The nightmare of Jova

It took a while, but today we heard from a friend living in Barra de Navidad in the State of Jalisco, about the impact of Hurricane Jova this week.  We're especially fond of Barra and have sailed there  many times over the past ten years, dropping the hook in the popular anchorage. Just before Jova made landfall, I saw a hurricane map that showed Barra squarely in the storm's path and I had wondered all week about my friends there, and my favorite hangouts, like the Sands Hotel where I swam for free in the pool on hot afternoons. Fred sent links to photos and a couple of videos taken by Salvador Cobian during the height of the storm.

Also heavily damaged was Cihuatlan, a small city inland from Barra, on the road to Manzanillo.

My friend Steve posted first-hand reports from Melaque, across the Bahia de Navidad from Barra. His neighbors suffered severe flooding, but even though he lives very close to the beach, Steve stayed more or less dry.

From what I can see, the damage to Barra was at least as bad as what we experienced here in San Carlos when Jimena roared through two years ago. Fred, a British fellow sailor we've known more than a dozen years, tends toward hyperbole, but in this case when he described Jova as "a nightmare," we had no trouble believing him.