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.