Wheeew what a long, strange journey it has been getting here. We have a million stories that would blow people’s minds out, and I’m sure they will all come out eventually, but for now I’ll just say we are glad to be anchored at Isla Mujeres, drinking cold Dos Equis and eating street tacos.
We pulled into Bahia Isla Mujeres at 1am and anchored, preparing for our first sleep that would last more than 3 hours. We haven’t slept for more than 3 hours at a time for 4 days, and we were very anxious to get some. One extra comment about the boat over that last 4 days: purchasing and installing an auto-pilot is now very high on the to-do list. We do enjoy hand-steering the boat, and it really doesn’t require too much effort, it’s just that it gets really old sitting in that seat for 3 hours or more at a time. And it would be nice to be able to pull in the fishing lines, change lures, remove weeds and put them back out, take a piss, get a drink, make some tea, make a sandwich, get a flashlight, adjust the sheets, pick your nose, scratch your ass, anything really without having to get the other person to come take the wheel. Of course there is no sense in getting a dinky auto-pilot that you would be scared to use in rough weather, because that is really the only time we find we need it. In calm seas we can just leave the helm and the boat steers pretty true by itself, doesn’t wander, and will pretty much be on the same heading you left it at for a minute or so. One more thing on the to-do list is a wind generator. Our solar panels keep the batteries juiced 90% of the time, and we have fairly low energy consumption. In fact, even if it is cloudy for one day, the panels are able to fully charge our battery bank the next day. We never use our outboards to charge our battery bank, in fact, they each have a dedicated starting battery that isn’t even hooked up to our main battery bank. 2 things make us think we’ll need a wind generator. One is that with an auto-pilot running all night, as well as gps, vhf, ipod stereo, etc. combined with a cloudy day or two and our batteries might be in trouble . #2 is that when we are at anchor hiding out from a cold front, we are sitting on the boat wanting to use electricity, like mess with the laptop, watch movies, music, lights at night, constantly opening and closing the engel to get beers out, etc. and during these days (when a front is passing) it is generally very cloudy and we are getting nil from our panels. However it is also very windy, all day and all night, leading us to believe a wind generator would solve this problem. The reason we didn’t get one right off the bat was because we weren’t exactly sure what our power consumption would be and if we would need one, and also because the wind generators I had seen (and heard) before on sailboats were actually louder than a gas generator sitting on deck. I have since seen a couple models that are whisper quiet, so as soon as the houseboat sells these two things will be getting done. If the houseboat never sells, these things probably won’t get done.
Sorry, back to Isla Mujeres. So as all three boats in the flotilla anchored and prepared for rest, (actually I think Bryan and Angie immediately attempted to get online at 1am after 4 days of sailing) I looked back at Salty Dog and one of the ferries that takes people back and forth between Cancun and Isla Mujeres was heading straight for her at about 15 knots. In the dark this thing looks like a giant jelly-fish due to all the blue underwater lights around its hulls and the string of Christmas lights on the top deck….somewhat startling to a delirious sleep deprived mind. It blows its horn, stops way too late for comfort, pulls up behind salty dog and gets on the loud speaker saying we need to move farther into the bay. Just kind of funny as we all were relaxing and feeling glad to be anchored and ready to sleep, when we had to all get up, pull anchor and move the boats. could have been worse I guess.
So we woke up late Saturday, and went in to attempt to get checked in. We knew it was Constitution Day, and a weekend, so were skeptical about the check in process getting done, as well as extra fees being tacked on. We had also been told that checking in to Mexico is quite a lengthy process, with none of the 4 government offices really seeming to coordinate with each other. Immigration told us to go to the hospital office, which was closed (but wasn’t actually the hospital office, come to find out later) so we went back to immigration. The one guy working said, it should be open keep checking back (we actually verified with him that we went to the correct building, but there must’ve been some miscommunication). We check again later, still closed, went to immigration, now it was closed. Now the general attitude on Gualby is not to try to push too hard to get things done, that goes for officials, service people, fellow flotilla members, etc. Only apply gentle pressure. Which we felt we had done. So when a shopkeeper next door to immigration said all government buildings would be closed till Tuesday due to the holiday, we took this as a sign to get some beers.
We did this as well as street tacos, numerous street tacos, with lots of spicy salsa, habaneros, salsa verde, sour cream, etc, and looked for a cheap bar to watch the superbowl. One of the two boats who concern themselves with internet connectivity let everyone know the superbowl had not happened yet and was this coming Sunday. The next day we had already resigned to waiting till Tuesday to check in. And we got a late start to shore due to extra bathroom time on the boats (street tacos may have been a slight shock to the system).
The day of the superbowl we pre-partied on the Gualby, with burgers and fries and beers, swam in the bay, wrestled with the dogs, and then got cleaned up and headed into town. The superbowl was fun, (I never really have any interest in the game, for me its just a reason to get together and party with friends) we imbibed on cold beers and chips and salsa, closed down a bar that night with a live band, and went back to the boats to catch up on more sleep.
Finally Tuesday came and we attacked the inevitable. We expected the check in process to take 4 hours (which is what a fellow sailor told us) but for the flotilla and our typical bag of complications it took 2 days. We had to have a vet out to the boat, a call to the U.S. embassy, copy after copy of all our paperwork, walk all over town, redundantly fill out forms, ask questions in 2 year-old child Spanish about the forms (some were only in Spanish, and we needed translations), attempt to pay the bank the check in fee, but only one of the banks will accept this, and only from 10-2 each day, come back to immigration about 4 times, port captains office 4 times, dinghy the vet out to the boats, pay the vet, dinghy officials out to the boats, dinghy them back in. All in all it wasn’t that bad, and the officials didn’t mind us drinking beers on the way from office to office.
So now we are here, Penny is checked in, we’re checked in, our pantry is restocked, cold beer in the engel, and life is good. We’ll be posting up here for a few weeks while the salty dog heads back to the states for a wedding. It’s obviously a little touristy for our tastes, but at this point we’re not minding it; the island has nice beaches, a good anchorage, a good dinghy dock, an island beach for Penny not too far from the boat, laundry facilites, and lots of tourists, seems like mostly from Michigan, which we get a kick out of listening to and watching. Thanks for all the comments on the blog, and keep em coming. Till next post.
C
We pulled into Bahia Isla Mujeres at 1am and anchored, preparing for our first sleep that would last more than 3 hours. We haven’t slept for more than 3 hours at a time for 4 days, and we were very anxious to get some. One extra comment about the boat over that last 4 days: purchasing and installing an auto-pilot is now very high on the to-do list. We do enjoy hand-steering the boat, and it really doesn’t require too much effort, it’s just that it gets really old sitting in that seat for 3 hours or more at a time. And it would be nice to be able to pull in the fishing lines, change lures, remove weeds and put them back out, take a piss, get a drink, make some tea, make a sandwich, get a flashlight, adjust the sheets, pick your nose, scratch your ass, anything really without having to get the other person to come take the wheel. Of course there is no sense in getting a dinky auto-pilot that you would be scared to use in rough weather, because that is really the only time we find we need it. In calm seas we can just leave the helm and the boat steers pretty true by itself, doesn’t wander, and will pretty much be on the same heading you left it at for a minute or so. One more thing on the to-do list is a wind generator. Our solar panels keep the batteries juiced 90% of the time, and we have fairly low energy consumption. In fact, even if it is cloudy for one day, the panels are able to fully charge our battery bank the next day. We never use our outboards to charge our battery bank, in fact, they each have a dedicated starting battery that isn’t even hooked up to our main battery bank. 2 things make us think we’ll need a wind generator. One is that with an auto-pilot running all night, as well as gps, vhf, ipod stereo, etc. combined with a cloudy day or two and our batteries might be in trouble . #2 is that when we are at anchor hiding out from a cold front, we are sitting on the boat wanting to use electricity, like mess with the laptop, watch movies, music, lights at night, constantly opening and closing the engel to get beers out, etc. and during these days (when a front is passing) it is generally very cloudy and we are getting nil from our panels. However it is also very windy, all day and all night, leading us to believe a wind generator would solve this problem. The reason we didn’t get one right off the bat was because we weren’t exactly sure what our power consumption would be and if we would need one, and also because the wind generators I had seen (and heard) before on sailboats were actually louder than a gas generator sitting on deck. I have since seen a couple models that are whisper quiet, so as soon as the houseboat sells these two things will be getting done. If the houseboat never sells, these things probably won’t get done.
Sorry, back to Isla Mujeres. So as all three boats in the flotilla anchored and prepared for rest, (actually I think Bryan and Angie immediately attempted to get online at 1am after 4 days of sailing) I looked back at Salty Dog and one of the ferries that takes people back and forth between Cancun and Isla Mujeres was heading straight for her at about 15 knots. In the dark this thing looks like a giant jelly-fish due to all the blue underwater lights around its hulls and the string of Christmas lights on the top deck….somewhat startling to a delirious sleep deprived mind. It blows its horn, stops way too late for comfort, pulls up behind salty dog and gets on the loud speaker saying we need to move farther into the bay. Just kind of funny as we all were relaxing and feeling glad to be anchored and ready to sleep, when we had to all get up, pull anchor and move the boats. could have been worse I guess.
So we woke up late Saturday, and went in to attempt to get checked in. We knew it was Constitution Day, and a weekend, so were skeptical about the check in process getting done, as well as extra fees being tacked on. We had also been told that checking in to Mexico is quite a lengthy process, with none of the 4 government offices really seeming to coordinate with each other. Immigration told us to go to the hospital office, which was closed (but wasn’t actually the hospital office, come to find out later) so we went back to immigration. The one guy working said, it should be open keep checking back (we actually verified with him that we went to the correct building, but there must’ve been some miscommunication). We check again later, still closed, went to immigration, now it was closed. Now the general attitude on Gualby is not to try to push too hard to get things done, that goes for officials, service people, fellow flotilla members, etc. Only apply gentle pressure. Which we felt we had done. So when a shopkeeper next door to immigration said all government buildings would be closed till Tuesday due to the holiday, we took this as a sign to get some beers.
We did this as well as street tacos, numerous street tacos, with lots of spicy salsa, habaneros, salsa verde, sour cream, etc, and looked for a cheap bar to watch the superbowl. One of the two boats who concern themselves with internet connectivity let everyone know the superbowl had not happened yet and was this coming Sunday. The next day we had already resigned to waiting till Tuesday to check in. And we got a late start to shore due to extra bathroom time on the boats (street tacos may have been a slight shock to the system).
The day of the superbowl we pre-partied on the Gualby, with burgers and fries and beers, swam in the bay, wrestled with the dogs, and then got cleaned up and headed into town. The superbowl was fun, (I never really have any interest in the game, for me its just a reason to get together and party with friends) we imbibed on cold beers and chips and salsa, closed down a bar that night with a live band, and went back to the boats to catch up on more sleep.
Finally Tuesday came and we attacked the inevitable. We expected the check in process to take 4 hours (which is what a fellow sailor told us) but for the flotilla and our typical bag of complications it took 2 days. We had to have a vet out to the boat, a call to the U.S. embassy, copy after copy of all our paperwork, walk all over town, redundantly fill out forms, ask questions in 2 year-old child Spanish about the forms (some were only in Spanish, and we needed translations), attempt to pay the bank the check in fee, but only one of the banks will accept this, and only from 10-2 each day, come back to immigration about 4 times, port captains office 4 times, dinghy the vet out to the boats, pay the vet, dinghy officials out to the boats, dinghy them back in. All in all it wasn’t that bad, and the officials didn’t mind us drinking beers on the way from office to office.
So now we are here, Penny is checked in, we’re checked in, our pantry is restocked, cold beer in the engel, and life is good. We’ll be posting up here for a few weeks while the salty dog heads back to the states for a wedding. It’s obviously a little touristy for our tastes, but at this point we’re not minding it; the island has nice beaches, a good anchorage, a good dinghy dock, an island beach for Penny not too far from the boat, laundry facilites, and lots of tourists, seems like mostly from Michigan, which we get a kick out of listening to and watching. Thanks for all the comments on the blog, and keep em coming. Till next post.
C
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| Celebrating arrival in Mexico |
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| Yes, we would like nine beers, that's right nine |
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| Tailgating on the Gualby before going into town for Super Bowl |
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| Close up of the ladies of the Flotilla |
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| Pen Dog making sure Ted does not need her assistance |
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| Sweet ass grill |
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| What the Mexicans use to prevent anyone from climbing over the walls |
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| Taking a break on the side of the road while we were walking around Isla Mujeres |
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| The old "use your oven mitt as a coozie for your big beer" trick |
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| Team ConPen doing some reading and relaxing at anchor |
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| Conor and Penny checking the anchor |
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| Look at that face, gotta love this knucklehead |
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| Penny checking to see if Conor needs any help up |
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| School of nice sized Hogfish |
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| View of the bottom of Gualby |
Dude is that blue suede covering the walls of your cabin? Suave mofo, suave
ReplyDeleteDoug
Hey, while you guys are there, will you look for some of my family down there? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteYou favorite mexican
You guys look like you're having an awesome time! I'm so happy for ya'll. Keep taking plenty of pics, I enjoying seeing your travels. Where do you think ya'll will be in June/July?? Thinking Tarek and I need an adventure...
ReplyDeleteBrittnie