Each season of the year has its own rituals and iconic images. In spring, the fields are in bloom. In December, Christmas lights hang from the street lamps, a sight that can be extended to July if we are talking about Vigo. In summer, tourist cars are swallowed by the sea. The last of the three is perhaps the strangest, but it has been the image that has been present in every summer campaign on the Galician coast for several years: vehicles parked on the quays are submerged at high tide, which means that the driver eventually finds them under water.

With almost the entire summer of 2024 ahead of us, there is already at least one case in Galicia.

What about that free parking? This is what some drivers who decide to spend their holidays in Galicia but are not familiar with its coast or its tides sometimes think about. While driving along the coast, they see an empty space near the beach or a restaurant and decide to leave their car there. The problem: if the space is empty, it may be because you cannot park there. And there is probably a very simple reason for this: the rise and fall of the sea. Maybe when you get out of the car, the water will still be low, but as the hours pass, it will rise.

Summer is coming… and fears. It doesn’t happen every day, but it’s not unusual for it to happen to tourists or ignorant neighbors exactly like this: they leave their cars on ramps too close to the sea and when they return, they find that the water has already covered the wheels. The incident happened to a family who parked their car on the port ramp before going to eat at a restaurant in Muros, province of A Coruña, on Sunday. When they left, there were more cars and the square looked ideal. When I returned, the water was almost up to the door handle.

“The water doesn’t rise that high in Murcia”. Voice of Galicia He was able to talk to tourists whose holidays in Muros were ruined by the tide, as well as a family from Murcia, who lamented their fate: “Everything went to hell for us. Now let’s see what happens.” When they arrived in the area, they saw two cars parked even closer to the sea, so they took it easy and braked the car they had rented for the holiday and turned off the engine, says father Álvaro Belando.

“We went out to eat and when we came back we found the cake,” admits Belando, who regrets that tourists from other parts of Spain have not been given more information about the tidal risks. “The water doesn’t rise that much in Murcia. They need to know that we don’t know these areas.”

“He spends every summer with tourists”The Muros Municipal Emergency Group (GES) received the first notification at around three in the afternoon, but took notice of the situation. Newspaper they didn’t have the capacity to pull the vehicle out of the water: “It’s already reaching the gates,” they recall. The GES operator estimated that a crane would be needed to free it, given the height of the sea. The image is interesting but not surprising. The bus itself admits that this is a common occurrence: “This happens every summer to tourists who don’t know they can’t park.”

Is it that common? It comes with looking at the newspaper archives. In 2017, A Pobra agents used a crane to pull out a 4×4 stranded at sea, in 2019, the waters swallowed several cars in Pontevedra in two days, in 2020, neighbors had to rescue a car from Moaña, in 2021, the rising sea was about to claim another victim in Nigrán and in the same area, already in the summer of 2022, the water had immobilized a badly parked Mercedes.

Just a few months ago, the Easter tide had also played tricks on two other tourist cars. And in September 2023, another case was recorded at the As Corbaceiras pier in Pontevedra. The list is by no means exhaustive and could be expanded by other cases registered in Galicia.

“There is no wave rising in Manzanares”. In each case, the “victims” were the same: drivers who did not know or forgot that the tide was going out… but also that it was rising and that now an open pier near a seafood restaurant could become, in just a few hours, a place more than a metre under water. “The tide doesn’t rise in the Manzanares,” a tourist justified this by saying three years ago when he found his Audi half-submerged in Nigrán.

Key, be careful. Although, as the Muros Solar Power Plant admits, almost every summer there are tourists whose holidays are ruined by the tides, it is easy to avoid fears. The main thing is to pay attention, pay close attention to the signs and, if necessary, check online for low and high tides. In fact Voice of Galicia The vehicle that got stuck in Muros on Sunday is reported to be in an area just behind the fence and sign that prohibits anyone from passing except for port activities.

Maximum two per day. Despite this, authorities have been warning drivers for years about the risks of parking on quays and docks. In 2017, there were already agents in the A Pobra area informing citizens about the implications of leaving a car in a place covered by a wave. “There are weeks during the holidays when we have to take two out a day,” they admitted. The victims are mostly tourists, but there are also uninformed neighbors.

Images | Car Rental (Flickr) and Charlotteinaustralia (Flickr)

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