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It’s off to Mexico
The passage:
We set off for Isla Mujeres on Tuesday the 7th with 3 other boats from the anchorage. Leaving Cay Caulker at 9:00am our plan was to sail for 48 hours the 240 miles to arrive in the morning of the 9th. Out through Long Cay pass we went finding it quite rough with seas bigger than expected, the predicted calmer weather was not yet a reality.
I resolved myself to just sitting in the cockpit and hanging on, as long as I don’t get ill I am reasonably happily but bored. However this boredom soon turned into action stations. Both fishing rods were ziggggiiinnngggg!!!! OMG so we had rough seas of up to 8 foot two rods going, we are sailing at a good 6+ knots, Chico is going stir crazy as he thinks of the taste of fresh fish.
So, I take the wheel, head up 10, then 20, then 30 degrees to slow us down. This of course means we 
bounce about even more. Plus I hang on the Chico by his harness to stop him from launching him self at the rods too. John is at the stern trying to reel in the biggest fish. It fights him as he slips about on the wet deck, finally settling himself next to the cockpit to try and launch the fish, but then the 2 lines have crossed! Now the real problem is how to untangle the 2 lines while the fish fight to be free. John recruits me to, hold the rod with the biggest fish while it fights, while managing the wheel and Chico in the other hand. Let me just state……this was not easy!
However I managed and John managed to untangle the lines/rods plus get the smaller Mahi Mahi on the deck. He placed it in our large cooler while he came to rescue me, but the fish managed to jump out and flip the cooler. So back he went, killed the fish on the deck and secured it. Finally John took over the rod from me and landed the large bull Mahi Mahi. I got the boat back on course and up to speed while still wrestling Chico. John managed to kill and gut the fish, but as he was by this time sliding around in the blood bath on the stern. He stabbed his foot and got covered in his own blood and fish blood. He was exhausted afterwards and had to rinse off at the stern. That was a great distraction from the rough seas.
The rest of the passage was incredible; we sped along at a record-breaking speed, up to 10 Knots. The result was we arrived in Isla Mujeres at 5:00pm February 8th, we had travelled 247.9 nautical miles in 32 hours average speed of 7.6 knots for us it was just incredible. The other boats, 2 of which left at 7:00 am 2 hours ahead of us pulled in around 8:00pm. Our friends on Mekaia arrived the next day close to noon; they had stopped over night to rest at Isla Cozumel.
Checking into Isla Mujeres:
WOW what an ordeal, check in was an all day event. We arrived around 10:00am and sort of finished at 4:00pm, no lunch, many photo copies and trips to the bank later.
1st we went to Port Captain, who informed us we needed 5 copies of everything, all paperwork, passports and boat papers. Off we go then back to find he never gave us the crew list to fill out and copy, off to photocopy again. Then saw a health personal that check our temperatures, asked questions and stated we should have had the boat “sprayed” in Belize for bugs..??? Off to pay at bank, then it’s back to Port Captain, then off to immigration, off to bank back to Immigration, off to Port Captain to see Customs and another department of health, more paperwork, off to bank back to Port Captain on and on!! Plus that was not the end of it we still had 5 days to go to Cancun to purchase a temporary boat import license.
Cancun
We headed to Cancun two days later with Jack and Christine off of Mekaia to do the boat import. Arriving there after waiting a while we were informed we needed copies of everything all over again, just crazy, plus they all had to be a certain size, AND we needed the serial numbers of our engines! Well long story short: we made up the serial numbers, got a taxi to the closest photo copy place, back to the import office and finally managed the final step just taking a morning to do so.
Off to find the shops we then headed. After getting a taxi into downtown Cancun we wandered the streets basically getting lost. Lunch was next, we went into a small Mexican restaurant and had a wonderful Mexican lunch which we all enjoyed. After which we got a taxi to Plaza Los Americanos. This turned out to be a huge mall. Jack and Christine set off one direction and John and I another, meeting up later. It was quite confusing after not having seen any real civilization for months, in fact John and I found the stimulation quite exhausting.
Isla Mujeres
Is a lovely island. It is far more developed than anywhere we have been recently, but at the same time it is still quaint and has an atmosphere of its own. Being a tourist destination the fast ferries arrive all day bringing and taking tourists back and forth to the mainland.
The buildings are colourful and attractive in the true Mexican style. The Mexican food is excellent! The prices are wonderfully inexpensive. There are 20 pesos to the $, a meal and drinks is usually around $10 – $15 US$.
We are anchored in the anchorage, where the water is turquoise and clear, but chilly. The town is across from us and so it is easy to access. The town lies on the northeastern side of Isla Mujeres. We have enjoyed roaming the colourful streets and looking at all the wares for sale. The grocery store is a treat!
The western shore is wonderful, having a long stretch of boardwalk, which makes for wonderful walking. The views over the rocky shoreline are beautiful. At the northern end is a wonderful shelter beach and a long palm lined, sandy beach with calm shallow waters perfect for a relaxing day at the beach. (As long as you don’t mind sharing with all the other tourists).
Graveyard
The little graveyard that is hidden in El Centro/Downtown Isla Mujeres is a delight to visit and wander around.
The graves are actually shrines commemorating the dearly departed, each tells a different story. The pirate and slave trader Fermin Mundaca de Marechaja ‘s grave is found there. However it took us two visits to locate the gravesite.
Cancun again
We visited Cancun again. The main attraction this time was the shops. We caught the fast ferry over and then visited a Wall mart – same as any, but very inexpensive, and then The Plaza Los Americanos. As mentioned this is a huge mall where there is an over-whelming amount of shops of any type needed, but not as inexpensive as in regular shops. We enjoyed strolling around getting a commercial fix the highlight was the grocery store.
The lagoon, Laguna Makax,
We volunteered to watch our friend Jack and Christine’s boat Mekaia while they were visiting friends. We were both anchored in the main anchorage, which is very pretty but notorious for dragging anchor. After only a few days of watching Mekaia she dragged. We were both below deck when we received this call on the radio, “The boat Mekaia is dragging into your bow!!” Well it was action stations, I had the wheel of Aeeshah avoiding Mekaias stern as she dragged down on our bow. John was in the dingy over to Mekaia, onboard and starting her engine, 5 other dinghies with fellows from other boats came to help too. So all turned out ok, her 2 anchors were reset, we were all ok, but it was very stressful, with winds blowing 30 plus, rough water and Mekaia misbehaving.
2 days later more bad weather was expected, this time we moved both boats and re-anchored both boats in the lagoon, which is totally protected. It was a fortunate we did as when the northerly came through we could hear on the VHF all these boats in the anchorage dragging and needing help, one ended up aground having also hit 3 boats.
The lagoon is perfectly enclosed by mangroves, not the prettiest of anchorages, but protected. We have now visited the anchorage in the lagoon 3 times for the northers that keep blowing through. From the anchorage we can get ashore at Oscars, which is a very nice restaurant, plus we can use their free wifi and have enjoyed several evening get togethers with other cruisers.
Punta Sur/South Point and Templo Maya
After getting a taxi to the Lighthouse we explored the South Point and Maya temple located there. The views from the cliffs above the South Point are stunning. The colours of the sea are just unbelievable. All along the point are pathways, they follow the top and then trail down under the cliff and follow the shoreline in each direction. We enjoyed walking along looking out over the water. There were iguanas sunning themselves on many of the rocks of the over hanging cliffs.
The Maya Temple is very small, built there as it faces east and so being the point to get the 1st rays of the sun light in the morning.
John and I walked back to the boat. We jumped the wall next to the lighthouse and followed a pathway along the cliff top towards the western end. The walk was wonderful along the cliff tops and then the shoreline. However it was also very hot. Again there were iguanas all over the rocks sunning themselves. We walked a good 2 miles and then cut across the island back to the dingy. A great walk, but oh so hot.
Isla Mujeres Carnival
It just so happened the carnival was happening while we were in Isla Mujeres. A large stage was set up in El Centro and one day while wandering to the store we saw the children practicing on the stage. So it was decided that a group of us would attend the evening performance. We arrived for the 8:00 pm start chose our table and get our food and drinks from the many stands set up around the square.
Well the performance actually started at 9:00ish. The 1st act was quite an odd one as it consisted of many quite large ladies in glistening, bright costumes doing a sort of jig and waving their arms to music. The second act was the children dancing and from there on there were different groups of dancers many of which were very good. The best act to me was a man who had multiple silver hooler-hoops he was spinning at a terrific speed from all parts of his body while he stood in all sorts of poses and did some amazing jumps while still spinning. We all had a fun night.
Hacienda Mundaca
This is the house that the pirate Fermin Mundaca de Marechaja built for the girl he loved. The story goes: For many years he plied the seas from Cuba to Africa with human cargo getting rich at the expense of others. When the British Navy made his piracy and slave trading no longer easy he furled his sails and settled in Isla Mujeres.
He saw a beautiful 18-year-old young woman called La Triguena and fell in love. He built a whimsical hacienda with exotic gardens, entered by arches carved with her name. She however loved and married a local fisherman.
Fermin Mundaca de Marechaja went slowly insane due to “love’s labour lost” We went with Jack and Christine one day to visit the hacienda. It must have been very nice in its prime, but now is just a sad ruins of what was once there.
“The essence of wisdom is to see that there is always a solution once you realize that the mind, which seems to create so much suffering, has infinite potential to create fulfillment instead.” – Deepak Chopra
“The great thing to remember is we can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough.” – Katherine Mansfield
