It’s been a windy week on the Costa Tropical, thanks to a storm called Ana which hit the area on Monday; termed in Spanish as an explosive-cyclogenesis storm.

With winds around 90 KPH and 3-metre-high waves, the storm earned itself an Orange Alert for winds and a Yellow Alert for rain, Thus Ana was the first storm of Autumn.

It was Playa Granada in Motril that bore the brunt of it because it is the most exposed beach on the Costa Tropical, sticking out as it does, so it is at the mercy of both Poniente and Levante wave action. The result, as always, was the beach disappearing, leaving a large step in the sand near the hotel.

And of course, with this, it was a good bye to the 400,000 euros spent on putting it back together from the previous year’s storms.

In Almuñécar, it was San Cristóbal, Puera del Mar and Cotobro that suffered the most, whilst Playa Velilla and the one in Marina del Este escaped the sea’s wrath.

The conclusion is that the promised breakwaters along the coast acting as storm defences are the only real solution to the yearly attrition, which is what the Estrategia Litoral is all about, starting with the long-suffering Playa Granada.

But until then, with Ana’s tantrum over, we shall just have to get used to beaches taking a leave of absence… on the other hand, we already are, aren’t we!

(News: Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: Still from video)