Here’s the latest from Steve and Ginny. Pictures to follow.

On the morning after our arrival in Cancun we sailed across to Isla Mujeres, where we cleared customs. It’s a slender island, three miles long, with nice beaches and reefs. The people are Mayan, short and beaming like brown-skinned cherubs. They are relatively affluent due to the strong tourism industry, and very friendly. Oddly, their close association with vacationers from the north has not soured them to foreigners. The main road running the length of the island buzzed with cheerful locals on scooters, wearing colorful plastic helmets, but it also carried countless golf carts loaded with sunburned North Americans in beach attire.

And it’s a yachting center. Plenty of cruising sailboats remained in the harbor and in the connecting lagoon, but they were thinning out. Each day some sailed north to Texas or Florida, or south, to Rio Dulce, Guatemala. At first we tied to pilings where we could wade ashore. Then we anchored in the harbor, for better breeze and privacy. As in Marathon, our neighbors at anchor soon befriended us, offering whatever help we might need. We learned where to buy food and supplies, and where to get things made out of metal. This would be a good place to get more things done to the boat.

 Our original flexible 12 watt solar panel had shorted out internally due to saltwater. We bought a 20 watt Mexican solar panel and installed it. Then I had a tiller-tamer made, consisting of a deployable “comb” on top of the lazarette and a blade on the bottom side of the tiller. To set it I would lift up the comb and set the tiller in whichever slot matched my desired course. We also ordered some backup or replacement electronic equipment: notebook computer, charger cables, handheld GPS, and LED headlamps. These items would be shipped to the house of our parents, who would bring them to wedding in Belize. Did I mention we’re getting married in Belize?

We have finally escaped winter. The temperature is in the 80s and 90s during the day, bearable only due to the constant trade winds. We wear light-colored clothes and our Keens beach shoes. We much appreciated our tarp boat cover; it works for sun as well as rain. We rarely need a cover at night any more.

On May 14 we refilled the tanks from the nearby water purification plant and sailed to Cancun where we visited with friends for a few days. Then we sailed through a large mangrove lagoon that runs through the middle of the Cancun hotel zone and came out the south side, in open water but behind the coral reef that follows the coast south. We sailed a few miles then anchored in mild surf a few miles north of Puerto Morelos. The shoreline was an endless, lovely beach with flat scrub forest behind. We were free to wander and swim.

The next day we reached Puerto Morelos, where we bought more supplies. Puerto Morelos used to have the car ferry service to Cozumel but the dock is abandoned now. We anchored that night behind a sunken but emergent ferry. The reef is an imperfect block against waves. We expected the wreck to provide extra shelter, but it didn´t help much.

The next day we sailed through a stretch without reef, in which the seas were boisterous but not dangerous, to where reefs start again. At a place called Hut Point we pitched our tent on the beach, only the second time we´ve used it in our five months of boat travel. We did so to avoid the bouncy anchorage (the reef has to many gaps to thoroughly block the waves) and because we wanted to restore the finish on our wooden oars, which were showing spots of rot. We stayed there three days, sanding and fiberglassing with epoxy resin. We swam and hiked a lot. The vicinity has lots of tourist facilities but our immediate environment was a large forested tract in which our camping was cheerfully tolerated.

We then sailed past Playa del Carmen, a mega tourism center. The tall hotels of Cozumel, world´s largest cruise ship destination, were visible eighteen miles to the west. We continued along a coast of rough, low rock with sandy bays, stopping in a cove, the entrance of which was half closed by a reef. We anchored in the most sheltered corner. The snorkeling here was superb. Steve swam around the reef and up the rocky shoreline. In one indentation the water on the surface was cold, blurry, and bronzed in color: a subterranean river was debouching upward through a bottom of broken rock.

 The next day we reached Puerto Aventuras, another mammoth tourist resort. The marina has 260 slips and thousands of condos and hotel rooms. The locals servicing this vast complex alone make up a large community. We tied to a dock right across from the crowded dolphin and manatee pens but never paid anything because the dockmaster´s office was closed. Tourists were drinking in bars and swimming with the dolphins for a fee. Except for our free dockage everything was very expensive. But we bought some pricey coffee and filled our tanks again. Ginny found a baby grackler (the Mexican crow, which has a raucous screech and whistle) in the street being batted about by a cat. She took it to the boat with us, made it a nest in the cabin, and started feeding it sugar water from an eyedropper. We kept ¨Grax¨ with us from then on.

The next day we sailed to a cove called Yalku, which we had visited before. It was possibly the prettiest place we had ever swam, and we wanted to visit it again by boat. The entrance was narrow! We slipped through a gap in the surf-spumed coral, sailing slowly to avoid broaching. We anchored. It was just as beautiful as we remembered! It is a generally shallow area of erosion-sculpted limestone rock with a sandy bottom. The rock twists into an infinity of lovely shapes with many clefts and connecting tunnels. Mangrove brush drapes over the low rock, its cloven roots dropping down into the water. The swimming was good as ever. In the morning an official kayaked out to us and said we couldn´t stay there, but we were then already pulling up the anchor.

Today we have arrived at Tulum. We sailed up in front of the beautiful Mayan ruins, on a rock cliff overlooking the sea. The central tower once served as a lighthouse marking the opening into the reef. Tulum was a major center for us in 2008 when we toured the Yucatan by truck and canoe. We are really nostalgic about this place! Then we camped in our truck canopy on the beach, now we will see how it is to sleep aboard. It looks a little bouncy out there, unfortunately. Also, Tulum is the last sizable town on our route before we cross into Belize, so we have to provision and use internet. We are now in an internet shop. We have already been to a veterinarian, who advised Ginny to feed the baby grackler bananas and apples!