Video about enormous waves breaking at the Spanish coast.

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When the sea attacks the coast.

In recent months the northern coast of Spain has been " shaken " five times by towering waves (red alert warnings). Apart from the damage to buildings which in general have been erected too close to the shoreline (not much fun for the people involved), it also offered an unusual spectacle of nature. Red alert is given when waves reach a mean height of about 8 meters, but two of the storms had waves with a mean of 12 meters, which means that occasionally there are waves of more than 22 meters, often arriving  in "wave trains". The following video is a summary of the last storm of March 3. This storm was of a 12 meter waves quality and with a special addition of arriving just when there was a spring tide at the highest point. As a result, the water depth increased by several meters so that also be the big waves could come much closer to the shoreline before breaking, often hitting the limestone  cliffs with full force.

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The bufones of the Asturian coast (Spain)

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As promised in the previous post, the turn is now to the bufones of the Asturian coast. Because of the rain and splashing water of the waves and the bufones, most pictures failed or are of a poor quality, but I think I still have been able to make a reasonable selection. By the way, we went back last weekend with some very spectacular results, especially regarding the Bufones of Pría, but these photos will be addressed in the near future.

The bufones are holes, crevices or even small potholes that are connected to the sea through an extensive cave system which is open towards the sea. When the waves fill the caves the air inside is compressed and violently blown upwards through the fractures with a loud bellowing. So a bufón is a fracture which exhales air with great force and noise. This sound is what has given the name to the bufones because "bufar" means "el resoplar con fuerza del toro ", or "the hard and fierce snorting or bellowing of the bull". When the swell of the sea is great the bufones can be heard miles away, but also during summer and insignificant swell most bufones will blow. The big difference is that if there is a considerable swell, the bufones also expel high fountains of water. A Bufon in action is truly an amazing spectacle, and therefore it is astonishing that outside the province of Asturias it is almost an unknown phenomenon. I live only about 140 kilometers away from the bufones and in my village the bufones are practically unknown.

SLIDESHOW OF PHOTOS OF SCREEN FILLING SIZE.

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Some photos of the Cathedral Cave

The Cathedral Cave.

 

Marius van Heiningen

Introduction.

Within the Cantabrian Mountains there are an awful lot of places which are virtually unknown, especially to tourism. But this aspect is not restricted to the surface of these mountains, below ground there is a very rich subterranean patrimony. The deep caves of Picos de Europa, with depths of over 1500 m and the extensive caves of Cantabria and northern Burgos (eastern Cantabrian Mountains) are world famous in the speleological community. For instance, the Mortillano system, the Gándara system, the Alto Tejuelo system (all in Cantabria) and the Ojo Guareña (Burgos) each have over a hundred kilometrers of galleries. Nevertheless, in the rest of the Cordillera Cantábrica there are lots of less notorious caves and even quite a few which are totally unknown. That some caves keep being unknown to the public, even after they are discovered for the first time, is sometimes due to their incredible vulnerability. Some caves have large amounts of delicate formations which would suffer irreversible damage if they were visited frequently. In this post I will show some photos of the Cathedral Cave, named for the untouched formations and grandiosity of this cave. This cave was discovered some 20 years ago and the pictures are taken some 5 years ago. In all these years we have entered the cave only 4 times, and always with only 2 environmental conscious speleologists. The photos are taken by my speleo companion Julian Benito. To take clear photos in a cave is very difficult, among other reasons because of the great humidity inside the caves and because of the frequent awkward small passages which not invite to bring the most luxurious cameras. So considering I think these photos are quite good. There will be no explanation by the photos because the different cave formations will be treated in other posts, just enjoy the report.

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