Isla Mujeres
24 March 2010
Mexico
Excusme is still anchored at Isla Mujeres, just off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. We had a fantastic visit with my sister, Michelle, her husband Leo and their four children. I would have thought I would have lots of great photos but the kids were in constant motion. Pool, sand beach, ocean and then repeat all day long. Kathleen who just turned seven had an early birthday present of swimming with the dolphins. Ben, Liam, and Micah were a continual source of amusement to many. As they are identical triplets (Scott still has no idea how to tell them apart) the locals had fun telling us jokes about how fertile the parents were and offering us 3 for 1 drinks rather than the normal 2 for 1. We had them to the boat at the marina for a BBQ dinner and although the kids are well behaved we were very glad that they had their own accommodations on the beach. It was like a small beach vacation for Scott and I as well as most days we would join them at the beach and enjoy the complimentary loungers. We babysat one night at their hotel and we watched movies. Their dad recommended the old comedy Invasion of Mars which we watched until all four were convinced they we going to have nightmares. We quickly switched to a Disney movie and cookies and all had a good time.
We just got back from an overnight bus trip to Merida. It was a beautiful and safe city. There is music and dancing each Saturday night and activities on Sunday. Apparently there are a lot of Canadian and American retirees living in the area and they love it.
The weather has been really good for the last three weeks which is a lot better than the cold northern fronts that we were getting each week while in Honduras. All the cruisers have been complaining about the poor weather this season but Miami had snow so how bad is it really.
We spent a couple of weeks in Belize which was really amazing. Lots of dolphins and manatees to see. One day we were racing to get to a safe anchorage for an approaching cold front. Insatiable I draws six feet eight inches while we draw five feet six inches. We decided to take the short cut through Turniffe. We had waypoints to get to the other side and were proceeding with caution. A lone dolphin was jumping to the side of us. This has happened many times as the dolphins seem to love attention and are very curious. This dolphin started to swim at the front of the boat. As Scott was at the bow on look out he could see that the dolphin was rubbing the starboard side of the boat. When we slowly went aground on a sand bar and the dolphin was leaping and circling in the same spot over to our left we realized he was trying to herd us into deeper water. Luckily a dive boat came close so we could ask him if there was deeper water to the left of us. The driver pointed to where the dolphin was still surfacing and waiting and told us that there was water six feet deep there. We then unfurled the jib, heeled over and followed the dolphin. Once we had followed him through the channel to ten feet plus he left us never to be seen again . Clever creatures, I only wish I had a tasty fish for it.