Huatulco News

This summer season seemed pretty much the same as last year, in terms of the amount of tourist coming to Huatulco. We had the British charter flight from Manchester again as well as the direct flights from Houston, USA. The last two summers have definitely been busier than the previous years and this summer the number of national tourists seems to increase again, after having declined for some years. There is still a steady development going on in Huatulco, with some new projects having started during the summer months.

As far as I know we will still have the same amount of charter flights coming in from Canada and the US, and from the amount of emails I get, I think it will be another busy high season coming up.

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Hurricane Season??

The weather has been remarkable for this hurricane/rainy season of 2007. That's remarkable in a positive sense, the weather has been beautiful and we had practically no effects from tropical storm systems. It has rained very little, which was obviously nice for the sun seekers and tourism in general.

The beginning of June we had Tropical Storm Barbara within a couple of hundred kilometers off the coast and it wasn't until the end of August that we had another one close-by, Tropical Storm Henriette. They only affected us a little bit, Barbara only caused a bit of wind here and Henriette brought us two days with light rain. So far, In the Eastern Pacific Region, we have only had 11 tropical Storms, of which 4 became hurricanes and only 1 became a major hurricane. That was Hurricane Flossie, which reached category 4 status. The first hurricane, Cosme only had hurricane status for 6 hours. The above numbers are well below average. I will publish a full weather report of the hurricane/rainy season soon.

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Swimming the Nine bays

On October 19, Luis, the owner of the "Los Portales" and "Onix" restaurants in La Crucecita, attempted to swim from San Augustin Bay to Conejos Bay, covering the Nine Bays of Huatulco. He had been training for that feat for 3 hours daily, since October last year. He had already swum from Conejos to Santa Cruz and from San Augustin to Santa Cruz on two previous occasions. The effort was supported by the "Asociación Civil Club Sports Tri Huatulco". The event was dedicated to a good cause: to provide breakfast for the 200 school children of the poor mountain community of San Felipe Lachillo, a few hours driving North of Huatulco.

Luis was planning to cover the 22 km/14 miles stretch in approximately 8 hours and the Tourist Delegation of Huatulco had arranged a beach party in Conejos to celebrate his achievement. Unfortunately, as you can see in the photo, the weather was not cooperating and the rough seas forced him to stop his attempt near Cacaluta, after 6 and 1/2 hours of swimming. He is not giving up though, he plans to give it another try in November.

If you would like to support his cause, please contact one of the following people:

Luis Estavillo: losportales_hux@hotmail.com - phone: 958 587 0070
Elva Medina Valles: elvacosmo@yahoo.com.mx - phone: 958 581 0448
Valerie Verhalen: Valerie@PalmPrincessMexico.com - phone: 958 587 2527

USA: Stephen Sardeson: Stephen.Sardeson@Sardeson.org                            TAX DEDUCTIBLE; e-mail for details

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Huatulco Videos

We have been very busy shooting and editing video clips over the summer months. Many are now available on our website (200+). We started off with underwater videos, but many of you have asked for videos of Huatulco "above water". Well, we have been working on that, we still are actually, and we have some 50 video clips available on our website now. If you go the video gallery "Huatulco Above Water", you'll see three sub-galleries: "Bays and Beaches", Driving through Huatulco" and "Other Huatulco Videos". The latter also has some videos of places outside Huatulco, such as the airport and Monte Alban. See our Video Gallery

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Miscellaneous

Hurricane Dean

As every year, the Caribbean side of Mexico and specifically the Yucatan Peninsula, had to cope with a lot more hurricane activity then we did. The biggest hit came from Hurricane Dean, which hit the Yucatan as a category 5 hurricane. It made landfall close to the Belize border, very close to the Mexican city Chetumal, and caused major damage in Mexico as well as in Belize. Cancun, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen were spared major disaster because they are further North. Dean weakened crossing the Yucatan and emerged into the Bay of Campeche, only to strengthen again and make landfall for the second time, only this time as a category 2 hurricane, near Tuxpan in the state of Veracruz.

About a week later Dean was followed by Hurricane Felix, another category 5 hurricane, which course would also bring it to the Yucatan Peninsula. Eventually it turned more South and made landfall in Nicaragua. Dean and Felix were two of the strongest hurricanes ever, as well as two of the very few category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in known history. And all that within two weeks!

Source: www.nhc.noaa.gov 

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Underwater Hotel

Currently under construction in Dubai, Hydropolis is the world's first luxury underwater hotel. It will include three elements: the land station, where guests will be welcomed, the connecting tunnel, which will transport people by train to the main area of the hotel, and the 220 suites within the submarine leisure complex. It is one of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world, covering an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London's Hyde Park. "Hydropolis is not a project; it's a passion," says Joachim Hauser, the developer and designer of the hotel. His futuristic vision is about to take shape 20m/66ft below the surface of the Arabian Gulf, just off the Jumeirah Beach coastline in Dubai. The $600 million, 220-suite hotel is due to open at the end of 2007 and will incorporate a host of innovations that will take it far beyond the original blueprint for an underwater complex worthy of Jules Verne.

Source: www.divenews.com and  www.designbuild-network.com

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Surfing Dolphins

As this astonishing picture shows, this group of at least 20 Bottlenose Dolphins couldn't resist "catching a giant wave" when it came along. The friendly animals often come close to the shore at this spot some 300 miles north of Perth in Western Australia and rub their noses against swimmers and surfers in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. But sometimes the Bottlenose Dolphins that live along the 1,500-mile coastline like to enjoy time off from entertaining the tourists, and do what humans do. It is not the first time a whole group of dolphins has been caught leaping over a wave in such a seemingly choreographed fashion, but wildlife experts say the phenomenon is extremely rare.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk 

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Cenotes and NASA

NASA scientists theorize that the best route to Jupiter and its frigid moon "Europa" runs through an underwater cavern in Mexico. "Clemtine" is a giant orange robot that will explore the microbial mysteries of the El Zacaton cenote. The robot is 8 feet wide and 6 feet tall and weighs 3,300 pounds. A team of scuba divers, engineers, biologists and geochemists are working on this $5 million, three-year Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer (Depthx) project for NASA. NASA experts believe information gathered by the robot will assist them in in their goal of travelling to Jupiter's moon "Europa". The project also tests various underwater robotic vehicles which will play a pivotal role in the exploration of remote places where humans dare not tread...

The El Zacaton cenote is over 350 feet wide and an estimated 1,000 feet deep. Clementine senses changes in temperature, sees shifts in topography using 56 sonar sensors and obtains water samples for further study.

Source: www.courier-journal.com

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Below you see links to some of the news articles on DiveNews.com:

 

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