Ocean Tsunami Surge Carries Away the Ship Destiny's Dreams

White sails glided through the marine layer and into the bay.

The promise of a peaceful anchorage beckoned. The 1800s wooden ship under square canvas sails waltzed over the waves like a sleek, beautiful woman.

She was the mythical vessel known as the Destiny's Dreams on her world voyages.

The sea reflected the sun's sparkle. The air caressed the skin with a light, warm touch. The ship settled at anchor with sounds of happy ripples on the water.

But unseen rhythms of the sea were bringing changes.

Soon the day turned into chaos.

Earlier that morning, the ship’s crew announced, “We’ll anchor here and rest.”

Passengers lounged on the warm, sunny deck. Sailors climbed high into the rigging. They furled the squares of canvas on the masts, wrapping them around the booms.

The French-Peruvian Captain Alfonse, his First Mate Adelberto, Luciana the map maker, the woman known as Wind Reader, and the other crew members relaxed and sighed.

Marco the ship's librarian brought some books out for people to read on the deck.

Luna the Flute Player played a song she wrote to imitate bird sounds in her home in the South American jungles near the Amazon River.

Antonio the dancer and Esperanza his partner from Rio de Janeiro swayed to the flute music.

At last they were anchored off the coast of southern California in the 1800s.

"Time to celebrate," Esperanza sang out.

Then the ship creaked and moaned.

"Whooooosh..." The sea made a sound.

"Where did that come from?" A voice spoke loudly. Everyone paused. They listened.

The ocean surged.

"Tttthhhhuuuup." There was a sucking sound.

The crew and passengers' hearts leaped, then started banging in their chests.

"The sea is going backwards."

Voices began shouting.

"What?"

"It can't be."

The water retreated. The wet, sandy sea bottom glistened where there had been water moments before.

There were more voices.

"We"re hitting the bottom!"

"Where did the water go?"

"AAAaaaaaggh. Help."

Heartbeats raced faster. Faces grimaced. Breathing became shallow and rapid.

"Ggguuuurrrrgle." The voice of the ocean gurgled and hissed.

Voices on the ship called. Screams and shrieks erupted. Figures ran across the ship's deck.

"OOooooOoooo." Under the waves whale song communications echoed.

Whales in the shallow coastal waters headed out to the depths of the sea far from shore.

"Squeeeeak. Click-click-click."Dolphins spoke under the waves and fled from the coastal shallows. Seabirds flew away from the land toward the sea and soared toward the horizon.

The sea flowed backwards away from the shore. Rocks, pebbles, starfish, urchins, and sea anemones emerged.

Far out on the horizon the distant seas rested calm and flat. Swells rolled in from miles offshore. But these swells were different.

Way out there the swells reached up to 1000 feet down to the ocean's bottom. On the surface, they raised ships six feet or so and the vessels did not notice anything unusual.

Beyond the coast, out to sea, the whales, dolphins, squid, and other marine life were lifted gently upward but not disturbed.

But near the coast, in the shallower seas, the whales and dolphins talked among their groups with clicks, squeaks, whistles, and underwater cooing, almost like giant doves singing songs to echo through the water.

“Oooooo. Clickity, clickety click. Squeaaak.”

“Danger. Near the shore.”

“Something is happening.”

“Quick. Everyone. Swim away from shore. Go deep.”

“Hurry before it is too late.”

“Help your little calf. There isn’t much time.”

“Vibrations. Swells. Get out of here.”

Instincts and extra senses of the marine life alerted them.

Human voices from the wooden sailing ship anchored in the shallow bay hollered. The sheltered waters were embraced by curving arms of land on both sides. The flat shore opened to dry, golden foothills and mountains dotted with live oak trees.

“Sound the alarm.” A sailor bellowed.

“Clang. Clang. Clang.” Another sailor swung the rope and the giant bell’s sound shattered the quiet.

More voices called.

“Get the passengers into the cabins.”

Call the Wind Reader and Anya. What is happening?”

They turned to Anya, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern. She carried the oral wisdom of thousands of years of ancestors’ tales from far away places all over the world.

The Wind Reader, who knew the ways of the air, the sky, the breezes, and wind currents, drew in a deep breath. She knew about this. The ocean depths hundreds of miles away were swelling up toward the surface.

“Hold on tight. Get ready. Don’t let go.” Anya’s voice called across the decks, loud and strong for such a tiny woman.

The ship leaned to one side. Then the anchor chain loosened and clanked.

“We’re sinking,” someone yelled.

Cargo boxes on the deck crashed into the wheelhouse.

Wind Reader’s voice burst across the morning air. “Tsunami. Tsunami.”

Crew and passengers gasped and voices screamed.

“What’s that?”

“Where is the ocean going?”

“The water is going away.”

The Wind Reader pointed out to sea. “It is going to come back in a while. All of it. Hang on.”

The hull of the ship hit the ground where earlier the ocean flowed.

“We’re stranded.” Hollers and shrieks broke the quiet air.

Wide eyes stared around the ship.

"No, no, no. This cannot be happening. This is crazy." A man's voice grew in volume and ended in a high pitch.

Anya scanned the ocean floor. It was exposed around the ship. The keel rested on the sand. A volcanic basalt ridge on the ocean floor was nearby.

Her thoughts raced. "Are we going to hit those rocks?"

Earlier, hundreds of miles away, on the ocean floor, two ledges of the earth’s crust met unevenly and scraped against each other. One of the ledge plates pushed beneath the other. One of the plates held up the ocean floor to the west and the other to the east.

Pressures built up and exploded. The massive parts of the plates moved. New gaps appeared. Structures under the sea changed positions.

Thousands of feet beneath the waves, vibrations in the water pushed swells from the sea floor upward toward the surface.

Far out to sea, the ships, whales, dolphins, and other sea life only felt they were lifted by a large swell. But it was different close to the shore in the shallower water.

The swell was 1000 feet deep. It raced across the ocean toward land. Then it hit the shallower ocean floor. Like a big muscle, it contracted and more strength and power built up in it.

First, the ocean swell sucked the water back from the shores of the coast, leaving shallows of the ocean floor exposed.

“AAAAraaaargh. Sssshhh.” Then the surge grew and flew like a cannonball toward the shore.

Screams and shrieks sounded again on the Destiny’s Dreams. It rested on the ocean floor but the passengers saw the ocean surge rolling toward them.

“Everybody. Down. Hold on.” Captain Alfonse had never seen this before off the coast of his native Peru, or anywhere on his world voyages.

“Aaaaaaa.” Luciana, the map maker, Alfonse’s wife from the Andes Mountains of South America, wheezed. Her throat and chest tightened. She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes blinked.

“I’ve got you, Luciana.” Alfonse grabbed her. They clung together.

A surge of the frothy edge of the ocean flew towards them. Water raced across the bare sea bottom of the bay. The ship creaked. The water roared. They rose toward the sky.

The giant’s hand of the sea cupped the ship’s hull. Then the long keel beneath it reached deep, deep, deeper into the swell, steadying the ship.

The vessel floated again on top of the water and the bare ocean floor was unseen again.

The 1000 foot deep swell was contracted and it hurled the ocean inland across the beach, the flat coast, and into the foothills. A quarter mile went back. Then more. They were half a mile inland, floating on the surging ocean.

The world flashed by.

“Help.” A small voice on the deck cried. Adelberto, the First Mate, grasped the wheelhouse and scurried across the deck, crouching.

“I can’t hold on any longer.” The voice was a child.

“You’re alright. Here.” Panic fueled Adelberto’s muscles and he held the child in a tight embrace against his chest.

“SSSSsssssh... SSSSssss... Sssssss...” The speeding waves roared. Flying spray whispered. Salty water fell over the ship’s deck. It stung the peoples’ faces.

Minutes flew by. Mountains once distant grew close. The ship kept rolling on the swell.

They passed the place where the beach now was buried underwater. The ship floated on the swell over the flat coast that was land before and now was covered with ocean.

They were carried inland a quarter mile, then half a mile. Everything was under water there that had been dry land before.

Steep cliffs rose on the sides near them. The ocean swirled between gaps in the mountains, bubbling like boiling water.

“We’re going to crash.” A voice screamed. “Mountains.”

“There’s a gap. We’re headed there.” Captain Alfonse’s voice bellowed.

Trees, boulders, rocks, and shrubs all disappeared under the rushing water.

"Thump. Thump. Thumpety thump...Thump-Thump-Thump."

The Wind Reader’s heart pounded like thunder booming. It thumped faster and faster.

Anya, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern, crawled closer to the trembling, white face of Wind Reader. “She whispered, “Keep breathing. Deep. Hang on.”

The two women were entangled and holding the edge of the ship’s wheelhouse.

Then the roaring slowed. Volcanic basaltic boulders on the mountain foothills were only hundreds of feet away.

The water began to surge back toward the ocean again. The returning swell swept the ship toward the sea.

The surges and swells began to lose power. The ship rode them back and forth.

Hours later everyone slumped on the deck. Anya sat on a bench at the railing, writing fast in her journal.

Over a hundred and fifty years later, Anya’s journals were discovered in the attic of the Mystical Coast Lighthouse by children.

“SSSSh. Don’t tell anyone we are up here. We’re not allowed. It has to be a secret. Let’s read some more of those journals.”

“Emily, you read for us.” The children gathered around her.

“OK,” she said. “Let’s sit by the window. Look. That old blue lantern is glowing again. It must be the sunlight coming in through the window. “

She began to read.

“SSSSssssh... Rooooooaaaaar.” The sounds of the tsunami surge and the mythic ship Destiny’s Dreams filled the attic.