I have seen on the news the damage done in San Alejo, San Jacinto and San Clemente from the high tides this past few weeks. We did have some damage on the property next door to where we are staying in Manta. The property facing the ocean was lined with beautiful large palm trees.
First two fell over, then the next high tide 5 more.
It was sad to see such beautiful trees tossed into a truck and hauled away. Mother Nature, what can I say.
Our friends Becky and Keith Williams live on the beach in San Alejo, just a few miles from our home in San Clemente. Keith took some pictures during the aguaje and was kind enough to share with me and is allowing me to share with you. This happened just last week.
From Keith:
Our entire courtyard flooded. I got the car out just after this photo. This occurs every year for 3 days in Feb.. We were not concerned at all. Fabricio designed the wall for this and 27 four-inch drain holes emptied all the water within 3 hours. So, I opened both gates and created a water park for the locals !
At one time 14 kids and adults were hanging on the bars, They held on tight as the huge waves soaked every one of them ! The parents took pictures and thanked us over and over for the fun !
We had about 40 locals watching the huge waves crash over the wall and everyone was so polite and thankful. A downs syndrome child has a great time laying in the new pool ! The water came in faster than the drains could work but, it only lasted a couple of hours. Ecuador is an adventure ! Becky and I loved every minute ! We knew the house was fully safe because it has lasted 42 years of this wave cycle and the storm of the century in 1980.
For several days in a row debris from the water covered the malecon, each day a front end loader cleared the street for traffic.
I have seen where many other coastal towns had damage from the high tides, we were blessed to only have this slight damage.
The paper called it an aguaje with higher than normal tides. The waves were crazy wild and even kept me from walking the beach most days last week.
The fishermen who keep their boat at the end of some of the beaches moved them onto the streets behind to keep them safe. We take our coffee to a spot about a block from our house and sit most mornings enjoying the ocean and fresh air. One day I noticed that the picket fence surrounding the fishermen’s cottage was a bit eroded the next day the fence was gone.
Always worth watching what the locals are doing, that will tell you what is happening in your community.
This morning around 7:45am Eva, Pepita and I were starting out for our walk from the fishermen’s ramada on the beach near my home. We try to time our walks to low tide because most of this area of Clemente has little or no beach at high tide. The surf was pounding so hard that I could hear each crash of the waves from inside our home…high tide was 2:24am – this was not high tide it was very near to low tide – 8:24am – so to hear the waves crashing means that the surf is very high and very strong. The one woman who lives right near the fisherman told Eva that we were having an Aguaje (translated unusually high tide or rough seas). Very few boats were out in the water actually I only saw one fishing boat leaving shore during our entire walk.
Click on the link below to see a short video on youtube of the beach this morning.
This is the aguaje chart for 2013:
http://www.cna-ecuador.com/sector-acuicola/mareas-calendario-aguajes
It looked to be low tide but we were surprised several times on our walk when the waves came so far inland and at one point all three of us were wet almost to our waists when one wave crashed onto our walking area hundreds of feet from where it broke out at sea.
