With our buddy boat s/v Beaudacious we talked long and hard about when to start the 370 mile passage from Puerto Morelos to Key West, across the Yucatan Peninsula, the Florida Straits and the Gulf Stream. Though we had done longer passages before, we were a bit concerned about this passage because the winds tend to come from the east or northeast, precisely from the direction we needed to sail. Additionally, we were going to be crossing the Gulf Stream which originates in the Yucatan Peninsula and carries north & east bound currents of 2-5 knots. While we can ride the Gold Stream current very nicely, if the wind comes from the north or east it can make the passage choppy and potentially dangerous. Additionally, weather reports were mixed with Chris Parker telling us that we should not leave on Saturday as we had to arrive by Sunday night or Monday morning. A low pressure system was expected to come down the coast of Florida, bringing a lot of squalls, winds in the 40-50 mph range and thunder & lightening, sailors' worst nightmare. On Friday night at about 8 PM we decided to make the passage, leaving the following day at 6 in the morning. We needed to have a fast passage in order to avoid this bad weather.
Overall we had a great passage given the weather conditions. Leaving Puerto Morelos, Mexico, we were pushed by the Yucatan Peninsula current which gave us an additional 1-2 knots of speed to our motor-sailing speed, making our first day fairly fast. By night and throughout the second day our speed was painfully slow (4-5.5 knots), even with our engine at higher-than-usual revolutions, as we bordered the coast of Cuba on a counter current of 1-2 knots. We could see the outline of the Cuban mountains on the horizon and lights from towns at night as we cruised just 15-20 miles from its coast. We kept on motoring until about 2 AM of day three when the wind changed direction to the SE at 10-15 knots giving us a wonderful beam reach. Also at this point, we were well into the Golf Stream current and we started flying! Kikuyu had sustained speeds of between 9 - 9.7 knots for about 4 hours, settling to high 7's to high 8 knots for most of the remainder of the trip. Because of this, we were then able to arrive to the channel entrance of Key West by 1:30 PM, just a few hours ahead of the storm.
However, on this beautiful, sunny and calm day we had a surprising failure awaiting us. There were almost no boats around and none in the channel as we headed up toward the town. All seemed perfect - we had beat the bad weather! Suddenly, we heard a strange sound and next we realized that Kikuyu was not moving forward though the engine seemed to be running alright. Quickly we decided to drop our anchor just a bit off the channel. Kim first thought that the prop had caught on something so he got his diving gear out and dove under the boat, coming out quickly to say that the prop was fine. He then went into the engine room and found the culprit - the engine shaft had come out of its coupler! An engine mounting defect, a pin was missing that would have prevented this from happening. Thankfully Kim was able to push it back in, secure the shaft with the other screws and we motored safely to the city marina in Key West.
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Upon arriving to Playa del Carmen from Cozumel, we rented a car to drive to two important Maya sites: Tulum and Chichén Itzá. Tolum is one of the few seaside Maya ruins that exists and it was just gorgeous. The ocean views and color of the water was among the best we had seen in our entire Caribbean passage.
Chichén IItzá is impressive! The famous "Castle", as the Spanish called the main pyramid, is majestically imposing as well as are many of the other buildings such as the Temple of the Warriors (where the famous statue reflecting a human figure or Chac Mool is located), the Temple of the Thousand Columns, the Balls Court (one of the largest of the Maya ruins), the Observatory and the Nunnery Complex.
There is a lot that one can write about these important Maya sites but it could take pages. Rather, we leave this to the experts and the works they have published. We took many pictures that you can peruse in our Gallery of Pictures and have written the names of the remains on many of the photos. If you are interested in learning more about the Maya civilization and its legacy a search online will yield a lot of important works. There is currently excavations being done by many universities primarily from the United States and they produce ongoing papers on new discoveries.
There is still a lot we don't know about this civilization. A topic of controversy revolves around the question: Why did the Maya civilization disappear? By the time the Spanish arrived to the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) in the early 1500s where the Maya lived, there were just a few groups left who were living in the ruins but were not organized as thriving groups. Some of the theories about the disappearance of the civilization say that it was because the land and crops could no longer sustain the population growth. Others argue that other groups from Mexico like the Toltecs conquered the Maya and their culture was taken over. This mystery keeps archeologists of the Mesoamerica working away to find sufficient clues to put this puzzle together.
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We took a 2-day trip to Cozumel primarily for Kim & Daniel to dive its waters. They reported great diving while Maria walked a few miles up and down the island going snorkeling off another El Cid property in the island. Cozumel was very built-up, with some of the largest supermarkets we had seen in our entire trip, a lot of restaurants and places to shop. The island was also nearly desolate because of the swain flu scare.
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