April 28, 2024

Here we sit in Bahia del Espiritu Santo waiting out the weather. But, let me digress first.

Puerto Aventuras

We spent several days exploring this “man-made” community/resort south of Playa del Carmen. They have a good marina, lots of restaurant, dolphins (every resort seems to have captive dolphins that we KNOW are happy), condos and hotels, and beaches. We’d already done Tulum and the surrounding cenotes and other ruins so, we basically hung here and relaxed.

Spanish

We thought it very funny that almost every Hispanic local we met told us how good our Spanish was. But that was mostly because none of the Gringos were speaking Spanish. One does not NEED Spanish to live here. Very sad. It was nice however that the locals were happy we spoke Spanish and did not “force” us to speak English.

Exploring

We did some bike-birding in the local neighborhoods. We could see how it could be compelling to have a casa there. A nice modern home, a lush little garden in a small paradise. But, not really for us. Some OK birding but we never seemed to be able to get our binos on the parrots to ID them.

There is a lovely little cove at the far south end of the resort. A gorgeous spot with very clear water and a little post classical Mayan ruin built between 1325 – 1521. Take that Tulum, you are not the only Mayan ruin on the ocean! This little cove was apparently a safe haven for commercial mariners plying their canoes along the coast, delivering and selling goods.

One of our fellow transient boaters told us about a swim up bar at one of the hotels. I think in reality outsiders are not supposed to go to the swim up bar, but it was not an all inclusive hotel, so in we came in our swimming costumes, hopped in the pool and ordered drinks. We paid with cash and all was good. The water was a bit warm, but a nice spot with a lovely beach view.

The Marina

This water had the clearest water I’ve ever seen in a marina. It was like we had our own little aquarium next to the boat. And, every day, we’d see good size rays swimming through the harbor.

But, the entrance to the harbor has a reef right outside the breakwater. Remember I mentioned the boat stuck on the reef in my last post? Turns out we’d met the guy and had dinner with him back in Puerto Morelos. It was a fun evening watching his boat being rescued from the reef by local launcheros. Amazingly, no holes and the boat is just fine except for some scrapes and a slight issue with the rudder. But still good enough to sail.

Bahia la Asuncion

We were ready to slip the bonds of Puerto Aventura having had enough of Gringolandia so headed south to Bahia la Asuncion, the norther bay of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. One of the largest protected pieces of land in Mexico. Once can anchor in the bay near the small pueblo of Punta Allen but must have a guide to venture further afield. I don’t know if this is a hard and fast rule, or something just in place to support the local community.

Birding Sian Ka’an

We hired a local woman to take us birding. It allowed us to get into the park. Not great birding, but we did get to see how hard this scrubby mangrove environment would be to live in. Puma, Jaguars and Ocelots live in this? I’d expected something a bit more lush

Birding in town was better with more diversity as there was more variety in the environment.

We also visited a bird island (it seems every bay has one with a nesting colony of something… We stopped along with other boats to visit the frolicking dolphins. We’ve seen the before, but this was extra fun.

Punta Allen, aka Javier Rojo Gomez

The town of Punta Allen is within the Biosphere Reserve. Why the name Punta Allen? Ric Hajovsky  who has written several book on the area tells us, “It was named in 1832, by Captain Allen Bird and he named it after himself. He was one of two Royal English Navy captains (the other was Richard Owen) sent by the Crown to chart the coast of Yucatan, Belize, Honduras and Nicaragua that year.

Somewhat sadly, because it is in the reserve, locals are banned from improving or developing their properties. They can only build with local materials, but they can’t cut trees, nor import materials. But, if you are rich enough, yes, you can build a nice little fishing lodge. Our guide and her son had mixed feeling about the situation. They love the simplicity of their life (it is 50 km on dirt road to the paved highway), but don’t really like that money talks for others who want to build. It has forgone the big high rise hotels though which is very nice.

The Mangroves

We did take a little boat ride on our own in the mangroves and no one seemed to mind. We’d read there was a back way into town and we could see it from satellite maps. So, we explored it. Not much to see, but a fun little boat ride.

Heading South Again

We wanted to head south but there was weather coming our way. This is challenging boating with reefs to the west, currents from the south against us and a constant trade wind of 20 kts from the east. Just to the east of the reefs, the continental shelf drops into 1200 feet or water or so (where the Gulf Stream is). The waters get much bigger and much rougher there. We are learning that three different simultaneous charts are starting to work for us.

If we went farther out, we end up in swells causing us to roll 13 – 20 degrees. Let me tell you, that is NOT pretty. We finally found if we stayed in 30 – 50 feet of water and followed the bathymetric line (the 3rd chart) while looking at the high res satellite image, we were not too rolly, 5 – 8 degrees and felt reasonably safe. We used the original route to keep is basically on track.

Bahia del Espiritu Santo

We only had a 5 hour run down the coast but we and the kittens were happy to tuck into our anchorage at Espiritu Santo. It is behind a deserted island (Isla Chal or Isla Owens; remember Captain Owens mentioned above?) with great protection from the East winds. A combination of mangroves and other very thick vegetation with tiny beaches. From a little bit of exploring by dinghy, it does not look like one could walk anywhere on the island. We did see a small shark (our first on the trip) and a ray.

We do have a neighbor in the anchorage. A couple from France on their very nice self designed and constructed catamaran. No one would would have any idea this was a one off design and build. It is quite impressive. It makes our apartment and home remodel projects seem like child’s play. It took them 4 years to complete after which they sailed from France across the Atlantic, through the Caribbean and Florida and now are headed for Guatemala. Turns out they were also in Punta Allen and are taking a very similar route from Florida, although they stopped off in Cuba. (Easier for them than those of us from the US). You can look back at Magali and Andre’s blog to see the building of the boat. It’s in French but Google translate works wonders.

So, here we sit waiting out the weather, hoping when we do head south we do not have two days of the same seas we had from Punta Allen to here. Jim did not think he could handle being so still but seems to be finding things to do.

However, he has been trying to make water and finding the TDS (total dissolved solids) are way out of wack. Dang, not drinkable. We now have to conserve water (we’ve got half a tank) as we don’t have a way to make it until we get new membranes on May 11^th when my brother and sister-in-law arrive (or we find reasonable dock water to work from.) But, he continues trying ways to clean the membranes sufficiently to make potable water. There you go, always something to work on!