Isla Mujeres: Day 2 - South end

Here is a shot of the dock we got at the resort. It is normally reserved for mega yachts, but it was the only slip they had, so we got lucky!

Jan, Minnie and I went on a long walk around the southern part of the island today.

There were iguanas everywhere. I even saw one fall out of a tree (haha). This particular guy was huge.

First stop was at the turtle farm. It was on the water and had a beautiful beach.

There were little baby sea turtles,

and some sort of albino sea turtle,

crustaceans,

kabuto,

more crustaceans,

sea horses,

Bart Simpson fish,

and starfish.

I asked this guy to smile for a picture, but he was a little crabby.

This stingray came out of nowhere in the crab aquarium. I thought he was just the ground.

Here is a really ugly rock fish with a beautiful lion fish behind him. Lion fish are highly toxic and have invaded the caribbean waters. They have no predators in this area and are eating up all the local game fish. Authorities are trying to kill them all.

There were a few big turtle tanks outside as well.

This guy would allow you to swim with his nurse shark for money. I might have to do that!

We went for lunch at Captain Dulches, which was unbelievable.

You could choose to sit on the beach and have your food and drinks delivered there.

The bar was converted from an old gaff-rigged sailboat. As sailors, we obviously chose to sit near it.

Still a great view of the beach though!

Fish tacos for lunch washed down with a margarhita.

They had a bunch of pet Macaws on the path to the restaurant (look in the trees).

A Jamaican bar called The Joint. I could not resist taking a picture of it.

A really nice view of Garrafon Park. They had snorkeling, ziplines, beach beds, hammocks, etc.

This was at the most southern point of the island.

Another restaurant/bar with a great view.

Isla Mujeres = "Island of Women"

And our final stop for the day was a house that was shaped like a giant conch shell, Casa Caracol. You can rent it for $1,200 a week.

lsla Mujeres: Day 1 - Arrival

February 24, 2013

Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean (Part 4)

I took watch at 6am this morning, Minnie warned me about some big sketchy cargo ship that kept changing course aft of us when we switched off. A half our later it was 400 feet to our starboard and leeward of us. I started getting worried and had to do an evasive maneuver to avoid potential collision.

We arrived in the Isla Mujeres harbour at about 10am and could not get ahold of the marina to find a slip. We had to anchor in front of the marina, which proved to be much more difficult than we thought. We must have tried a dozen times, and our anchor just wouldn't catch. Oddly, the wind was blowing our STERN to wind. Normally your boat naturally goes head to wind, but this boat goes stern to wind...? We were finally able to find a decent sand bottom to drop our anchor without it dragging.

Gary and Jan took the dinghy to land and found us a nice slip (at a really nice marina resort with a pool and everything).

We had some arrival drinks and then dinghy'd to a lobster fisherman we saw on the way in to find some shellfish, octopus, and other fish to fry up for lunch.

The place seemed pretty sketchy, so we decided to just go out for lunch.

We scooted around in the dinghy and found a small restaurant not too far.

They had a "shark pit" in the water that had captured reef sharks in it.

We had some Mexican Margaritas and rum punches,

and some food. I had grilled grouper, and we all shared nachos. They gave us some complimentary tortillas with it.

Oddly, they were playing Katy Perry and Kei$ha when we arrived, but then switched to more 'islandy music'.

It feels good to be here. I am looking forward to a shower!

Minnie and I went for a walk in the evening, Gary and Jan were tired and stayed back. We walked along the Playa del Norte (North Beach) and it was beautiful. They had cabanas, beach beds, hammocks, and massage tables everywhere. The sand went right up to and in the beach-side tiki bars. I might rent a hammock ($2/day) and just spend an entire day in it.

We also walked to el centro (downtown), which was a really narrow street that had hundreds of little shops and restaurants on both sides with tables spilling out into the street. The restaurants also all had little samples out front for you to taste.

Sorry Bermuda, but I think Isla Mujeres is my new favourite island. It is the perfect mix of island life and mainland Mexico.

Florida to Isla Mujeres: Day 4 - Dolphins!

February 23, 2013

Sailing Across the Pacific (Part 3)

My 3am - 6am watch this morning was fantastic. There were no clouds in the sky and a good 80% moon all night. It was beautiful.

We are about 140 nautical miles from Isla Mujeres as I write this (3:30am), so we should be arriving at some point in the next 24 hours!

Dolphins! We had a huge pod of dolphins swim alongside our boat today! I got some great footage, but my camera ran out of batteries before they left. I was belly-down on the bow, swallowing water, with my arm over the side for like 10 minutes to get underwater shots of them and didn't realize the camera had run out of batteries already. Next time we see dolphins, I'll immediately go for the underwater shot.

I put the fishing line out at 6:30am and had it out all day. Something big bit on to my first lure and ripped the line right off my fishing rod in an instant. I put another lure on and let it trail all day, but no bites.

The wind and sea conditions picked up a bit today as we rounded the edge of Cuba and no longer had its protection from the open sea. It was sunny with 15-20 knot winds all day and about 4 foot swells. Pretty nice sailing!

Florida to Isla Mujeres: Day 3 - Cuba

February 22, 2013

I ended up taking Gary's shift last night so he could be well-rested today and spend the day working on the alternator to fix our battery recharging problem. It was a long, six hour shift but getting that long nap in beforehand really helped.

I woke up after just one hour of sleep and felt pretty rested. I didn't want to sleep too much as I will need another evening nap to get me through my 3am - 6am watch tonight.

We were finally able to put the sails up today! We have both a full main and full jib going with about 12 knots of wind on the beam. The seas are reasonably calm too, which makes perfect sailing weather.

We are coming up on the North-West coast of Cuba and it should come into sight later today. We are trying to get as much south as possible in the next 24 hours as we are expecting a strong south-easterly wind coming around the edge of cuba and would rather have that hit aft of us.

We put a fishing rod out in the afternoon, but didn't catch anything. I figure we are too deep and it was the wrong time of day. I will try again early tomorrow morning after my watch.

We saw a few adult Japanese Man-o-War float by, followed by thousands of tiny baby ones. They are all very toxic, so it would be a bad time too go swimming. They look like jellyfish with mohawks.

In the evening, we cranked some tunes and had some beers (not the person at helm though). It was a good day.

Florida to Isla Mujeres: Day 2 - Keys

February 21, 2013

Today was a beautiful sunny day. I got my first real sun tan going on (a week after arriving in Florida...).

Goodbye Miami!

The seas were calm and wind was rather low, so we just motored again all day. Other than not being able to raise sails, it was a really nice day at sea.

We slowly passed by the Florida Keys all day and were considering a stop in Key West to refuel, but decided against it as we still had a fair amount and wanted to beat some mildly rough weather coming in.

We tried putting up the new whisker pole today when running downwind. The winds were light at about 6 knots, so we thought it was a good time to try it out. The first time we put out the pole, we found the jib sheet would rub against the lifelines, and we couldn't get the jib all the way out. So we took it all down and ran the jib sheet under the lifelines, which helped a bit, but we were still unable to get the jib all the way out. Hopefully we can figure out this whisker pole by the end of the trip.

Another scare, our main battery is showing 11.5 volts (instead of 12 volts) for some reason. We have been motoring since we left, so there should be no drainage on the battery. I hope this problem fixes itself through FM as well. I am about to lie down for as much sleep as I can get though (6pm) and leave the problem to the other guys. I have two brutal night watches tonight and tomorrow, so I figure I'd try to shift my sleeping schedule.

Florida to Isla Mujeres: Day 1

February 20, 2013

Sailing Across the Pacific (Part 2)

After another weather delay getting out, we finally left the dock at around 1500 hours.

We went for a nice walk along the beach while waiting for our window to leave. We had a late breakfast at a beachside restaurant before heading back.

We had to perform a pretty wild maneuver to get out as all the mega yachts were blocking or path (and you don't want to hit one of those). There was a good last minute scare as we set up the anchor windlass "just in case" we lost control of the boat. The windlass had no power, and this would mean an extra day at the marina to fix it, but miraculously, after a few tries to get it going, it suddenly started working through FM (freakin magic). Yay!

We had a good 2 mile trip down the Intracoastal Waterway before hitting the ocean and there was a ton of boat traffic. We just missed the opening of the 17th Street bridge and had to motor around waiting for it to open again in a half hour.

The Intercoastal Waterway is a really difficult canal to navigate, with all the boat traffic and shoals everywhere. I am surprised more people don't run aground or collide.

We finally made it out to sea after blasting through the rough current at the mouth of the waterway. The seas were a bit rough the first night and winds weren't too strong, so we just motored the whole day. Jan got really sick, but the rest of us seemed okay.