El Norte

The Gulf Coast of the Yucatan is experiencing a periodic winter phenomenon known as "El Norte," cold winds and water that swoop down from Texas. My first reaction to hearing of this was some variation of "yeah, right," but now that I am spending a night alone in a house with waves crashing on its seawall, a few feet from where I am writing, I begin to understand why some local people dread the Norte.

Chicxulub is in the tropics, but the temperature has dropped into the low sixties, the winds right now howling so that I have actually closed the doors and windows rather than go in search of a sweater. (On the advice of the property manager, I brought one. Ohio Valley friends, try not to laugh.) No moon is visible because of the cloud cover, but the white crests of the waves are nearly luminescent as they throw themselves against the shore and the breakwater. The Gulf tonight is not the gentle body of water I remember from Florida.

We are not having a hurricane, and none are on the way, but winter is here.