Mexico!!!!!!!!!!
Sarah Grace goes to sea
Chris Yerbury and Sophy White
Sat 24 Mar 2007 12:01
Isla Mujeres, 24th March
?Friday, 2007 MEXICO! Dawn.
We finally made it last
night, in the dark, easing in around the thankfully working flashing red buoys
into a really calm harbour. If the buoys had not been there we would have
had to anchor in the channel between Isla Mujeres and Mexico. We broke
through the easterly-on-the-nose current late in the afternoon, and then started
going 9 knots over the ground on a reach up north. Folk get quite
exciteable about current rips and overfalls in this area, but the ones
we saw were quite pathetic in comparison to what you get around England,
especially the tidal rips of the Bristol channel.
I've sprung out of bed this
morning drunk on seven hours of UNINTERRUPTED sleep. Just before we
came near Cancun in the evening, we caught a tuna, but it slipped it's hook and
escaped before we could get it onboard, so sadly, no fresh tuna
today.
We are all excited about
going ashore, even though it is hardly light, and see what the country is
like. I was here over thirty years ago on a family holiday, and haven't
been back since, but have strong memories of amazingly fiery enchilladas and
beautiful reefs. Having scanned the harbour in the grey light of dawn I
can see that we have anchored in the middle of what is in effect a channel
between all the anchored boats, down which ferries travel. They are
having to edge around the stern and are causing huge rolling on board, so we
will have to re-anchor as soon as Chris comes alive.
A good sign is that most
yachts here have their tenders in the water. This means that
people don't tend to steal them. If everyone winches them on board every
night (eg. Venezuela) then that means you are in a dinghy adoption area,
which is a real bore, as winching at the end of a long day is hard
work. Rule number two of cruising is always do what everyone else
does in the anchorage.