Location:
Position: 21 14.574 N 080 44.574 W
Right after we leave the harbor on our way from Marathon to Isla Mujeres several huge dolphins are leaping out of the water playing in our bow wave, bidding us Godspeed on our journey. We take this as a good omen and feel better about our last minute decision to leave.
That is until we get to the Marquesas. The wind has built to 20-25 knots and is forward of beam, making for an uncomfortable ride. We feel like a cork bouncing around in a washing machine in these 8-10 foot waves with a 7 second period. For those of you who don’t understand that, the “period” is the time between one wave top and the next. A longer period makes for a more comfortable ride. When the height of the waves in feet is more than the period in seconds, watch out! The ride gets really bouncy and the boat moves abruptly in every direction, twisting and turning like a bucking bronco. All we can do is wedge ourselves in somewhere and hang on. For the first time ever on Rachel we both get seasick and “call for Huey”.
After we crack off the wind a bit and head more southerly to cross the
In the afternoon of the third day we are visited by a whole pod of dolphins. These seem to be a much smaller Cuban variety – only about 3-5 feet long. They leap out of the water and frolic around us for an hour or so. So far dolphins have come to visit and play every day of this passage. We decide, again, to take this as a good omen.
The wind decreases as we approach the Yucatan Channel, the narrow passage between
On arrival, we decide to take a slip at Marina Paraiso for several reasons. The first is that we’re pretty tired and a bit weak from not eating or sleeping much for the past 3 days – we can use a few days free of stress w/ easy access to shore and the marinas hot showers.
The second reason is the marina provides “full service” clearing in for a small fee. We’ve heard from other cruisers that this process can take a day or two of long waits when done without help and that it’s worth the minimal extra cost. Especially with our very limited Spanish.
And last but not least, gale force winds are predicted out of the northwest the next day at dawn. The northwest is the only point of wind from which the anchorage is unprotected and we hear on the local cruisers net that “the bottom is like 3 feet of soft ice cream on top of rock”, meaning that the holding could be better. We have a plan in place for secure anchoring in this sort of bottom, but are reluctant to put it to the test until we’re better rested and better prepared. So we go in to the dock.
Clearing in is uneventful, but from watching the process we’re glad we decided not to try it on our own. It is made readily apparent that we need to work on our language skills if we’re going to be spending time down here.
So here we are sitting on Rachel tied safely in our slip, awaiting the bad weather and looking forward to exploring the town. As we contemplate our crossing, we decide to title this Khronicle ‘Crossings’. We consider all the ‘crossings’ we’ve done to get here: so far we’ve crossed the Florida Straits, the Gulf Stream twice, the Yucatan Channel, a time zone from Eastern to Central time, our eyes while being sick, our fingers hoping we wouldn’t get sick again, our legs while we were on watch in boisterous conditions and needed a pee, our arms trying to keep warm, and our own personal Rubicon, reaching beyond our comfort level to sail here.
We're glad we did it and are looking forward to spending some time on this beautiful island.
