Alright, Alright. I know I was one of the many people, before becoming a crew member, who thought that all Gualby did was cruise around and just decided not to blog about it or post any pictures. I now am completely on their side. It is sometimes extremely frustrating being detached from the rest of the world. We haven’t been able to pick up ANY internet since leaving Isla Mujeres, which includes stops in Cozumel, Tulum, and our current port in Punta Allen. There is a small room in the back of one of the supermarkets here where you can pay 30 pesos for an hour of internet. Meg and I did this the other day just to check e-mail and look at pics of our new niece Maren. We had to share the room with two young hippies that didn’t smell top notch and smoked cigarettes the whole time and talked loudly in what I believe was French. This is not an ideal atmosphere for web surfing. Anyway, this intro isn’t an excuse, it is just an explanation to anyone who thought I would be posting every few days how difficult it is to get internet for more than a few minutes a day. Now back to the voyage.
We left Isla Mujeres early morning for the 40 mile sail to Cozumel. We had decent winds coming from the SE, but unfortunately we had to run the motors all day because of being caught in a nasty 3-5 knot current. Once I looked out a porthole and would have guessed we were doing at least 8-9 knots, but found out that the current was letting us do only about 3.5. Long story short, it took way longer to get to Cozumel and we didn’t get there until after dark. Cozumel was cool and a lot cleaner than Isla Mujeres. One downfall was how Americanized it was. For an few example: people coming from the airport, only about a mile from where we were docked, came into town in taxis or drove their Audis that they kept on the island, and headed straight for the gigantic two story International Diamond Exchange. It also felt less authentic due to the fact that there was a Ron Jon Surf Shop, a Fat Tuesdays, a McDonalds, Burger King, and even a Taco Bell. Don’t get me wrong, I love Taco Bell, but they can’t hold up to a good street taco at half the price, which I unfortunately didn’t see one vendor while exploring the town.
One very interesting thing that occurred happened when we were just hanging out on the boat with the rest of the Flotilla. There was only one other boat docked in the same bay as us and we saw them dingy into town. They seemed like a nice American couple in their 50s and waved nicely as they went by. After a while they returned to their boat, but instead of taking a straight line to their boat, they looped around the Flotilla, which we found very unusual. We began to notice a large group of Mexicans gathering on the shore right in front of our boats. We didn’t think anything of it at first, but then the husband of the couple took his dingy into shore to meet them. At first we thought maybe he was getting some workers to help with a house he owned somewhere on the island or mainland. However, he came out with a dingy full of half adults and half kids, leaving the others waiting on shore. Within 10 minutes after returning to his boat, they had anchors pulled and were heading out of the bay. Although unlikely, we came to the conclusion that this lovely middle-aged couple might be people runners, bringing children out of Mexico one boatload at a time.
Upon leaving Cozumel, we didn’t get the most favorable winds and again had to motor almost the entire time to get to Tulum. On the way there, Con and Meg hooked a HUGE Black Grouper, which was on the outskirts of a fish sanctuary so we couldn’t keep it. When we arrived we had to maneuver through a reef surrounding the area, which made it hard to get past the breakers, but we managed. There was some great snorkeling in the area, but unfortunately we couldn’t find any conch or lobster. One of the main reason for the Tulum stop was another Mayan ruin right on the coast. These ruins were a lot cooler than Chichen Itza. It was smaller, but didn’t have all the street vendors that we met before. We got there very early and were the first few people allowed in the park. It was a great experience and we had almost the entire place to ourselves before the tour busses came in. I liked it better than Chichen Itza because we had more access to some of the ruins, and with it being on the coast, we were able to walk along the beach and get some great pictures (below).
After Tulum we headed Punta Allen, a small bay with a cool small town closer to our checkout point further south. To represent how small the town is, all the roads were sand with small bungalows lining the streets and a speed limit of 10km/hr. In order to regulate the posted speed limit, speed bumps made of thick rope laid across the road. Also every day the entire town is cut off from electricity from 3:00-5:30, which made it difficult when we tried to get online the other day. You might think that these setbacks would make this port a boring and frustrating one. However, this has been my favorite one so far. While hanging out in town, just exploring the area, the atmosphere was unbelievably quiet and peaceful. The random passer-by would happily smile with a “Hola, Que paso,” which we would kindly respond the same. Surrounding the town, and most of the area, were mangroves spanning deep inland. One day we decided to explore them and found some extraordinary canals all through the mangroves, with some only a few feet wide. That, however didn’t stop local panga boats (which are 20ish feet long a only a few feet wide with a high bow and a crazy local steering the 40 or 50 hp outboard at the back; a large motor canoe) from flying through the mangroves with little notice of who is coming right at them. We almost took one head on until we started screaming and Meg raised her paddle high in the air so it could be seen over his bow. I am now posting this from a restaurant in town, and upon walking into town we found a 9 ft croc sitting in one of the panga boats. We initially thought that someone killed it and brought it aboard their boat. It wasn’t moving until we got a little closer and got a good hiss from the croc in response. We were told that there weren’t any crocs in the mangroves but this definitely proved to be false. This is probably the last Mexico post..Next stop Belize. Will post pics, about to loose battery.
-Mike
