IMAGE – various images land and sea

UNDERWATER ART MUSEUM
Thursday 2nd March – We had been waiting for a calm weather day to take the boat out to explore the island. Isla Mujeres and Cancun are known internationally for their coastal reefs suitable for diving and snorkelling – and this is BIG business for the local dive centres and fisherman who take the tourists out on organised trips – today was our self-guided tour. We upped anchor in the lagoon at 7am, and headed to the far south of the island via the small, narrow pass – OK at this hour of the morning with no tourist traffic around.
It was good to look back from the boat at this south-west shoreline, with its small hotels and brilliant white sandy beaches. We arrived at the reef and underwater Museum as planned before all the dive and snorkelling groups. We took up a buoy and I took a brief snorkel to see if we were in the right area – no statues below anywhere near us! By now a few tour boats had arrived – so we watched where they went etc and moved to another buoy closer to the shore –and YES the statues were right underneath us! The 8 meters of water was sparkling clear and the settled weather made the area just perfect. Although we had prepared all our dive gear, we decided that it was not worth a dive, as we could see as much of what was available by snorkelling. The Underwater Museum of Art contains over 500 life size sculptures from more than six different artists – very similar to the underwater statues we had seen previously in Granada in the eastern Caribbean. Because the sculptures provide areas for coral growth most were very difficult to fully appreciate their human form – although I did manage to get a few good photos. Our hour of so drifting around from section to section was fascinating. By the time we were leaving the whole area was getting very busy above and below the water.
We motored to the north of the island to anchor off Playa Norta for the rest of the day, with a view back to the stunning beach and resort hotels. It was a very busy and popular spot with all the tour boats coming and going and the large catamarans dropping aft to the beach so their punters could swim or walk into the beach. It was a stunning setting with clear shallow water shimmering above the white sandy bottom.
After a very enjoyable afternoon people and boat watching – we headed back into the lagoon – it was noticeably hotter and still in there – but with the coming strong north winds we were amongst 6 other boas that had moved into the safer lagoon waters.

CHILL DAY AT THE BEACH
Saturday 4th March – after and slow morning we ‘hit the beach’ for the afternoon. With our beach chairs, sunscreen, drinks and snacks we went off to the far north of the island to the Fenix beach bar for their weekend afternoon sessions of live Cuban music. What a beautiful spot to sit for a few hours listening to the music with our feet in the white sand and enjoying a refreshing swim in the beautiful aqua water. We don’t usually ‘go to the beach’ as we have lots of fresh breeze on the boat and can pop over the side for a cooling off dip at any time – so we enjoyed the ambience, atmosphere and people watching very much indeed.

SNORKELLING
On hot afternoons when the western sun was blasting right into the boat we were keen to get off for a swim and snorkel around the reef. We couldn’t go too often as the wind and waves out on the reef off the anchorage made it too rough. With my underwater camera and just our snorkel gear we can have hours of exploring – the day trippers are charged a minimum of $35US for a few hours snorkelling trip by the local ex-fishermen – where as we have the ability to enjoy the same pastime from our own dingy at no cost and visit different sections of the reef as many times as we like – life is good!
When we ride in our dingy out to the snorkelling area off from the main anchorage – it is always busy with the tourist boats – but we are able to tie the dingy to the designated buoys and snorkel in a few different spots. There is a local requirement for all those snorkelling in Isla and Cancun to always wear a life jacket whilst in the water… strange but a good safeguard to not lose an inexperienced swimmer. The snorkelling was very enjoyable – lots of fish, and a few different corals – in one area there was a large group of barracuda – obviously ‘protecting’ their domain.