Isla Mujeres

Isla Mujeres has turned out to be one of our best stops on this long sail from California to Florida. The island is a “relatively” quiet resort town just a ferry ride away from the gaudy hotels of Cancun. There is a bustling “no cars” little street through the middle of town that is lined with shops, bike rentals, restaurants, and bars, and the beaches are crowded with day trippers from the big hotels across the bay. Everyone seems to be having a good time here. Once you get out of the town there are many small resorts and guest houses, more bars, and lively, local restaurants. We found music every night in tropical settings, and we met people who were vacationing here for the 5^th, 6^th, 15^th year in a row. That is pretty impressive that so many people would choose to return multiple times to the same place.

      

Isla Mujeres is also a great place from which to explore the Yucatan peninsula. We rented a car for a trip around the Yucatan and visited the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, Ek Balam and Tulum. All were different, and all were truly impressive in their own way. Chichen Itza was the largest and most complete ruins we had seen in our travels that have included Tikal in Guatemala and Copan in Honduras. We had overnight stays in the towns of Valladolid and Tulum, and we got a chance to visit several of the waterfront towns that we had missed while sailing north. Puerto Morales was a pleasant, quiet, seaside town just north of its more famous neighbor Playa del Carmen. Playa del Carmen and Cancun are much too big to be considered “attractive”, but the tourists sure do like both of those cities.

 

   

We discovered a few favorite bars in Isla including the Soggy Peso and the Bahia Tortuga (we tried several others since we do a lot of comparison shopping in this category). We met the owner of the Soggy Peso (he readily admitted he usurped the name of the famous Soggy Dollar 0n Jost Van Dyke) whose goal was to build a tiki bar in his back yard for his friends and ended up with a crowded, laid back oasis. He served only one item each day (BBQ on Sunday, shrimp tacos on Friday, Cheeseburgers on Monday, etc) along with large drinks and very cold beers, and he was always full. His bartenders and cooks were a big part of the business, and everyone was ALWAYS happy at the Soggy Peso. The Bella Villa Resort got our attention with the sign that said “Beer so cold it will make your teeth hurt”.

 

Isla Mujeres was also the stepping stone for our trip to Cuba (via 707), but check the next blog for a separate narrative of our trip to Havana. The Forbidden Isle is just 120 miles (and a short flight) from Cancun and we jumped at the chance to see Fidel’s little corner of the world while we were this close.

   

Isla Mujeres has much to see and do, but for us the primary purpose was the safe harbor where boats heading towards the US wait for favorable weather before crossing the Gulf of Mexico. Key West is a four day sail, New Orleans about five days, and Houston close to six days sailing. Since the prevailing winds are from the east it is important to take advantage of the gentler winds of May and June for a comfortable (safe) crossing. We got crew (George and Pixie from Silver Sea) to join us in Isla, and we waited patiently until our weather guru said “jump”. On a beautiful, bright morning we sailed out of Isla Mujeres, past the sandy beaches on the north end of the island headed for either Key West or Ft Myers, Florida. We didn’t care. We only wanted to sail to whichever was easiest to get to given the winds and currents. On the morning of the third day we looked good (albeit tired) and we thought Ft Myers would be reachable before dark on the next day. But we hailed a passing sailboat for a weather update and were told that the weather window had closed down early, and that we needed to run for protection from an oncoming blow. We changed course and headed due east for the safety of the Dry Tortugas. We arrived at dark and found our way into the anchorage just as the winds picked up with the approaching front.

 

The Dry Tortugas are two small islands barely above sea level that were home to Ft Jefferson, an old army fort that is most famous for housing Dr. Samuel Mudd who was convicted of treason for setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth after the Lincoln assassination. Other than the restored fort there is nothing there or, rather, there is no there there. We ended up sitting off Ft. Jefferson through five days of 25 to 30 knot winds unable to sail either north to Ft Myers or east to Key West. Even with the winds this was a pretty place to be, and we did get to tour the fort, but we were just bored. We did finally bolt from the Tortugas to Ft. Myers at the first opportunity, and after another overnight sail we are now comfortable and happy here in south Florida. It is sort of like arriving home (even though Florida is certainly not home) because this is the first time the boat has been in the US since we left San Diego back in May 2007. Wow! Has it been that long?

 

Mea Culpa x 2

We spent 6 weeks in California from late Feb to April 1 trying to restock the sailing kitty and all anyone asked about our trip was “What Happened to the Boat? Did it sink?  Can you sail again?”  Seems like I painted a pretty bleak picture of the damage and then forgot to let everyone know that we had finally repaired EVERYTHING. The boat was in great shape minus a few light fixtures that we would purchase in CA and that would be replaced when we returned in April.  Better than great shape because all of the down time while we were having hatches sealed and fiberglass fiberglassed and teak polished had also allowed me to find plenty of time for those small repairs that keep getting put off when either the sun is shining OR the rain is falling. We managed to leave the river in mid-January, and we got four beautiful weeks sailing in Belize before we headed home for tax season.  The boat was flawless, everything working properly, everything ship shape. I guess I should have mentioned that. So the first Mea Culpa is to apologize for not getting everyone up to date with a timely e-mail/blog post way back in January.

The second Mea Culpa is because I did it again… the “left Belize and forgot to write an e-mail” part.  We returned to Belize on April 1 (see note about the “flight” below), spent another sun filled three weeks enjoying Placencia, Yoli’s, Tutti Frutti, the many island cays along the off shore reef, and finally our favorite stop in Belize, Cay Caulker. Most of those stops are noted in the previous blogs from Belize. We just decided that the pace and the place wanted us to visit all of them again.  I am writing this note in Mexico on the Isla Mujeres near Cancun where we just finished a three day passage north from Belize.

Our early April flight from the US was to Cancun, Mexico because (a) it was cheap and (b) it would give us a chance to check out Isla Mujeres by land before we sailed there on the way to Florida.  Good stop.  Isla is a tourist island that is a little less overwhelming than the rows of hotels in Cancun.  Only a few streets, small hotels, good restaurants and bars and several welcoming marinas where we can leave the boat while we explore inland. During our first short visit we enjoyed good Mexican food, mariachis, margaritas, etc.  Just like home. If you get a chance to vacation in Mexico I will highly recommend Isla Mujeres as a destination.

We had planned to save a buck as well as add to the adventure by taking the overnight bus from Cancun to Belize City and then flying on to Placencia where we had left the boat for five weeks. The question was raised (over cocktails) whether we really wanted to spend all night on a Mexican bus (albeit a nice Mexican bus) that would leave Cancun at 10 PM and arrive Belize City at 6 AM.  All things considered we quickly answered “no”. But we were in luck.  Tropic Air (a Belize airline) had recently instituted a new flight service from Cancun to Belize City.  One flight a day, small plane, a lot faster.  The next morning we tried to make a reservation for the afternoon flight but for some reason no reservations could be made less than 24 hours in advance. Persistence, I said. We’ll simply go to the airport and “hope” we can get on the flight which would leave in about two hours. We checked out of the hotel, caught the ferry from Mujeres to Cancun, cab to the bus station, bus to the airport, and arrived with about a half hour to spare.  Yes, we could fly, the plane is landing now, better hurry is what we heard.  Of course “no credit cards can be accepted.  Do you have cash?”  Hmm.  What have we gotten into? 

Now the good part.  The service was spectacular.  The Tropic Air agent, who we had to track down while he was on his break (one flight a day and he gets a break?) sold us a ticket, hand carried our passports to immigration, loaded our bags in the screener, carried the bags to the plane, and then directed the plane to the runway with frantic hand signals. He was a one-man ground crew so no wonder he needed a break. Also… we were the only passengers on the flight.  Pilot, co-pilot, Tom, Andrea. No one else.  Strictly first class even though we had to sit on separate sides of the plane to balance the load. I said it was a small plane. Good luck, good flight, good  experience.

 

  

The boat had weathered the shorter storage period much better than the last misadventure, and we were off the dock and sailing in less than 24 hours. Friends were located via radio and another sailing season was underway for Mañana. We were reluctant to leave Belize, but moving north this spring was our goal, so we meandered our way through Belize from Placencia to Cay Caulker. Then we sailed out of Cay Caulker one morning at 6 Am to catch a good weather window for the 240 mile sail to Isla Mujeres.  If 240 miles doesn’t seem like a lot remember that we “try” to average  5 miles per hour sailing.  That’s about the speed of a slow bike trip. Despite our watching all of the weather reports available to us we still got hit with some pretty heavy weather early in the trip with 6 foot seas, 20 knot winds, and breaking waves on bow.  Also, our previously perfect boat had a minor malfunction when the autopilot just up and died meaning we would hand steer the entire trip and get much less rest during the night. But when the winds settled down so did the seas and we had a pleasant night and a gorgeous second day before reaching a small anchorage near Cozumel, Mexico.  We stopped, rested and the next day we sailed the final 7 hours in strong winds tacking our way to Isla Mujeres.  It is still our first day here, but the anchorage is both lively and well protected. There are many sail boats anchored here waiting to depart for ports both north and south. There is also the tremendous hustle and bustle of Easter week vacationers on the sightseeing and snorkeling tour boats going back and forth through the harbor. It is a big week in Mexico and we are happy to be here. We will stop here for at least two weeks to explore the area and rest for the much longer sail to Florida. Now if we can only find a new autopilot for that trip we’ll be really happy.

 

  

 

Tom and Andrea

 

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Where’s Tom?

I don’t want anyone to think that our sailing adventures each year are anything but idyllic cruises through tropical waters, paradise on the seas. On the other hand we have had some periodic setbacks on what is now a seven year trip from San Diego through Central America to Panama, the canal transit, and then an adventurous sail north through the Columbian islands, Honduras, Belize and Guatemala. It’s been a great trip, however I will admit that right now we are in the middle of one of those “setbacks”. This is not the cruise from hell because so far we haven’t been able to cruise anywhere… yet.

The trip started benignly enough with a red-eye into Guatemala the first week in December. If you look back in the blog you will find that I “swore” we would never do another red-eye to anywhere, but we forgot. We were dead tired when we reached Guatemala City and still had a long bus ride ahead of us. We were sitting in the bus station waiting for the overland portion of the trip, when a guy walks through the city bus terminal with his three goats. We thought it was good fortune smiling on us when we realized he was not looking for our bus, but five hours and a short boat ride later we were back aboard Mañana to discover what happens when good fortune is not smiling.

Over the summer we had sprung a small leak in one of the hatches over our berth. In this country a small leak means a lot of water (it rains about 350 inches per year). Some time during the 200 inches of rain they had from June to November we had accumulated about 30 gallons of water in the port hull of our catamaran. The damage was stupefying. The water had first accumulated on our bunk destroying the mattress, and then it soaked into the woodwork at both ends of the bed and into the side wall liner and the overhead. I won’t even mention the condition of the floor. It was total destruction, wood rot, black mold, mildew. Water also seeped into the cabinets under the bed and rotted all of the clothing and linens stored there. Finally, it appears that a repetitive process of evaporation during warm spells and condensation during cool spells had spread water vapor throughout the hull that eventually buckled all of the wood veneer and destroyed any cushions that had not been under the leak itself. We were floored. The hull was uninhabitable and would require a lot of repair work.

 

But it’s a boat. It happens. The repair process got off to a good start, and we are fortunate to be in a place where labor is cheap and workmanship is good. Cushions have already been made to replace those in the port hull as well as the cockpit/salon cushions that had also been stored in that hull. As a bonus we are replacing all of the cushions in the starboard hull so that they will match, and from that point of view the boat will be better than ever. But no wood veneer is available in Guatemala so after a week long drying out process we opted to fiberglass the interior of the port hull rather than replace the wood. We got a good price, promises of fast work, and started tearing out the old, in with the new, and away we go! Fixed in no time at all…  

But this is Christmas week (ho-ho-ho) so while we thought we would be sailing by the first week of January we had not counted on the 5 days off in each week for both Christmas and New Year’s. My workers put in 2 days in the past 12. So far all of the work seems to have involved fiberglass, in particular fiberglass grinding and fiberglass resins. There is dust everywhere (try to expand your concept of “everywhere” when considering this) and enough intoxicating resin fumes to hold a psychedelic party. The woodwork repairs to the cabinets will come next. In the meantime we are trying to live completely in one hull along with all of our gear, new cushions, clothes bins, anchors, etc. Crowded is the word that comes to mind. Since work is now scheduled to run to “at least” January 15 my first mate has abandoned ship, though I can hardly blame her, and I am a solo sailor…so to speak. Andrea was scheduled to fly home for four days in late January to get some accounting work done for the farm so she went early, plans to stay late, and will let the captain deal with the mess by himself for the two weeks. Still the repairs went well if a bit slowly.

I watched the work, polished the boat, read, socialized, had lunches on the river and dinners at the marina, and generally did nothing each day in a very tropical setting. There are worse ways to spend the time. Howler monkeys great me each morning, last night we had an large anteater in a tree right outside the bar, and our resident heron spent the day wrestling with a small snake. The snake was clever enough to wrap itself around the heron’s beak every time the big bird tried to swallow it, and the entertainment lasted for quite a while. The boat is stern to the wide river and each evening the fishermen set their nets across the river starting just behind the boat and then collect them again in the early AM. Morning coffee has me watching other boats move along the river headed out to Honduras and Belize and points further along. It’s a good life, but I’d rather be sailing.

Life is Good

We are nearing the end of another great vacation aboard Mañana , and our plans changed almost daily depending on where the wind was blowing and what we saw that we liked.  Our planned passage for late spring to Mexico and the US never materialized as we lingered in Belize longer than expected.  When we had to make a decision to go north to FL or back to the Rio Andrea and I both opted for another summer in the river so we could return Belize next year.  “Planning” like this is part of the reason it has now taken us 6 years to move the boat from CA to Guatemala, a trip that could be accomplished easily, albeit quickly, in a single year.

 

After leaving Placencia we moved north toward Cay Caulker and San Pedro, Ambergris in a series of day sails from one small cay to another.  Wippari was great snorkeling, Sapodilla was a social stop, St George’s was a spectacularly beautiful anchorage, and Colson Cay was a reminder that not all is perfect in paradise. While seeking protection from some mild east winds we anchored in the lee of Colson Cay. Beautiful. But at 10 PM the winds kicked up from the west, and we were completely exposed to wind and fetch. When the “breeze” hit 35 knots our anchor moved but did not reset. We were dragging fast. We picked up the anchor, moved forward, and dropped again… and again… and again. The third try hooked us, but the rest of the night was a sleepless anchor watch just waiting to move again.  I have often said that the only differences between RV’ing and cruising is that boats stop in much nicer places, but at least the RV stays where you put it. Colson was not our only bad night on this trip.  A few weeks later we anchored again in Placencia Harbor and got hit with wind gusts to 48 knots, but there the thick muddy bottom held our anchor securely and except for our personal anxiety the boat was perfectly happy.

 

 

Cay Caulker!! This island town is a Belizean treat not to be missed if you visit this country.  It is one of the larger cays and is located right on the outer reef making it a popular stop for young tourists looking for beaches, sun, surf, diving and snorkeling. The entire town is comprised of sand streets with nothing larger than a golf cart for transportation. Funky bars and restaurants with sand floors and rustic furniture line the main street which parallels the beach.  Pick a spot and enjoy cool ocean breezes underneath thatched roofs, a nice cold drink, fresh conch ceviche and spectacular water views. Our favorite bars were Pat and Stell’s run by a local couple and the Barrier Reef Sports Bar, but the Lazy Lizard was the spot to watch the European sun bathers. One afternoon the Sports Bar featured a “jam session” for local and visiting musicians and we were treated to one of the most memorable singing performances I can remember (Willie included).  A young fellow entertained us with vocals of several blues, reggae and rock songs before bringing the house down with a fantastic performance of “Oh, Darling” made popular by the Beatles. Turns out he was one of the owners of the bar and had performed with several participants in the jam session which accounted for music and vocals meshing so well. We found several restaurants in Cay Caulker that would be popular anywhere in the world given the food, the price and the ambience, but then again “the ambience” is the Cay. Fry jacks for breakfast, tacos and ceviche for lunch, fresh fish for dinner… ah-h-h the good life.

 

While in Cay Caulker we did take a day long snorkel adventure to the reef and into the Hol Chan Park reserve (Hol Chan means “little channel” and refers to the narrow channel that passes through the reef at that point). Though we have our own boat and the means to explore the snorkeling reefs by ourselves we have often found that the tour guides do know the best spots for both coral and sea life. Cay Caulker was no exception. We got a six person tour that included swimming with many nurse sharks, rays, giant turtles, huge schools of large Amberjacks, and at the end, a manatee. Our first stop was a conch cleaning site on the reef where the fishermen bring their conch catch for cleaning, disposing of “spare parts” overboard. I jumped into the water to find the bottom littered with thousands of conch shells, and the first attention getting sight of sea life that I had was four giant rays with 4 to 5 foot wing spans swimming directly at me.  They were followed by sea turtles with heads larger than mine, and both the rays and turtles were feeding on the conch parts being thrown overboard by the fishermen. If I had been on my own I might have decided that I was swimming somewhere that I shouldn’t be, but because the guide had brought us here I felt a lot more confident. Our second stop was in the park reserve where the guide coaxed a moray eel out of his cave.  The eel extended 3 feet out of the rocks before retreating from all of the attention. Another stop involved swimming with 20 to 30 nurse sharks and multiple rays in the ominously named ‘Shark Ray Alley’.  The guide attracted both sharks and rays by throwing sardines into the water, and while sharks and rays were feeding on one side of the boat we jumped in on the other. I managed to get a hand out(and back) touching several rays, turtles and even the sharks. The final stop was to find a manatee. These shy sea elephants only surface occasionally submerging for 20 to 30 minutes at a time to dine on sea grasses. We found our manatee, but after a quick underwater encounter with the 700 pound creature, he/she moved away from our boat. French Angel Tours is our recommendation if you get to Cay Caulker (they also showed us tiny seahorses,schools of tarpon, beautiful coral reefs, and many, many other schools of fish) .

      

After the laid back attitude of Cay Caulker, San Pedro on Ambergris Cay seemed like a chaotic, big town even though you could amble down the middle of the street occasionally dodging the many golf carts and small cars. I guess it was the paved road that gave it the big town feel.  Still, San Pedro is another fun filled Caribbean town catering to the water oriented tourist. We left the boat in Cay Caulker while we took the day long trip via fast ferry to San Pedro where we sampled the restaurants, explored waterfront bars, and walked the long, long beach at Ambergris Cay. One “character” we met was a restaurant owner who had moved to Ambergris almost 30 years ago when he arrived with a rock band and never left.  On the walls of the bar pictures of the band attested to a much younger, healthier, but hardly happier man, and he entertained us for quite some time with his stories about Ambergris in the old days.

   

    

As I write this installment for our blog, we are once again in the Rio Dulce river in Guatemala. We will leave tomorrow for a bus ride to San Pedro Sula, Honduras and then a multi-stop flight home.  Did I mention that San Pedro Sula is the murder capital of Latin America? Well, Andrea wanted a little more adventure, and since we hadn’t seen any pirates on this trip…  This is our second visit to the Rio, and we will leave our boat here until late fall.  This area of the Caribbean suffers from way too much heat in the summers as well as the threat of hurricanes so we are very happy to spend the warm months back in CA. Today, for example, the morning temperature was 84 degrees with 96% humidity at 7AM.  That’s not nice and much too hot for a couple of displaced Californians. 

   

Best to all,

 

Tom and Andrea