We arrived in Isla Mujeres Mexico around
noon after a 4 day, 4 night trip. On
approach, you see the tiny island come into view, white sandy beaches, with
building after building claiming more. The
crystal clear water is swimming pool blue.
We
docked at Marina Isla Mujeres located at the Villa Vera Resort. Immigration, Sanitation, Agriculture came to
boat. They semi -finished about 4 pm, we
would still have to go to customs and the port captain in town and show stamped
and paid. The marina manager made the numerous copies we needed to satisfy the
paper fetish Mexico has. The sanitation
guy did not have an ink pad for his stamp so we gave him a marker to color over
& then he stamped our papers….. They love stamps.
Marina has wonderful showers just at end of
dock, we needed one badly. We had been
frugally saving water because you can not take on water in Mexico. We had not tested our water maker yet, so
needless to say only one shower in 4 1/2 days, we were in desperate need. Cleaned and semi -checked in we went to the pool
side bar, had beer, margaritas, nachos and guacamole. We were in bed by 6 pm in air conditioning on
a calm boat. Wow what a sleep.
13 hours of sleep can change your view of
anything, then coffee and breakfast. What
a great day. Don had to go into town and
get receipts from immigration to show customs that we'd paid our taxes then to
port captain. Immigration was not there
and neither was customs. He will try
again tomorrow. Captain Don changed engine
oil, and I washed down the deck. I fell
off the back swim platform; hit my hip gaining another bruise. I had fallen in the bilge a few days before putting
a huge bruise on back of my thigh. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of this sooner or
later! I sent laundry to be done, I love
it when you drop it off and pick it up later wash dried and folded… luxury,
pure luxury. We went downtown to dinner
had fajitas, pina coladas, lobster quesadillas, walked around the town
and took a cab back. Nice little island
but this is not the Isla Mujeres I remember from 15 years ago. This place has been encroached upon by
tourism at its finest. With Cancun a
huge tourist spot just a few miles away, the spillage is creating spoilage!
Next day we walked the other direction from
marina, away from downtown and came across a large grocery, Chedraui, nice
store. Large grocery stores are a rarity
the way we know of them in the USA. Most
are small storefronts, on some islands they’re the front space of someone’s
home. Also living on a boat, priorities
change drastically with food gathering and the best local beer being tied for number
one. The next would be laundry service
tied with boat parts. We walked on and found
a bar called Oscars Bar & Grill, met couple of gringos, one from Canada here
on a Carver motor vessel. He’s an ex-
baseball player with hurt knees turned nude photographer, he gave us his card. I filed it away, you never know maybe nudies
of old people will be popular one day! (ha)
We walked back towards marina and ate dinner at local establishment. Great food, I had grouper with Mayan sauce
and Captain Don had grouper Veracruz style.
We spent most of our last day here trying
to clear out. It’s as hard to clear out
as it was to clear in. Fixed some food
for our next passage and readied the boat.
We left for fuel dock about 8:30 left Isla Mujeres approximately 9:22 a.m.,
heading for Roatan, Honduras. When we
traveled before, this was one of my favorite islands and I was excited to be
going back.
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