"If you hurry, you can see the laguna open."
It was my landlady. She who has the best information in town.
The telephone call had interrupted my breakfast, but I grabbed my camera and headed off to the main channel of our wetlands.
She was correct. The local authorities had bulldozed a gap in the dunes that separate the ocean from the laguna.
Flushing it was. As if someone had given Mother Nature an over-sized diuretic.
And like a Macy's clearance sale, everything was going. Water. Water hyacinths. Water cabbage. Entire islands of aquatic plants and tule grass.
What I could not see rushing out to sea were all of the animals that refused to let go of their familiar haunts. After all, it was their benefit. It did not matter that there was no future funding.
They did not have to wait to long to be introduced to their future and its cruel realities. All of the flotsam crashed into the waves. Some headed out to sea. But the majority washed up on the shoreline from Barra de Navidad around to Melaque's chicken beach.
Dying plants were mixed with fish, fresh water shrimp, and crabs. Only the crabs were making a successful escape.
There are always tales of brown snakes washing up with the plants. It makes sense. After all, this stuff comes out of a swamp. But I have never seen any. On the other hand, neither have I seen any of the crocodiles swept out to sea, but I know they are there because the young men of the village retrieve them and release them in the laguna.
They did not have to wait to long to be introduced to their future and its cruel realities. All of the flotsam crashed into the waves. Some headed out to sea. But the majority washed up on the shoreline from Barra de Navidad around to Melaque's chicken beach.
Dying plants were mixed with fish, fresh water shrimp, and crabs. Only the crabs were making a successful escape.
There are always tales of brown snakes washing up with the plants. It makes sense. After all, this stuff comes out of a swamp. But I have never seen any. On the other hand, neither have I seen any of the crocodiles swept out to sea, but I know they are there because the young men of the village retrieve them and release them in the laguna.
And now the recriminations will begin.
The laguna needs to be opened to avoid flooding. We have had almost 10 inches of rain since last Saturday. Almost all of it accumulating in our natural flood plain. If the dunes were not breached, streets and houses would be part of the flood plain.
But this is a tourist community. A community that depends on clean beaches to attract visitors willing to part with their pesos -- with all the same economic sensibilities as the village businesses in Jaws.
Unfortunately, it takes more time to clean the beach than it does to release the vegetation. I suspect the word will soon be out asking beach property owners to rake up the vegetation in front of their houses, and volunteers will show up to cart it off.
Time for me to out on my volunteer hat.
I may get to see one of those brown snakes, after all.
The laguna needs to be opened to avoid flooding. We have had almost 10 inches of rain since last Saturday. Almost all of it accumulating in our natural flood plain. If the dunes were not breached, streets and houses would be part of the flood plain.
But this is a tourist community. A community that depends on clean beaches to attract visitors willing to part with their pesos -- with all the same economic sensibilities as the village businesses in Jaws.
Unfortunately, it takes more time to clean the beach than it does to release the vegetation. I suspect the word will soon be out asking beach property owners to rake up the vegetation in front of their houses, and volunteers will show up to cart it off.
Time for me to out on my volunteer hat.
I may get to see one of those brown snakes, after all.
