El Niño?

At my house the fishermen are my weathermen, when they move their boats, I know to watch for high water. This past week the ocean has been taking sand from in front of the house, it's constantly changing...

All these rocks used to be buried under several feet of sand, it's not that big a deal for us, but I'd think it would be dangerous for the boat guys coming in and out, in the dark especially.

We had a really big rain a couple nights in a row, and today the debris from the River has begun to surface on our beach. At the moment it's just dislodged water hyacinth plants and some bamboo, but from last year, I know there will be much much more.

Some photos from Facebook, to show what the ocean has been doing in other parts of Ecuador and SA...

Monsterous waves on the Coast of Chile

Above is Bahia, below is Crucita

Even tho the weather is warm, it is still Winter, and so these are our "winter storms"...won't really know if it's El Niño til it's over probably...but the bright side, when there has been lots of rain, the sunsets are even more spectacular!

Photo courtesy of Casa WF (above)

Note the difference in sand in this picture, none of those rocks in the first picture are showing yet.

Well, that's all for now, hope everyone stays safe from their "winter storms", stay tuned...the adventure continues!

Ocean vs. Ramada

The big 'ol ugly ocean does what it wants. These past few weeks it's decided it wants the ramadas and restaurants along the beachfront heading towards La Boca from San Jacinto. It's sad, as these are people's livelihood, Our neighbors and friends.

The sand gets washed away from under the support beams, and next thing you know the roof has collapsed.

Here is an example of a ramada that didn't collapse, but you can see the sand has been washed away.

This techo (roof) was standing this day, but a couple days later when we walked...

This was all that was left standing. It could be they took it down after the first picture was taken, so it wasn't dangerous, we noticed all the beams are inside the ramada structure.

A little further down towards La Boca is our friend Manuel the Maestro carpenter's techo, see how many times he's reinforced it. (strengthened the top and added to the posts) But the thing that got me, was look at how high the bench seat is (directly in the middle of photo) now that all the sand is gone...

Many of these free standing techo are built and maintained by people who live nearby, for instance, Manuel lives on the road, but this is his oceanfront family area. If his family isn't using it, someone else is able to use it. Some of them used to have signs saying they were available thru the ministry of tourism, and big tour buses would bring people in for a day at the beach, and any of the techo with that sign were free to use.

Others were restaurants that were open every weekend, and holiday. Also renting hammocks for the day to beach goers who needed a bit of shade.

Or were used by the fishermen to work their nets, or store the boats at high tide. This next one, is even housing a turtle nest...(stay tuned for another post)

We had some "big wigs" come thru yesterday and see the damage, not sure what they can do about the Ocean, but maybe they can help with something. As we were walking the tide was getting high, and we got to see things differently. Usually we only walk at low tide, so the "ruins" were very interesting to see! Yikes!!

No wonder that sea wall didn't last!

Here are some concrete footings of some sort that have been unearthed from the sand washing away. There are at least 6 of these, I can't imagine what they were for, and how long they've been buried by many feet of sand.

 

The ramadas and restaurants will be rebuilt, maybe closer to the road, or maybe they'll just wait for the ocean to bring the sand back. But I do believe they'll be selling empanadas and ceviche again, and for that we wait. So...Stay tuned, the adventure continues!

Meat Market, Ramadas and High Tides

I'm finding it difficult to fill blog posts, and with the heat wave that has been upon us (summer) we have been finding it hard to get motivated. Where the weather isn't all that different from what we have lived in before (82-88F), we don't have AC in our little beach house, and we've noticed the difference. I also noticed that the sun has been situated in a different point in the sky, and our little bit of shade on the side has been even smaller.  We tied a bed sheet up one day for shade, and that worked, now we bought a tarp and have a bigger section of shade, so our shell area is ready for some crafts, but today I'll share some old pictures.

Charapoto Meat Market

I mentioned not long ago the Meat section of the market, well the other Sunday we went with a neighbor who shops there regularly and we got a tour. She knew right where the pork was, vs the beef, and we got quite an experience. We didn't buy anything here, I wouldn't know what to ask for, but I did find beautiful ground beef in town at the Mini Mart, so lean and pretty, probably 3-4% grasa (fat) found bacon at the same time and we had bacon cheeseburgers...slice of heaven from the States.

Ramadas

These are privately built shade structures, or Ramadas. The families who built them keep them up and use them during the day for shade while fixing fishing nets, or to wait for the fishermen. On the weekends the wood structures are used as kitchens, and the women sell empanadas or ceviche out of them. These caught my eye when they got fresh new paint for Carnavale, some of the people who live across the street from them don't like them, they'd rather have unobstructed views, but I kinda like them. Every couple of years, the city, or province will send crews in to tear them all down, especially if they've been neglected, but I'd say these are in good shape and staying awhile.

High Tide

Mike finds this tide chart, and posts it on the Resident Facebook page every week, it's a very nice way to quickly glance and know what time the daily walk will be. This week it's been with morning coffee, last week it was with Happy hour and sunset. There have been some rumblings about the high tide, and just how high they are supposed to be this weekend, from the chart I can see that the high tide will be higher than sea level by 2.6 meters (slightly over 8ft). Now that's not wave height, we aren't calling for big waves, that's just water lapping on the shore coming up the beach 8ft more than usual. The fishermen have moved their boats to higher ground, but no one has given us any warnings, and yesterday we fared just fine, so we are not worried.

This is our friend Keith and Beckys house, two years ago when there was an extremely high tide. Usually they park their car in here, and let fishermen use the shade for fixing nets, on this day it was a piscina (swimming pool).

And this is when they not only had high tides, but big waves, 12 foot tall this wave, glad I don't live this close to the ocean! Half the day, everyday this house is over the water, only at low tide is there any beach in front of this house. The fishermen jokingly tell Keith they will install two outboard motors if he doesn't feel safe...everyone here is living their own adventure!

High tides or not, it's another beautiful day on the coast of Ecuador, today will be shell sorting and crafting under our new shade, and probably Happy hour and sunset with friends. Life does NOT suck, so stay tuned...our adventure continues!