Wind what wind
29 May 2018
We left the island 🌴 of Cozumel with a sense of disappointment because we had seen what the next 12 hours was going to bring, the weather/ wind speed was forecast at 4 to 5 knots per hour, which is much too low for us, it meant we would have to use the motor (iron wind 💨) for the trip across to Cancun. When we set off the wind was not too bad with just enough to use the sails, so up they went, we were sailing without the motor, yeeeehhhhhh, then over about 40 minutes the change in wind speed and also the boat speed happened, to our surprise it increased from a tiny puff to blowing to a steady 28 and gusting to over 35 knots, our boat 'Scorch' 🐲 loved it almost as much as I did, we were keeled over and flying along with a maximum speed of 10.7 knots (which is pretty much as fast as Scorch 🐲will go). We were slipping between the rain storms fairly well there was one that seemed a good distance away and looked like it was going to pass behind us, we reduced some of our sails just before it hit us then we turned into a washing machine, we were running up the side of some biggish waves 🌊 then flying down the back side of them, the rain came at us horizontally stinging our faces and my body (I'm only wearing shorts) the squall only lasted about 20 minutes, but it was so intense, at no time did I feel we were in danger, we were all doing what was needed. We came out the other side of the squall to lovely blue sky's with scattered clouds and great wind speeds, our planned trip of 12 hours turned out to be 7.5 hours, we sailed around the bay of Cancun, I didn't realise just how big it is, but it's huge.
We dropped our anchor about 2 miles away from our final destination of V&V Marina Cancun. The water was rather rough. Which gave us a bumpy and uncomfortable night, we were outside the ferry ⛴ lanes but they were sooo dam noisy I could hear them from over a mile away both coming and going (it must play havoc with any marine life for many miles around.
Today was one of the best days sailing ⛵️ for a good while.
We were invited to the restaurant of Carlos, a friend who we met while we were in Cayo Largo, he is the chef on a very expensive motor cruiser🚤 who we met in Cayo Largo. The evening went very well, the food 🥘 was very good and we finished the evening off with a few tequilas.
We met another chap who is the captain of a very posh 800 ton cruiser called 'Step One' he took us out to the the nature reserve and almost to the end of the Yucatan peninsula it is no more than 100 metres across, on one side the sea is quite rough with a dangerous rip tide and a steep beach, on the other it is very calm and not deep at all (knee deep) people were 200 metres out and sat on chairs with a parasol above. Whilst driving back along the sand track we got a puncture, it took me less than 5 minutes in 30 c degrees to change it over, for my work I was rewarded with an ice cold Corona beer 🍺. Juan Carlos then took us for an authentic Mexican meal 🥘 which was 7 courses of excellent food with 2 different drinks, the total cost was £20.35 for four of us we also had a rum cocktail 🍸 for free after I paid the bill. The food was so good here that we decided to go back the following evening for a different menu and it was just as good, the service was also outstanding (maybe due to the rather large tip we left previously)
I am now packed up and ready to fly back to the UK 🇬🇧 for a few weeks to catch up on friends and family. This trip has been one of my highlights, thanks for reading and your comments. P. X