1 February 2013 Cayos de la Lena, Cuba
Foolishly, last night I said that I’d swap some films with the kids on “Yindee Plus”, so Chris came over with a whole load of DVDs. I ended up spending most of the day slaving over a hot laptop, ripping their DVDs onto our media player and copying my AVI files onto a hard drive for them.
A small boat with three guys came over from one of the large fishing boats in the anchorage and we traded a third of a bottle of rum for a very large snapper. They were very friendly and it was very frustrating not being able to talk to them properly. However, we did manage to find out that the crew come from all over Cuba and normally spend twenty days on the boat, fishing between Mexico and Cuba.
The weather was a lot more settled today, so I pulled up our secondary anchor and in the process, I’ve pulled a muscle in my back – when will I learn that I can’t pull a 12 tonne boat around by brute force and ignorance. The anchor rope was a right mess being covered in antifoul paint and thick gloopy mud, so I had to spend 20 minutes cleaning it with our sea water deck wash hose.
We had a quiet night in.
2 February 2013 Cayos de la Lena, Cuba
It was a lovely day, so Glenys spent most of the day cleaning the stainless steel on deck - everything looks sparkling now.
I spent most of the day on jobs. I rewired our media player and the stereo system, so that the wires are hidden and also to stop an irritating hum that has been coming through our loudspeakers.
We went for sun-downers on “Yindee Plus”. We’ve run out of beer, orange juice, wine and tonic water, so in desperation, we took an old bottle of margarita mix and the remains of a small bottle of tequila that has been lurking around for a year or so – not our favourite drink. All we’ve got left now is a bit of rum and coke. It’s time to go shopping.
3 February 2013 Cayos de la Lena, Cuba
I had a dreadful night. At first it was very calm and hot – this gave the no-see-ums a perfect opportunity to breach our defences, so I was trying to hide under the sheets. Then another cold front came through, giving us lashing rain and winds up to 30 knots, so I had to get up to check that all the hatches were closed and everything was secure.
We had a quiet day in. I spent most of the day getting my photographs and this diary up to date ready to publish it all when we get to Mexico. Glenys meanwhile was reading up on Mexico and Belize planning our cruising for the next couple of months.
The weather improved during the day and, by the evening, we had blue skies and a nice 20 knot north east wind. I downloaded a weather forecast and it’s looking good for leaving to sail to Mexico tomorrow.
We've produced some Cruising Notes for Northwest Cuba with navigational information:
http://www.thehowarths.net/albacronicles/cruising-notes/336-northwest-cuba-2013
4 February 2013 Cayos de la Lena to Isla Mujeres, Mexico (Day 1)
The alarm went off at half past six. We jumped out of bed and motored out of the anchorage just before the sun rose. We motored around to Los Morros Marina having breakfast on the way.
It’s very generous to call this a Marina - it’s a concrete dock that was once used by fishing boats. The dock lies roughly north/south and there’s only 150 foot of dock which is suitable for mooring alongside – the remainder of the dock stretching to the shore is really a breakwater, edged with rocks. The eastern side of the dock is untenable in the prevailing easterly winds because it is completely unprotected with waves crashing against.
The approach was a little fraught because our charts don’t even show the dock and the cruising guides don’t have any details either. We headed more or less south towards the end of the dock passing between red and green markers. The depth dropped to 2.5 metres as we approached the dock, but then, thankfully, increased to over 5 metres as we moved to the west of the dock. There was well over 3.0 metres of water alongside the west side of the dock, but it was occupied by a local fishing boat, a sport fishing boat and a yacht, so we had to raft up on the fishing boat.
The Port Captain/Guarda Fronteras was very efficient and helpful - we managed to come alongside and clear out in less than two hours. There’s nothing much in the marina apart from a few small buildings housing the marina office, the officials and a small bar where I managed to buy a few beers, ready for our celebration when we arrive in Mexico.
After finishing the paper work, while he was still sat at our saloon table, the Port Captain said quietly, “There’s a small problem”. He then went on to tell me that his wife was very ill and a little something would help him. I gave him a withering look, but then relented and gave him $5 – it’s the first time that I’ve had to pay “mordida” in nearly two years of dealing with officials. I’ve normally got away with “No Comprendo”, but it may have proved difficult to get him off our boat without a payment.
We managed to get away by ten o’clock and motored out onto a nice blue sea. The wind was very fluky in the lee of Cabo San Antonio, so we had to motoring for a couple of hours. Once clear, we had a great sail on a close reach.
The Gulf Stream is very strong as it sweeps north and is squeezed between Cuba and Mexico with currents up to 5 knots at times. We had no idea how strong it would be, and trying to sail on the rhomb line might sweep us too far to the north, so we decided to take the advice of Nigel Calder in his cruising guide and head south before trying to cross the fast Gulf Stream.
As night fell were still heading south with a good 15 knot wind.
5 February 2013 Cayos de la Lena to Isla Mujeres, Mexico (Day 2)
It was a very pleasant night, but the wind dropped just before midnight, so we had to motor for the rest of the night. We finally turned west at two o’clock in the morning and started to head towards Mexico.
By dawn, we had enough wind to sail again and four hours later passed to the south of Arrowsmith Bank, which is a large shoal area that I wanted to avoid. The sea bed comes up from 1000 metres to 15 metres in a very short distance and I suspected that the area would have nasty waves.
We arrived in the Isla Mujeres anchorage in the middle of the afternoon and spent the rest of the day chilling out.
In retrospect, our strategy of heading south was unnecessary. We did a total of 190 miles, which is a lot further than the 110 miles for the rhomb line. The Gulf Stream current didn’t seem to be very strong – perhaps two knots south of the Arrowsmith Bank, so I think that if we ever do this again, we’ll just sail on the rhomb line and correct for the current as necessary.
6 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
We were up early and went ashore to clear in. We struggled to find a place to tie our dinghy up – there’s a nice beach in front of the Naval headquarters, but we were chased away by a guard. We ended up pulling up on a beach in the town and chaining it to a dock outside a restaurant. They seemed okay about it as long as we bought a drink there.
We walked down to the Port Captain’s office, but it was closed. That was odd because it was half past nine and a notice on the door said that the office should be open at nine o’clock. We wandered back down the high street and noticed that it seemed very quiet, then in a flash of inspiration realised that we were in a different time zone and it was only half past eight!
We went back to the Port Captain’s office at quarter past nine (Mexican time) and he sent us off to the medical centre to see the Heath and Sanitation officer. The locals don’t speak much English here, so it took us a while to find the correct office and when we did the only lady in the small office wasn't very helpful and babbled away in incomprehensible Spanish - I almost believe that she was speaking Mayan. We eventually grasped that the Heath and Sanitation officer wasn't there, so we should come back in an hour.
After an hour of wandering around the tourist shops and supermarket, we returned to the medical centre to be faced with the same unhelpful lady – we spent five minutes trying to understand her, then she just shrugged and disappeared back inside her office leaving us sitting dismayed in the corridor.
We returned to the Port Captain, who ran a couple of numbers and then told us in pigeon English that the Heath and Sanitation, Immigration and Customs would all come to his office in a hour’s time. Thanking him, we went for another walk around town – it’s only a small place and we’d seen enough of it by now.
At half past ten, we showed up at the Port Captain again who asked us to sit down and wait – they would be here soon. Two hours later, the Heath and Sanitation and Immigration officers showed up. They told us that they had all been at one of the marinas clearing in four sports fishing boats that have arrived from the USA for a fishing tournament – just our bad luck.
It took fifteen minutes to fill in the Health & Sanitation and the immigration forms by which time the Agriculture and the Customs officers had arrived. The Port Captain filled in a form and there was much stamping of various documents by all five officers. After half an hour, we were $100 lighter and were told that the Agriculture and the Customs officers needed to inspect the boat and we would have to transport them out to Alba in our dinghy.
We all walked down to the dinghy and motored out to Alba – it took fifteen minutes with four people on board. The Agriculture officer inspected Glenys’s food cupboards and fridge. He was not happy about her rice and pasta, because she had taken them out of their original packaging and put them in tightly sealed plastic containers. We thought that he was going to confiscate the food, but I think that he must have decided that it was too much trouble to carry it all back in the dinghy, so he left it all on board. The customs officer didn't even bother to go below.
There was more flamboyant stamping of documents and that was it. We took them ashore and staggered into a restaurant for a beer and a meal just before three o’clock. What a palaver – seven hours to clear in, it’s a record...
Having fortified ourselves with a couple of beers, we went to the supermarket and bought a few essentials – beer, bread, eggs, orange juice, etc. We had an early night because we were so exhausted.
7 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
The plan was to have a day on board to catch up with a few jobs and the 200 emails that we've received over the past six weeks. However, it was not to be. We talked to someone on the morning VHF net to clarify the procedure for moving between anchorages in Mexico and we were told that need to import the boat if staying in Mexico for more than a week. We were totally confused about this so we decided to go into one of the marinas and ask them.
After lowering the dinghy into the water, I found that the outboard was not running well at low revs, so I removed and cleaned the slow running jet. While putting the cover back on, I managed to pull one of the HT leads out of its fitting, so that took another 30 minutes of swearing and cursing to sort that out. Satisfied that all was well, we dinghied into Marina Paraiso, but on the way the bloody out board packed up on us, so we had to row into the dinghy dock. It seemed that the Gods were against us today.
We asked the marina manager, Kevin, about importing our boat and he confirmed that we have to get an “Importada”. But he explained that it’s really a kind of multiple entry cruising permit for ten years and is another way of the government getting $50 out of us. We will have to go to Cancun tomorrow to get it sorted out – God knows why the Port Captain didn't tell us about this.
Dismayed, we walked to supermarket up the road from the marina – it’s quite a way, but is much better than the one in town. We’ll do a big shop there in a few days and catch a taxi back.
Back at marina, I managed to get the outboard started and then after lunch, I stripped down the carburettor and replaced some parts. It was still not running correctly at low revs, but after a bit of trial and error, I found that if I manually pumped fuel through the fuel line then it would keep running. This obviously pointed to a fuel supply problem, so I cleaned the fuel filter and checked the fuel line connections – it now seems to run okay.
Philippe and Sandra from “Ulana” came for a beer or two. We told them about the “Importada” and they hadn't realised that they need one either.
8 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
Up early again. We put our dinghy at Marina Paraiso and walked into town to catch the ferry to Cancun. “Ulana” were on the same ferry, having decided to go and get an Importada as well. The document is issued by Banjercitio which, as far as I can make out, is a government controlled bank. They have a small office in the same building as the Cancun Port Captain, conveniently only 400 metres from the Puerto Juarez ferry dock.
I tried my luck first and nearly had enough documentation. Yesterday, I’d spent an hour scanning and printing out copies of various documents – passports, ships register, zarpe issued by Port Captain, crew lists stamped by all of the officials in Isla Mujeres, etc, etc. The lady carefully checked all my copies against the original documents and all seemed well until she spotted that I didn't have a copy of the Heath and Sanitation document. So we had to walk ½ mile to an internet café to get a copy.
Meanwhile “Ulana” didn't have any of the original documents stamped by the officials in Isla Mujeres because the officials had apparently taken them away. By the time we arrived back, Philippe and Sandra had managed to sweet-talk the lady into accepting their photocopies and she was issuing the very official looking document. I was gutted that they didn't need to give her a copy of the Heath and Sanitation document that we’d had to go to get copied. The rest of our process was straight forward and, bizarrely, we've now temporarily imported Alba into Mexico.
We all hopped onto a local bus and went into down-town Cancun. The buses are small, run-down mini buses very similar to the ones in the West Indies, but lacking the loud reggae music.
Our first stop was the bus station to check out the timetables and prices to go to some of the Mayan ruins and the city of Merida, which we would like to visit while we’re here. After that we walked aimlessly about and discovered a park where we were able to buy some empanadillas and tostillas for our second breakfast – well, it was half past ten.
Suitably refreshed by our intake of fat, we walked to the strangely named Market 28, which is full of shops selling tourist rubbish –want a t-shirt or a Mayan mask or a Mexican carpet? I don’t think so. We carried on wandering the streets - now we were looking for a Mariner outboard dealer to buy some spares for our recalcitrant outboard, but after an hour walking in the beating sun, we gave up and retreated to a small café where we had a Quesadilla and a Huarache.
Some of the street food is unfamiliar to me, so I’m gradually trying out different ones. Huarache is an unusual one consisting of an oblong, fried maize flour base, with a variety of toppings. The base is about a quarter of an inch thick, almost like heavy, uncooked bread. I found out later that the name "Huarache" is derived from the shape of the base, similar to the popular sandals of the same name. I could have guessed that from the taste - not my favourite so far.
It took us a couple of hours to get back to the boat, by which time we were wilting from the heat, so jumped in for a swim for the first time in ages. We think that we've done all of the running around that we need to, so we’re going to have a quiet day tomorrow.
9 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
We had a chill out day. I messed around for most of the morning trying to work out how to play Folsom Prison Blues on my guitar. I discovered a lesson video on YouTube that said that the original recordings are in the key of F#, but the usual key to play it in is E. Unfortunately, I've been trying to learn it in G, so I was close to the original, but I've got to start again and learn it in E - bummer.
Glenys did some more investigation about places to stop in Mexico. We’re confused about where we’re going to be able to check out of Mexico and get the correct documentation to enter Belize. There’s a place call Xcalak near the border with Belize that used to be a port of entry, but we talked to some friends who have just been there and they say that we won’t be able to check out in Xcalak because there’s only a port captain there. Perhaps we’ll just check out here and travel quickly down to Belize with just a few overnight stops along the way.
It was the first day of carnival in Isla Mujeres, so we stepped out to watch the first parade. It was only a very small parade with six or so floats and slowly went along the sea front. The quality of the costumes is not quite up to the standard of Rio or Trinidad, but the people were enthusiastic and it was good fun.
10 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
We had another chill out day. I started to get to grips with Guitar Pro which is a program to arrange music scores for guitar. Most of my day was spent trying to write out the music score for “Folsom City Blues” – I just need to learn how to play it now.
Glenys did a few little jobs and then did more research on places to go in Mexico and Belize. In the afternoon, we went ashore to visit Daragh and Cathryn on “Chantey V”. They've just come up from Belize and are on their way to Cuba, so we spend a couple of hours chatting to them, swapping notes on the various places that we've visited. They cleared into Mexico here in Isla Mujeres, so weren't much help about ports of entry in Mexico, but we gleaned more information about Belize - the southern cays sound idyllic.
11 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
Glenys went out in the morning to look around town by herself without me huffing and puffing every time that she stops to look at a shop. She managed to book a trip to see the Mayan ruins of Coba and Tulum. The cost of an all-inclusive coach trip including transportation, lunch, entrance fees and a guide was only $59 each, which was much cheaper than trying to do it ourselves on public transport.
I indulged myself in downloading some more guitar song lessons and working out how to play “Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out”. There are loads of guitar tabs (a kind of music score specifically for guitar) available on the internet, but a lot of them are incorrect and of the others most of them are either too complicated or too simple for my purposes. So I spent ages researching on the internet and trying to create a music score in Guitar Pro in a style that I want to play. I'm not very good at this music stuff – the right side of my brain is obviously under-developed.
In the evening, we stepped out and went to a couple of bars, but it was very quiet, so we came back to the boat for dinner.
12 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
I spent the morning reading up on places to visit in Mexico and Belize. We’re a bit disheartened about cruising down the remaining coast of Mexico because there doesn't seem to be any way to clear out down south near the Belize border. So our plan is to clear out here in Isla Mujeres and spend a week going down to Belize stopping at a few places overnight. It’s a shame, but after looking at the anchorages in the southern part of the Yucatan peninsula, we might be better off spending more time down in Belize.
The northern part of Belize looks to be very shallow with mangroves, but the southern part looks spectacular especially when one goes to the cays near the outlying reefs – crystal clear water, beautiful reefs, fabulous snorkelling and diving – bring it on…
In the afternoon, we went to the nearby supermarket and did a big shop. We bought all the things that we’d used up while in Cuba and stocked up on food and drinks preparing to go to Belize where food is expensive – five cases of beer, orange juice, milk, breakfast cereal, etc. We picked up a taxi back to the marina where we’d left our dinghy - it was a marathon outing and took most of the afternoon.
13 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
The alarm went off at half past five and we caught a ferry an hour later to go on a coach trip to visit the Mayan ruins of Tulum and Coba. A minibus picked up from Puerto Juarez and took us to another bus station in the hotel strip where we had to pay the balance for our trip, before being herded onto a coach.
It took three hours on the coach and then a one kilometre walk to get to the Tulum ruins. We joined the hundreds of other tourists walking around the paths and manicured lawns. Tulum is different to other Mayan cities in that it’s perched on a cliff at the edge of the sea and was a heavily fortified place with a thick wall surrounding it. It was a major port for the Maya on the Yucatan peninsula. With the blue sparkling sea as a background the place is very picturesque.
After only an hour or so at Tulum, we were whisked off to a restaurant where we were treated to a very good buffet lunch consisting of traditional Mayan food. We especially liked the Pollo Pibil, which is chicken with achiote sauce cooked in banana leaves – traditionally it is cooked in a hole in the ground. I’m going to have to get Glenys to recreate that one.
We were taken on to Coba. We were told that it used to be the capital city on the Yucatan peninsula and has sacbeobs (roads) that go straight between other Mayan cities, such as Chichen Itza - the longest is 100Km. This is a massive city covering 72 square kilometres and is reputed to have over 4500 buildings of which only a few have been excavated. Coba isn't as manicured as the other Mayan sites and, as the guide book says, you feel like you've been transported into an Indiana Jones movie.
The place is so big that we hired bicycles to get between the various areas – and it's a good job that we did, because we got lost and nearly ran out of time. The highlight is climbing “Nohoch Mul” - the second highest Mayan building on the peninsula and at 42 metres high, it’s good fun. The steps are very steep and slippery in some places, so they've installed a long thick rope that goes up the middle of the steps.
The journey back to Isla Mujeres was tedious, with the coach dropping people off at the various hotels. Fortunately, they put us onto a mini bus which went directly into downtown Cancun and got us to our ferry by eight o'clock – some friends went on another trip and didn't get back to the ferry until half past nine. We however, were back on Alba by nine o'clock downing a couple of nice cold beers before falling into bed – it’s exhausting being a tourist.
14 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
I did a few jobs in the morning - recharged the damn fridge again and cleaned the bilge which has become filthy from the diesel leaks that I had on the generator fuel pump and primary fuel filter.
In the afternoon, we chilled out reading and sorting out some administration. I sent off an email to Hallberg Rassy asking them about our rudder. It’s been making a worrying clunking sound especially when we’re running downwind. I’ve discovered that there’s a few millimetres of play on the lower bearing and I believe that it’s making the noise. In addition, we’ve got signs of a leak around the seal where the rudder shaft goes through the hull. Hallberg Rassy came back and said that the play is not a big problem and that the leak can be fixed by replacing some seals and bearings. They can supply the parts to sort it out everything for only £1,200! I’ll probably order the parts and wait until we get hauled out in a year or so.
Glenys did some research on medical insurance. We've been paying over £2,400 per year for private health care and not made a single claim in two years. We really only need some sort of travel insurance that will give us cover for emergency medical treatment in case we have an accident, but it's difficult to find one that will cover us for years – most are geared around single holidays. Glenys eventually found one aimed at backpackers that will cover us for 12 months. It’s still a bit expensive at £800 for both of us, but is 1/3 the cost of our current policy, so she ordered it on-line.
15 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
In a fit of madness, I decided to clear out the aft toilet hoses. Over a period of time, the insides of the two-inch hoses become furred up with deposits like lime-scale which reduces the flow of the waste out of the toilet. The only solution is to remove the hoses and clean them out or replace them. Not a nice job. I've been putting it off for a year now, but the toilet nearly jammed yesterday and if the hose is blocked with effluent… Well, you can imagine it’s going to be more unpleasant.
It was a major struggle to remove the two hoses which pass through a bulk head into the engine room, then go in a loop through the cockpit locker and down to the sea cock. It took an hour to get the damn things out with a lot of swearing and scratches on my arms and chest as I lay across the engine. The hoses had 3/4” thick deposits leaving a small 1/2“ diameter hole instead of a nice big 2” diameter hole, so the job was well past due.
I used a rubber mallet to bash the rubber hoses and break up the deposit, dumping it overboard – the easiest part of the job. It then took me a couple of hours to replace the hoses. To get the hose through the cockpit locker, I had to empty it completely, including removing my dive compressor, which was a pain in the neck (and back). Anyway, it’s all done now and we can use the aft heads with confidence.
After lunch, we went into town to do some more shopping and then I dived down on our anchor to check it. There’s a Norther coming tomorrow and the cold front will be bringing 30+ knot winds from the north. We’re a little bit exposed in the middle of the anchorage, but the anchor is well buried in the soft sand, so it should be no problem.
16 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
The wind picked up from the north overnight and we had 20-25 knot winds when we woke up. We decided to stay on-board while the front goes through and settled down to a chilled out day. In the middle of the morning, Glenys was in the cockpit and noticed that “Bellatrix” was re-anchoring closer to the shore.
Ten minutes later, she said “Errr, I think that we’re dragging”. Sure enough, we were side onto the wind and slowly heading towards the shoal patch behind us. I was aghast - I’d checked the anchor yesterday and we NEVER drag…
We motored forwards and re-anchored in a slightly different place, but it seemed pointless to stay in the same area where the holding was obviously not very good and we were exposed to the wind and waves. The forecast was for the wind to veer more easterly tonight, so I decided to re-anchor closer into shore where we would have much more shelter when the wind veers. The holding seemed to be good, so we settled down, keeping a close watch on a bearing that we took to a building on shore to check that we weren't dragging again.
Meanwhile, other boats were having problems. A large 100 ft Danish sail-training yacht dragged through the anchorage and ended up where we were originally anchored. When a couple of other boats re-anchored, I started to worry. We were only 100 metres from the shore and my confidence was shattered because we'd dragged, so we put out a second anchor at 30 degrees to the first anchor. This should spread the load between the two anchors and reduce the chances of one of them dragging.
We spent the afternoon trying to ignore the howling wind – we were getting gusts of 30-35 knots. The wind didn't veer as much as I expected and we had uncomfortable waves bouncing us around most of the evening , so we did what we normally do in these circumstances - have a few beers and watch a film.
17 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
By morning, the wind had dropped and veered to the north east and it was a lovely day. Being a Sunday, we decided to walk into town and have lunch ashore. We spent the morning just doing our own thing, reading and playing musical instruments.
We had a very pleasant lunch in one of the small “eating places” in the market place. I hesitate to call these places restaurants or cafes because that makes them sound too posh. There’s four of them in the market in Isla Mujeres and they consist of a small kitchen behind a counter and ten or so plastic tables. The food’s great and it’s pretty cheap – we had two big meals with a starter and four beers for £8. I had Chicken Mole which was served in a separate bowl swimming in a rich chilli and dark chocolate sauce - delicious!
Continuing Glenys’s worrying obsession with grave yards, we had a stroll around the cemetery and what a lovely place it is. The plots are all occupied with brightly coloured tombs that are packed so tightly that we could hardly walk between them. Each grave has a small shrine like a little house perched on top. The shrines have glass doors and you can see the various offerings that have been placed there by family – these are not only religious artefacts, but include things that the dead person would have liked, such as a bottle of beer.
After searching for a while, we found the grave of Fermin Mundaca de Marechaja. He was a pirate during the early 1800’s and fell in love with a young woman on Isla Mujeres. As a token of his love, Mundaca built her a lavish plantation, but she spurned him and married a younger man. He died broken hearted. His grave has a skull and crossbones on the north side.
Even on our slobby Sunday, we couldn’t pass by the supermarket without picking up some more provisions, so I lugged five litres of orange juice back to the boat. We had a quiet time for the rest of the day.
18 February 2013 Isla Mujeres, Mexico
It was still a bit windy today, but it’s more from the east and is supposed to drop overnight, so our plan is to finally get moving tomorrow. We’re going to sail down to Cozumel and clear out there before heading down to Belize.
We spent the day on-board making use of the internet while we still have a good connection. We read the policy documents for the travel insurance that Glenys bought a few days ago and, in retrospect, we’re worried that we break a few of their definitions and it will be easy for them to deny a claim. So, I sent them an email describing our circumstances and cancelling the policy.
Our medical insurance runs out at the end of the month, so we did some more research and found a few other companies that look like they have policies that may suit us better, so we sent off emails to get quotes from them.
For some strange reason, I decided that I needed to start researching where we’re going in the Pacific. It’s still at least a year away, but we’re planning to go back to the UK in September and that would be a good time to be buying any cruising guides and charts that we may need for the trip. I really got into it and ended up working out a circumnavigation over the next five years travelling to Easter Island, various pacific islands, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Africa, Brazil and finishing up in Grenada –phew!
19 February 2013 Isla Mujeres to Puerto Morelos, Mexico
We were up early and away from the anchorage by half past seven. It felt good to be moving again – we've been in Isla Mujeres for almost two weeks.
We had a great sail, the wind was from the east and we stayed close to the reef to avoid the strong two knot current that sweeps up this coast. We even managed to sail most of the way into the anchorage before the wind headed us and we had to turn on the engine. The anchorage at Puerto Morelos has really good holding, but it's fairly rolly because the only protection from the easterly swell is a breaking reef and waves were sneaking over it.
We went ashore and walked ½ mile to the Port Captain’s office to report in. According to the officials in Isla Mujeres, we only have to tell them that we've arrived, but the Port Captain had other ideas and wanted a copy of all of our documents. Fortunately, I had copies of some documents, but he was going to make us walk back to the town centre and get others copied at an internet café. I asked him why he needed all of this information and eventually he relented and scanned a few into his computer to print out later – thank goodness.
There’s not much to the town – restaurants, tourist shops and tourists. One of the main attractions of this place is to snorkel on the “fantastic” reef and there are lots of people selling snorkelling trips. We took our dinghy over to the reef and tied up to a buoy. It’s a shallow reef and the water is pretty clear with lots of fish, but not as world class as they want the tourists to believe.
Back on the boat, I had to service a winch on the mast that has started squealing alarmingly. Fortunately, the only thing wrong was that the grease had dried up, so it was just a matter of cleaning it up and re-greasing the various bearings and moving parts. I just love Lewmar winches – they are one of the best pieces of engineering that I've ever seen. They handle terrific loads, yet can be serviced without any tools - how cool is that?
20 February 2013 Puerto Morelos to Cozumel, Mexico
We were up early again and had a good sail to Cozumel. Again, we followed the coast just outside the reef in 15-20 metres depth. There were lots of sports fishing boats trolling up and down about ½ mile further out than us. As usual, we were trailing a fishing line, but we haven’t caught anything for ages, so I decided to move out to the fishing boats to see if that would improve our chances. Unfortunately, they were trolling just along a big drop off where we hit an adverse 2 knot current and very confused seas, so we moved back into shallow waters – “forget the fishing, let’s get to port”.
We hugged the shore until we were north-west of San Miguel, the main town of Cozumel, and then had a fast, if bouncy, close reach for eight miles to the anchorage. Thankfully, the large waves died down as we entered the Cozumel anchorage just to the north of the ferry dock. The cruising guides said that the holding was poor, but we found a very good sandy patch which was good.
Being in the lee of the island, the anchorage is mostly protected from the easterly swell, but some of it hooks around, making this a rolly anchorage. It’s made worse by the tourist and local fishing boats that roar past causing big wakes. There are only four other boats in the anchorage, a couple of small local sailing yachts on moorings, a catamaran (“La Isla”) and a big pirate ship - bloody tourists.
After lunch, we went ashore, which was easier said than done. The shore in this area is a very thin strip of sand, but with rocks guarding most of it. There were lots of local fishing boats pulled up on the beach, but there was no way that our inflatable dinghy would survive the rocks. We looked at the ferry dock, but there was nowhere that we could tie up our dinghy because it’s all being used by ferries or tourist boats. Eventually, we found a small concrete dock to the south of the ferry dock, which is used by dive boats and they let us tie up there.
We want to clear out tomorrow, so we walked to the Immigration office which should be the first step in the bureaucracy. The immigration officer could speak a little English, told us the procedure and even stamped our crew list with tomorrow’s date, so that we’d have a head start. What a nice friendly guy. He even told us a little joke. “Where does the Pink Panther live?” Answer, “Tulum, Tulum, Tulum, Tulum, Tulum …”
On the way back to Alba, we called in to say hello Roberto and Tatiana on “La Isla”. We ended up on their boat having a few sunset beers and showing them our charts of Belize and talking about where we are going. They invited us to stay for dinner which was nice. Tatiana is Brazilian so speaks Portuguese, a little Spanish but very little English. Roberto speaks Spanish, Portuguese and reasonable English and we speak English and a tiny bit of Spanish. It was an interesting night.
By the end of the evening, we had agreed to sail down to Belize together because they have no cruising guides, limited charts and no access to weather forecasts in remote places - Roberto bought their catamaran in Cuba and hasn't been able to sort everything out yet.
21 February 2013 Cozumel to Banco Chinchorro, Mexico (Day 1)
The plan was for Roberto and Tatiana to come into town with us, so that we could go through the clear-out process together, but their outboard wouldn't start, so they had to go to the marina to sort it out. This left Glenys and I trying to understand the process and wandering around town by ourselves.
First, we went to Port Captain’s office, filled in multiple forms and handed over the usual plethora of photocopied documents. They gave us a document and told us to go to the bank to pay a fee. We found a bank in the main square and thirty minutes later reported back to be told that the Port Captain wasn't around to sign our zarpe (exit clearance papers). We’d have to come back in an hour.
We wandered around aimlessly, trying to avoid the tourist shops and the touts – “Hello, my friend, come and look at my things…” Cozumel is not a very interesting place, very touristy and geared to scuba diving – there’s a Starbucks, Hard Rock Café, Diamonds International, MacDonald’s, etc., which have little interest for us.
An hour later, clutching our signed zarpe, we walked back to the immigration office, where we gave them another handful of photocopies and finally had all of our clearance papers. In retrospect, it wasn't too painful and would have been fairly quick, if the Port Captain had been in his office.
We went to supermarket and spent our last pesos – it’s a weird feeling to spend all of your money. When we arrived back at the anchorage, “La Isla” had returned, so Roberto and Tatiana took a couple of our charts to get them copied and went to clear out and buy some provisions. They were successful in clearing out, but didn't manage to get the charts copied.
We left at four o'clock and motor-sailed along the coast of Cozumel passing four huge cruise ships and endless dive and party boats. As the sun went down, we had a chat with “La Isla” who were a few miles behind us and confirmed that we were going to Bahia Espiritus Santos.
As we headed out to sea past the south end of the island, the wind gradually picked up to 20 knots from the south east, so we were hard on the wind on port tack just making the rhomb line to Bahia Espiritus Santos. It was a pretty night with a bright ¾ moon and clear skies, but it was miserable trying to get comfortable while we were banging and crashing about in the big confused seas.
22 February 2013 Cozumel to Banco Chinchorro, Mexico (Day 2)
As we headed further south, the wind picked up to 25 knots still from the south east, so the motion of the boat just got worse as the night progressed. Glenys had a sense of humour failure about the weather, mostly because she found it impossible to sleep on her off-watches.
By dawn, we were 10 miles north-east of Bahia Espiritus Santos. It was now blowing 25-30 knots and we were heavily reefed, still crashing and banging upwind as the seas increased. I was worried that the entrance through the reef into Bahia Espiritus Santos would be difficult and possibly dangerous in the big seas, so I decided it would be better to carry on for another 35 miles to Cayo Norte in the Banco Chincorro.
I was very concerned that we’d told “La Isla” that we were going to Bahia Espiritus Santos, so I tried for an hour to call them on the VHF radio, but to no avail. I had no idea where they were, so we just had to leave them to their own devices and carry on. This is one of the reasons that I don’t like cruising in company - I was very worried that they had no decent charts, but what could I do?
The next eight hours were horrible. The winds picked up even more with gusts over 30 knots and the seas just got bigger. In addition, we couldn't hold a direct course to Cayo Norte, but were gradually being forced to the west - if I tried to head up too much, then the big waves were just stopping us dead. We still had a 2 knot current against us, which made matters worse, and I was getting concerned that we wouldn't make the anchorage in daylight, so my only option was to motor-sail and head up as much as possible to reduce our cross track error.
We were taking big waves across our deck, which was slamming a wall of water into the spray-hood and soaking the cockpit most of the time. All we could do was to cower under the spray-hood and accept that we were getting wet. It was miserable even though the sun was shining. To make matters worse, Glenys discovered that we had sea water running out of one of the head-linings and dribbling down onto the carpet – oh miser!
We were very, very grateful to anchor in the atoll of Banco Chincorro at about three o'clock The water is very shallow behind the reef, so after a little bit of exploring, we ended up anchoring about ½ mile from the small island of Cayo Norte. The holding was very good in white sand and the water is very clear - the water colours are stunning.
After a fifteen minute rest and a sandwich to fortify us, we began sorting out the chaos. Glenys spent half an hour washing the cockpit and hatches to get rid of all the sea water crystals, while I investigated the leak above the headlining. I found that there was a loose hose on a fibreglass vent housing that goes through the side of the cockpit hull – the moulded pipe for the hose has been broken sometime in the past and has been bodged with some tape and silicone sealant. The heavy seas have obviously been too much for the repair – I’ll have to fix it tomorrow. All I could do today was to remove the soggy carpet and clean up the seawater on the head-lining and walls.
Just as we were starting to relax with a beer, a pirogue with four soldiers came out from the island. They were heavily armed with machine guns, but were very friendly and just needed to know the boat name, our names and where we were heading. We told them that we’ll probably be staying for two or three days. There are about twenty soldiers out here defending the Mexican territory. They asked us for some “refresco”, so we gave them a glass of coke each – even though I offered, they didn't want beer because they were on duty.
It was a weary couple of sailors that climbed into bed at half past eight. Glenys then found that her side of the bed was wet through. I found that we have another leak in the deck above one of the lockers where she keeps her clothes, so they’re all wet through as well – she wasn't happy as she changed the bed sheets...
23 February 2013 Cayo Norte, Banco Chinchorro, Mexico
It was blowing a hooley in the morning with gusts over 30 knots, so I reviewed the grib file and weather forecast that I downloaded two days ago - this strong wind will be with us for another three days. Ah well, I can think of much worse places to be stuck for a few days. We’re anchored at the north end of a 20 mile long atoll surrounded by coral reefs. There are a few small islands within the atoll and were anchored next to the most northern cay – it’s stunning.
However, we had no time to explore paradise. We spent most of the day sorting out the chaos caused by the various water leaks that we found yesterday. Glenys rinsed her wet clothes in fresh water, but then had to wash down some of the rigging before she could hang out her washing without picking up any salt crystals. She then washed down the spray-hood and bimini because they were massively salt encrusted. Then she washed down the carpet that had been soaked in sea water.
Meanwhile, I removed and resealed three bolts on a deck fitting that I think have caused the leak in her clothes locker. The other leak proved to be a little bit trickier, but after a bit of deliberation, I've found a bit of plastic pipe that just fits inside the broken hose fitting on the vent box. I used MarineTex to stick it in place. Hopefully that will hold and I can finish it off tomorrow.
It’s a little bit bouncy where we’re anchored, so at lunch time, we pulled up the anchor and had a brief excursion around the area, but the sea bed appears to be stones and rubble as we went further south, so we couldn't get the anchor to set and after a couple of goes we gave up and retreated back to our original place. It’s not too bad and at least the sun’s shining.
I mopped out the engine compartment, which had four inches of water in the bilge below the engine. I can’t see any leaking hoses and it’s obviously sea water, so all I can surmise is that the stern gland was leaking when we were motor-sailing up-wind yesterday. Perhaps I should tighten the bellows on the PSS shaft seal?
I ran the generator and started up the water maker, but after five minutes, the generator cut-out with a high temperature warning light – don’t panic! After some investigation, I found that the sea water impellor has a broken vane, so I changed it and it seemed to run okay for an hour. I couldn’t find the vane that has broken off, but hopefully it has passed through the heat exchanger and out of the exhaust.
It was nice to finally relax, crack open a cold beer and watch the sun go down.
24 February 2013 Cayo Norte, Banco Chinchorro, Mexico
I downloaded a grib file on our satellite phone today and it shows that these strong south-east winds are going to continue for another three days until Tuesday, when a weak low pressure ridge will form over the area. This should give light variable winds until six days’ time when a strong Norther hits the Yucatan peninsula. We’ll probably sail down to Belize on Wednesday. It will be an overnight sail again, but hopefully the winds will be much lighter than the epic getting here. Our main concern is to be tucked up somewhere safe when the cold front comes through.
We had a very slack day – the constant howling of the 25 knots winds and the choppy anchorage is starting to wear on us. I caught up on editing my photographs and writing this diary, then finished off epoxying the leaking fibreglass vent housing. The repair looks pretty good, if I say so myself, but we’ll not know if it’s successful until we’re in another heavy sea. Glenys chilled out and read more about anchorages in Belize – I think the imminent threat of a Norther has focussed her mind.
After lunch, I thought that it would be good to get off the boat and go for a walk on the island. We dropped the dinghy into the water and then lowered the outboard down on our small hoist, which proved to be a real challenge in the bouncy 25 knots conditions. I gave up trying to connect the fuel tank because I was being thrown around too much, so we decided to stay on-board. We read our books and had a nap – we’re obviously catching up on lost sleep from the horrible passage here.
Later in the afternoon, the wind dropped below 20 knots and the seas abated a little, so we jumped in the dinghy and went ashore. It’s very, very shallow at the west side of the dock – our outboard grounded for a second or two before I managed to lift it out of the water. Fortunately, there was no damage done to the propeller.
A couple of soldiers met us on the dock (one looking very official with his clipboard), but they were quite happy for us to come ashore. We found out that there are twenty soldiers based here and they come out for thirty days and then have thirty days back on the mainland – not a bad posting in my humble opinion. We had a 30 minute walk along the beach which was fantastic after three days’ trapped aboard Alba.
Glenys rustled up a nice Chicken Paella for dinner, which we ate in front of the TV. “Yindee Plus” gave us a copy of the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica and I'm afraid that we’re totally addicted now – we’re on season 2, episode 6 and it’s hard to stop…
25 February 2013 Cayo Norte, Banco Chinchorro, Mexico
The wind was still blowing 20-25 knots from the south-east. It was too windy to go snorkelling, so we settled down to another day lurking about. Glenys baked some bread and banana bread, then tidied up her clothes, now that I’d sealed the deck leak above her clothes locker.
I spent the morning on my laptop sorting out the next updates for my web site – I even spent a few hours creating a PDF copy of Glenys’s cookbook, which I’ll post onto the web site when it’s completed.
In the afternoon, I connected the hose to the repaired cockpit vent, so hopefully that will sort out that deck leak. I then tackled the aft toilet – the waste water pumped out of the toilet has been slowly seeping back into the bowl. It was one of those jobs that just escalated. I removed the joker valve which is a one way valve designed to stop this back-wash happening. Sure enough it was all built up with lime scale and distorted. I had a spare joker valve, but first I had to scrape some build-up out of the fitting. Then when I reassembled it, I found that the toilet didn't work at all, so I had to take the whole pump off and clean up some other parts. Not pleasant…
I downloaded another weather forecast and the cold front is still forecast to bring 30 knot winds on Friday night/Saturday - in four days’ time. Unfortunately, the winds look like they might still be too strong for us to go tomorrow, so it’s hurry up and wait again.
26 February 2013 Cayo Norte, Banco Chinchorro, Mexico
The weather forecast showed 20 knot south-east winds veering south. There’s a weak low pressure area that is building over to the west of us and it should be bringing variable winds and probably some showers from tonight until 1st March. The cold front is looking to be very strong and we want to somewhere safe before it hits us. We decided to wait until tomorrow to let the big seas subside – we’ll probably have to motor anyway.
It’s 100 miles to the Eastern Channel, which is a big ship entrance through the reef into the protected waters of Belize. We’re expecting a 1-2 knot current against us all the way, so we’re planning to leave at first light tomorrow and we should be there within 24 hours. It’s another overnight sail, but at least we’ll be able to enter the Eastern Channel at night, if we make better time than 4 knots.
I spent most of the morning looking at charts and cruising guides to work out where we’re going to wait out the Norther and I have a few candidates. Ideally, we’ll be able to get to Dandriga by lunchtime on the 28th and clear in. We should then have time to go across to one of the cays and find a nice secure anchorage. If we can’t get to Dangriga in time, then we’ll go to clear in after the Norther has passed.
By lunchtime, the wind had dropped below 15 knots and it was a beautiful day, so after a fabulous lunch of scrambled eggs on toast with Glenys’s freshly made bread, we jumped in the dinghy and went snorkelling. The inside of the fringing reef is very shallow and has a lot of surge, so it wasn't too good. In fact it was more interesting on the sand where Alba was anchored – at least there we found a big Barracuda and a cute little reef squid.
I took my underwater camera out for its first outing for nearly a year and I now remember how frustrating underwater photography can be, especially because my equipment is not very good. I think that the most frustrating thing is the shutter lag on my Canon G11 camera – I click the shutter and it takes the camera a second or so to take the actual picture, by which time the subject has usually moved… The only solution is to invest a couple of thousand pounds in a decent SLR and underwater housing, but it’s not going to happen…
27 February 2013 Banco Chinchorro to Water Cay, Belize
We were up early and slowly navigated ourselves clear of the reef at around half past seven. The wind was 10-15 knots from the east, so we had a lovely sail in calm waters along the west side of the fringing reef. The depth of the water changes dramatically from more than 200 meters to shallow reef in a very short distance. The reef wasn't breaking, but it was easy to see how far we were away by the change in the water colour from dark blue to a lovely light turquoise. We were escorted by a pair of Bottlenosed Dolphins for a while.
By midday, we'd cleared the south end of the reef and the seas got a little larger, but nothing drastic, so we were able to get on with things other than just reading or staring at the endless sea. I checked the aft bilge and we've definitely got a leak somewhere, but after fifteen minutes of pulling up floorboards and searching, I can't find where it's coming from.
The wind dropped in the middle of the afternoon and we had motor for five hours, but after that had a pleasant sail. We were expecting to have a strong current against us for this passage, but we didn't encounter anything at all. This meant that we were way ahead of schedule and would be arriving at the Eastern Channel at around midnight. I don't normally enter strange ports at night in the Caribbean, but I expected the lights to be reliable in this channel because it's the main entry for large ships going to Belize City.
I went to bed at seven o'clock, but Glenys had me out of bed an hour later to give her moral support because two cruise ships were coming north out of the Eastern Channel. They passed us safely, but it’s very difficult to see their navigation lights with the bright deck lights blazing away all over the ship.
As expected, we arrived off the entrance at midnight and easily navigated up the wide, deep channel, although several of the lights were different from the ones shown on our charts. Thankfully, we had a bright, full moon and it was good to drop anchor at one o'clock just off the shipping channel in the lee of Water Cay and crawl into bed.
28 February 2013 Water Cay to Garbutt Cay, Belize
The alarm went off at half past five – groan! Only four hours sleep, but we don’t have the luxury of hanging about today. Our plan was to sail twenty miles to Dangriga and clear in before lunch time, so that we can be tucked up somewhere nice in the afternoon before the Norther arrives tomorrow night.
We pulled up the anchor before the sun came up and motored across 12 Feet Bank, passing just behind a huge cruise ship that was sneaking up the ship channel towards Belize City. The wind was light from the south, but it was a pleasant motor in the flat calm seas - I think that I'm going to enjoy sailing in this fantastic area protected by the huge barrier reef.
We approached Dangriga town, heading towards the entrance to a small river, where we knew that we could dock our dinghy. As the depth slowly dropped to 5 meters, I handed over the wheel to Glenys and started to walk towards the bow to drop the anchor. A few seconds later, the depth suddenly dropped to 2 meters and we ground to a halt. Glenys spun the wheel and slammed on full power, heading away from the shore. The depth dropped to 1.8 meters - we were definitely aground, but we slowly dragged ourselves off the sand bank. Phew!
We anchored a little further away from the shore, put the dinghy in the water and went into town, motoring up the small river. There's a very shallow sand bar across the river mouth - probably only one foot or so at low tide and it comes out a long way, hence our grounding. We tied up to a small dock and walked down the main street to the Immigration and Customs offices. It's a quaint, run-down little town, very reminiscent of the Windward Islands.
The town of Dangriga is the second largest town in Belize and the cultural centre for the Garifuna people. The saga of the Garifuna is not one of Britain's finest historical moments. In the seventeenth century, shipwrecked African slaves were swept up on the shores of St Vincent where they hooked up with the Caribs and Arawaks and created a new people. The Garifuna people then fought against the English rule of St Vincent. In 1790, they eventually surrendered and all 4330 of them were deported. After being moved around various parts of the Caribbean and many deaths, only 1485 Garifuna people finally arrived in Honduras. From there they settled in Belize.
The check-in procedure was fairly simple and only took an hour. We only had to visit the Immigration and Customs officers. I found them very pleasant, but as usual, a little pedantic. It was nice to be able to communicate with them in English instead of struggling with Spanish. The customs guy confirmed that it would be much more complicated to clear in at other ports of entry – we’ll probably come back here to clear out.
The customs guy recommended a small eating place called "Tanya's Kitchen", which was great. It’s only a small wooden shack with three tables, but the rice and beans with pork was brilliant. It’s nice to be back to West Indian style cooking.
Our next stop was..... You guessed it - a supermarket, then a hardware store to buy some more refrigerant for our leaking fridges, then the local vegetable market and back to Alba by half past one.
After a short rest, we motored eight miles across to Garbutt Cay and anchored off a group of seven small mangrove cays with a fishing camp on shore. For some reason there are pine trees ashore, which bizarrely, make it look very much like Maine in the north east of the USA.
We collapsed with a cold beer and had an early night.