is this One that even the wind and waves obey Him?

He is our peace… He really is our peace, even in this storm this week,
For HIM!
Harmon

p.s. He isyour peace…in the storm