Our buddy boat s/v Beaudacious had sailed from Half Moon Cay to Puerto Morelos, Mexico and reported enjoying this place. After learning that checking into Mexico was also a bit difficult in its southern entry city for which we had to cross the Great Barrier Reef and that it would take us longer to navigate through Mexico, we decided to make an overnight passage to Puerto Morelos. The trip was great, with some of the fastest sailing we have done particularly when passing the island of Cozumel where the current runs wickedly fast. With this current, however, came very unstable waves and winds toward its northern part, making sailing very challenging. After passing this area, things calmed down nicely and we reached Puerto Morelos on the perfectly nice and warm late afternoon of April 30. The passage was fast and we covered 220 NM in 30.5 hours.
We spent 2 weeks in Mexico's Maya Riviera as this area of Mexico is called because of the many important Maya groups that inhabited this area in the post classic Maya period (after 900 AD). The marina where we moored Kikuyu was part of a 5-star all inclusive resort "El Cid" where we found a gold mine as they charged us only $10/per day to moor our boat and we could enjoy all the resort facilities, including swimming pools, gyms, internet, etc. Daniel did his long distance school online from the lobby of this hotel which was very comfortable and plush. From here we took trips to see the Maya ruins of Tulum and Chichén Itzá, the last one being one of the 3 most important Maya ruins along with Copan in Honduras and Tikal in Guatemala. We also took a day trip to a popular park Xcaret where there are also some Maya ruins. Because Cozumel was just a 30-minute ferry ride from nearby Playa del Carmen, we took a 2-day drip to this island primarily to dive its waters which have great diving.
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On Monday the weather seemed a bit better and we decided to follow instructions on how to enter the reef on the Western side to Half Moon Cay using the cruising guide "Belize and Mexico's Caribbean Coast" by Captain Freya Rauscher. This guide had been our main source of information for Belize. We were a bit concerned because to enter the reef and reach Half Moon bay, the book gave a way point and then a course - no way points in between. However, we decided to try it, with Maria and Daniel at the bow spotting for coral heads. We found the way point, set on the recommended course and marched forward but as we got closer to the entrance Maria begun to see the heads closer to the surface. It is hard to judge how close coral heads are so finally when they looked too close Maria shouted for Kim to stop. Unfortunately it was a bit too late and Kim continued on the course to bump over the first head. Thankfully he was able to get Kikuyu off rather easily and veered to the left where we found deeper water.
After his near run-aground/coral-head stuckness event, we decided to enter the reef to Half Moon Cay on the eastern side of the Lighthouse reef which offered a much wider entrance and less of a chance for error. This turned out to take nearly all day as we headed south to round the cay which is very long. The weather also turned bad as we were rounding its southern tip, with a head wind that gave us only 3-4 knots of speed. Fortunately, we got around safely, entered the reef with at least 14 feet of water under our bottom and anchored near Half Moon Cay with two other boats that were already at anchor. One of this boats, s/v Southern Cross, we had communicated with on our way to this reef. They came to introduce themselves soon after we anchor and we agreed to go ashore the next morning.
Half Moon Cay is a National Park where the Audobon Society has a chapter that is now run entirely by Belizeans. There is a small museum & information center and the man in charge told us that the Audobon Society's marine biologists were going to the Blue Hole to take samples of the water in the early afternoon. After talking with them and learning that Kikuyu's draft was too deep for us to safely navigate the many coral heads on the way to it, they agreed to let us ride with them to snorkel for a nominal fee. Daniel was allowed to dive and help them collect samples. Our lucky charm again shone on us with this opportunity.
Once we reached the Blue Hole, we could see the entire rim from our entrance point to the reef. It seemed a lot smaller than we had envisioned. We snorkeled around almost the entire ring, saw some wonderful coral fish and swam across its amazing deep blue water in the center that leads to its deepest part. After two hours we were ready to head back, very thankful for this awesome experience.
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Finally, on Saturday after we felt comfortable that the alternator was working and charging the batteries we left Belize City for the second famous Atoll in Belize- Lighthouse reef. There are three atolls in the Western Hemisphere - one in Mexico (Banco Chinchorro) that we sailed passed and the other two in Belize that we visited - Glovers and Lighthouse reefs.
Our hope was to be able to go to the Blue Hole, an over 450 feet deep hole surrounded by a nearly perfect coral reef ring, and broken by 2 passages, each about 9 feet deep. From the air, blue hole is a fantastic sight. The indigo water of the Blue Hole forms a perfectly round ring, rimmed by living coral. Jaques Cousteau and his boat, The Calypso, explored this strange geological phenomena in 1972. His divers descended to 125 feet where they discovered a forest of underwater stalactites, implying that the blue hole was once a cavern above the water's surface.
There was a cold front that had been covering the region for at least two days and it was still creating very unstable and stormy weather. Because we did not have way points to enter the reef to Half Moon Bay, the island closest to the Blue Hole, we decided to anchor off a nearby by Cay, Long Cay. Thankfully this was a good decision because by late afternoon when we arrived the light was not as good to navigate safely through reefs. We spent 2 days in Long Cay waiting for the weather to turn. We tried to snorkel and swim but the visibility was poor due to the high winds.
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