Fri Oct 7, 2016
Green Island is a small volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean about 33 km off the eastern coast of Taiwan. It is 15 km2 at high tide and 17.3 km2 at low tide, making it the Taiwan’s 4th largest island. I’m here spending 4 days with my girlfriend and the weather has been very rainy, but our very nice host drove us around the island to very beautiful places always when it was not raining.
We almost decided not to come, because a small typhoon was heading South of Taiwan on the day we were supposed to take the boat here. I was concerned that the typhoon would turn North and come directly towards us. Luckily it didn’t happen. Instead, we got earthquake number 105097 last night, of magnitude 5, with its epicenter 20 km under us. I had never experienced an earthquake before. It sounded like thunder, and the whole room was moving sideways. Our room door is very near the entrance to this 2 floor building, so I just run towards the exit, but it was over before I had time to exit. The power went out for a few minutes. It was good to have a phone with flash light on it. I slept the rest of the night with a flash light on my hand :)
I found some interesting information about earthquakes: preparedness and FAQ.
We still haven’t managed to do some snorkeling, we will try tomorrow early in the morning.
The nice side effect of the typhoon warning is that there’s almost no tourists in the island. We take walks to places with impressive views, and there’s no one else but us.
I haven’t posted much on my blog during the last 3 years. I don’t promise anything, but I’ll try to make it a habit again :)