Larry Tyler, Earthquake survivor with Paul (Centre) and "Antoine" French Singer/Filmaker

At about 9 a.m. our friend Larry came running down the dock shouting, “Grab your cameras! Wait until you see the house. I’m lucky to be alive!” Larry is a British filmmaker who travels the world on his Crealock 54 foot yacht, “The Dove”. He has lived aboard for 17 years and 3 nights ago Ruth, a local friend who runs a dress shop in Horta, asked him to look after her house in the countryside for a couple of weeks while she visited family in Germany. We have been out filming with Larry and on Tuesday had a wonderful day with him filming dolphins hunting small fish called chiccaro. I got some great underwater footage of both dolphins and shearwaters (sea birds) chasing schools of chiccaro. To celebrate the shoot Larry invited us to the house for dinner on Wednesday night. We helped him load the car with all his expensive cameras, computers and editing equipment so he could set it up and work at the house. It was a magically calm night and we barbecued steaks and sat out on the patio eating and drinking local wine and looking over the ocean. The moon was full and silvery on the water, the crickets chirped and occasionally we heard a cow mooing in the surrounding fields. Larry was entranced with the house which is a restored traditional stone home and said he was seriously thinking of buying a place here too. In fact he would love to buy this house. It really was beautiful and we could understand his feelings. At midnight he drove us back to Horta and then he went back to the house for the night.

Five hours later Larry woke up with the violence of the earthquake. His bed was sliding back and forth across the room and debris was falling down around him in the dark. He said his first thought in his half-awakened state was that a poltergeist was trying to scare him from the house. He sat up and a huge stone landed on the bed behind him. He leapt up and beams from the roof started crashing down around him. Breathing dust and tripping on fallen debris , he found his way to the door which was now blocked, but it had a window in it which he smashed out and wriggled through the broken glass to safety outside. It was a new door and he said he felt so bad that he had to break it. (Meanwhile, the whole roof had collapsed and the walls were strewn across the road.) Ruth had a motorcycle parked outside so his first reaction was to put on the crash helmet. Then he started up the bike and went down the road to the neighbours. It was only then that he realized that he was in his underwear. It was alright though because so were the neighbours who were okay but whose house was also flattened.

Larry left them to go back to Ruth’s house to see if he could salvage some clothes and his camera gear. Fortunately nothing had landed on the table where most of his gear was but his computer had been thrown across the room and smashed, and one of his cameras which had been set up on a tripod had been wrecked too. Luckily it was a dry morning so most of the gear, now exposed to the open sky, was dusty but okay. Everything else was crushed under rocks and beams. He found some clothes in the garage he could wear but was frustrated that Ruth’s phone number in Germany was amongst the rubble in the kitchen. He was feeling like a major failure as a house-sitter!. Meanwhile, the ground was still shaking and things falling so he bailed and came to get us.

We were stunned when we saw the house and the boulders on his bed. It really was a miracle that he got out alive. What really shook us was the table on the patio where we had had dinner that night. We had left some of the dishes from our dinner on the table when Larry drove us home and they were still there, a reminder of the lovely peaceful meal we had had together just hours before. But now there was a huge crack in the patio floor, the tarp overhead was shredded and the walls had fallen away. We interviewed Larry amongst the wreckage with our camera and one of his surviving cameras too and then the three of us went to help the people around the island record this moment in their history. People had a tremendous need to talk about what had happened to them; it helped them get it into perspective I think. We always asked people if they minded if we took pictures and surprisingly they would eagerly invite us into the remains of their homes and tell their stories.

It was a very moving day - mothers telling of how they thought their children were dead and fought their way through falling debris to pull them out from under roof beams scared bruised and crying but okay. One child was on his bed which was teeter-tottering over the street. The wall had fallen and the bed began to slide but the parents got to him before it went down. We talked to them from the street below through the open wall as they rescued the child’s toys from the rubble. In another town the cemetery went down in a rock slide and the coffins and tombs were exposed to the light. The church was completely flattened and the huge bell from the steeple lay at the side of the road. The villagers had just spent 5 months re-marbling the floors and painting it, now it was gone.

There are still minor tremors happening and people have been warned not to go into their homes for at least 4 days. Tents have been set up, some merely tarps set up against the beautiful hydrangea hedges. Families are rallying and the military are moving in with relief. The fire department is delivering water to the villages and the bakeries are delivering food. The marina seems to be the safest place on the island. If there is another major tremor we’ll just get rattled. Nothing can fall on our heads. (Larry was quite happy to be back on his boat last night. No more talk of buying a house!) We have water and battery power and the phones are working in Horta. We are standing by to help the people here in anyway we can - feeding them, clearing roads, whatever. I think we will be in Horta for a couple more weeks. We’ll keep you posted.

Just a little update from the earthquake. The Marina is fine and all the boats here are ok. People in town have been advised not to return to their homes for a few more days since we are still experiencing tremours so many are sleeping in tents in the park or in their cars. Some villages were very severely damaged and numerous houses totally leveled. Before the quake the town was working on a new fisherman's harbour here and now they are using the rubble from the levelled villages as fill for the breakwaters!! Ever inventive and resilient the Azoreans are getting back to normal.

  Safe and sound in Horta Marina

The lush, green islands are full of flowers. Sheryl and hybiscus

Paul & Sheryl
Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores