The Adventures of Francesca and Heide

Part 11

Hanging out at Isla Mujeres

December 17, 1999

We’ve been here at Isla Mujeres for several days now. The Island is about 5 miles long and a half mile wide running north to south. It has a nicely navigable harbor running lengthwise down the center from north end about half way. The island is about 5 miles offshore from Cancun.

Pat Wallace, a former Raychem associate in Raleigh, was kind enough to pass along a web site that may be helpful to you in following the geography of our travels. It is at :

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/americas/

Thanks Pat.

We have made a number of trips into the town and it is a neat little community with everything for the tourist. Prices are reasonable, but not cheap. We have found a good restaurant and enjoy excellent lunches there. Joan and Marge have been doing a bit of shopping without too much success (I add with some glee). While Joan is gaining prowess with her language abilities, Marge’s sometimes misunderstood Spanish pronunciation has reduce to rubble a hundred years of friendship and cooperation with the Latin world. There have been mumbled slogans like “Remember the Maine, let’s do it again”. Marge is getting the hang of it though.

The weather is really nice. Mid to upper 80s during the day, low 70s at night, moderate humidity and so far we have not been beset by bugs of any kind. It’s a little warm for Joan, but right in my comfort zone.

We have talked with a number of sailboat folks who, having been south, are on their way back to the States. They have had nothing but good to say about the regions wherein we shall soon cruise. There is a cruisers NET on VHF channel 67 at 8:30 AM each morning. The net gives weather, announcements, and is an open forum for any issues, meetings, etc. It is surprising that there would be a NET here as there are only 30 or 40 cruisers, but it’s certainly a nice feature of the locale.

So far, the only unfixable problem with the boat has been the loss of the small inverter, which was dedicated to powering the TV and computer. This has been an easy work-around though as we can run them from either the main inverter or generator. Also, being on the fringe of reception, we can no longer get Satellite TV. The locals use a 1-meter dish. We shall be looking for one to put on the boat soon.

Because we are just hanging out, and will be for the rest of the month, there is not much to report. When there is, I will of course, send out another ‘Adventures’. Until then, have a happy Christmas and New Years day. We’re especially thinking of all of you during this holiday season.

Joan, Ben, Marge, Marv & Maggie