SOME DAMAGE TO PUERTO LOS CABOS JETTIES FROM HURRICANE STORM SURF

July 15, 2006, Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas, San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

The two recent hurricanes, Bud and Carlotta, only passed as close as 400 to 600 miles from the southern Baja peninsula, which was a very good thing for Puerto Los Cabos under construction at San Jose del Cabo.

On Thursday evening, we saw the highest storm surge from these distant storms, coinciding with the full moon high tides.

Where our fleet of pangas is now located, we noticed the waves coming in from the south and straight through the entrance of the new marina's rock jetties almost as through there was no breakwater at all.

Although the surf was only 6 to 8 feet, it did keep us from launching on Friday and made us pull the boats as far up onto the beach as we could. We almost had to haul the boats away by trailer because the area is now so tight due to the construction that we did not have enough room to really safely store our pangas where we would have felt more comfortable.

The panga fleets just to the north, on the inside part of the jetty were more protected and did not feel the impact as we did.

We are now having to deal with rocks while motoring the pangas up onto the beach. These are drifting in from the jetty work and some of them are up 30 to 40 pounds, enough to definitely split a panga or transmission.

Also the beach right around our palapa had erosion. They still have a lot of rock to add to make the jetty as high as needed. Even though it was built up to the planned 8 meter level, that would not have prevented the swell from coming right through the middle opening as it did during this recent swell.

The San Jose del Cabo marina project plans for another half-moon shaped shorter jetty on the inside. Hopefully that will help. My feeling is that they might need to reconsider their plans and add another rock jetty outside of the opening.

I am sure they will make it work. They have too much invested now not to have it work properly. They are planning to have the marina operational by this fall and they have a lot of work in order to achieve their deadline.

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