"Heavy rainfall will lead to life-threatening flooding and mudslides..."
Hours ago, Hurricane Erick made landfall 100, or so, clicks north of Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Upgraded to a category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometers per hour (127 mph) and gusts reaching 250 kilometers per (155 mph), it is the first to hit Mexico this hurricane season. Forecasters are predicting above-average activity from May to November, guessing that eight to eleven swirling storms will form.
The National Hurricane Center warned, “Heavy rainfall will lead to life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in areas of steep terrain.” Images coming out of the region show swamped streets and bendy trees.
Surfers, of course, best know Puerto Escondido as home of the “Mexican Pipeline.” A ferocious sand-bottomed tube.
Those wanting to visit, once Erick has left town, are advised to purchase a copy of Lonely Planet’s Epic Surf Breaks of the World.
The Puerto Escondido offering begins thusly:
There is likely no better feeling than sitting on a sweltering beachfront patio in Mexico, languid fan spinning overhead, sipping a still cold margarita, salt, rocks, nibbling shrimp tacos garnished with fresh pico de gallo while gallons of saltwater pour all over them from a sunburned nose. So why are my knees pulled to my chest like a frightened little kitty cat right now? Why is my heart pounding so hard that I swear it might leap right out of my throat on that next margarita sip?
The chair underneath me quakes and my senses return. Because this sweltering patio fronts Puerto Escondido and Mexico’s most notorious, dangerous, biggest, famous, superlative wave is just 500 yards away, thundering on the sand. Snapping boards in half, eating grown surfers whole.
I’d come to the Mexican Pipeline, as it’s called, to test myself. To push beyond what had become my comfort zone, namely soft southern California reef breaks, groomed Australian point breaks and warm, shoulder high tropical barrels. Becoming a surf journalist had opened up a world of ease and, as I looked myself square in the mirror one day, was disappointed with the softened visage looking back…
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the Oaxacan Princess
a beautiful and often cruel mistress
Will the storm cross over into Trump’s Gulf of America?
Did ya hear about his new Gold cell phone? The built in coverage map in it had that body of water labeled as should…The Gulf of Mexico.
Grifter In Chief
I’ll never know that body of water as anything other than the Gulf of Mexico
dammit, i’m such a sucker for a book link … thoughts and prayers to the PE locals