After Paula

Unless you live in a cave or pay no attention to world weather, you are aware that we had a Category 2 hurricane named Paula pass within 55 miles of our shores on Wednesday.

Once again we were faced with the question..to board up or not? We chose to only board the ocean facing windows until Paula got closer to us and we could decide how much impact we were going to get. I did put all the plastic patio furniture away again. As well as any other "flyables" and bunch the plants into a protective corner. Bottles of water and Diet Coke were laid in and extra groceries were bought. We bought mostly bread, eggs and bacon. The three things that we always miss the most when supplies run out.

There was a small buying frenzy here on the island. Lines went for blocks with people buying water and you could hardly move in the grocery store. Let alone find a can of tuna! And forget gassing up your car. People sat in those lines for hours.

So we watched and we waited. We checked the internet constantly. We got a little wind. We got a little rain. Nothing to really write home about. And that was it. Paula, thankfully, turned out to be a non-event for us.

Still, there was a bit of a surge to the ocean level and some interesting wave action. I decided to drive around and see for myself what other parts of the island were looking like.

I started at "my" beach, of course.



I just love me some Crocodile Rock! I don't know what I will do if something ever happens to it. It is my barometer of ocean/tide action. Normally, the waves come ashore and just barely kiss the tip of this rock. This picture was taken as a wave was going back out to join forces with her sisters.,




Oh yeah! This is what I am talking about!




Somebody made a comment to me on Facebook (yes, I now do FB too! So sue me!) They said that at least the waves were cleaning the beaches and making them shiny clean. NOT!

Does this look shiny clean to you?



Or this? Usually it is just the opposite. Huge amounts of dead seaweed and debris are deposited on shore.

Next I drove out to South Point. Looking north, back towards my house.

Looking south to the point. There are rocks under that water that are normally always exposed.

After a quick stop out on Sac Bajo, which I will post at a later date, I headed into town to see the beaches there. First stop, NaBalam and Avalon. The water was high but the seaweed shows how high it had been.

That's a barrier of large rocks under the breaking foam. Normally waves don't come over them.

You just saw almost this same picture earlier this week. Showing the bridge over to the Avalon Reef and Rip U Off Club. The water is normally 4-5 feet below this bridge.

No takers for the beach umbrella palapas either! I heard later that only 50 tourists stayed on the island.

All this seaweed is going to leave on big stinking, rotting mess. Unless the owners of the NaBalam do what they are supposed to do and clean it up. I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Here you can see that incoming surge has formed a lake on the beach.

A view from the bridge. I think I captured at least a small sense of the power of the incoming water here.

Now onto North Beach.

Some useless sandbagging had been done. At least some attempt had been made to keep the beach here from eroding even more from the advancing surge.

You saw this same picture earlier this week also. Just a comparison shot.

The brown you see in the water is seaweed that has not yet been deposited on shore. But it will be.

It breaks my heart to look at this beach and what it has become. It used to be the most beautiful beach I had ever seen in my life and always made the list of the top ten must see beaches in Mexico. No more.

So there you have it. Just a peek of what a non-event hurricane can do to our beaches. See you next week. Have a safe and happy weekend.