Monday, May 31, 1993

Before dawn, we could see the lights of Cancun and Mujeres, but we couldn't pick out the lighthouse on the south end of Mujeres. When the sun came up, we realized most of the lights had been in Cancun, so we'd been looking for the light in the wrong place.
It didn't take long to reach Mujeres in daylight. The wind shifted to the west and blew the storm clouds away. Now we can see blue sky, white fluffy clouds, and sunshine. And we're alive and safe in Mujeres Harbor.
As soon as we entered the harbor, we tied up at the fuel dock and filled our empty diesel cans. Then we went over to the anchorage, dropped anchor, and ate breakfast.
Lee on "Pyxis" called us on VHF. I told him about our fun weekend. He said the Weather Service realizes they blew it. They sent out a plane to see what was going on. There's a tropical trough that's causing the problems. Looks as if Wednesday will be the earliest we can get out of here.
This was the first day it didn't rain since we've been in Mujeres. Gorgeous day! Blue sky, white fluffy clouds, refreshing breeze.
Paddled to a nice sandy beach. Went to the bank and cashed another Travelers' Check. Hopped on a bus and rode down to the south end of the island. It was the first time we'd been south of the marina. We'd just been in the downtown area, and we'd wondered where the people lived. Now we found out. The bus went through the residential area, and it was quite large. And as miserable as in the rest of Mexico.
The end of the line was near a nice beach with lots of restaurants and palapas. While Roy relaxed in the shade, I walked down the beach, looking for the lighthouse and the Mayan ruins that are near the point. Towards the end of the beach, a young man said "Hi!" to me, so I assumed he spoke English and asked him if he knew where the Mayan ruins were. It turned out the extent of his English vocabulary was "Hi!" He called his girlfriend over. She spoke a little English but didn't seem to comprehend when I asked about Mayan ruins, so I tried Spanish, but that didn't click either. Then she told me they were tourists from Japan!
Returned to Roy. We were both very hungry by then (it was after two), so we walked over to a nice restaurant. Unfortunately, they had just stopped serving lunch, so we ended up eating rather sorry chicken sandwiches at a palapa.
I asked the waiter where the Mayan ruins were. He pointed towards the road and said we could walk there in one minute. We started in that direction, but saw a bus at the turnaround. Since the bus doesn't run very often, we took advantage of the opportunity to return to town.
Stopped at a pharmacy for some cough syrup. Also bought a candy bar to kill the taste of the chicken sandwich.
At the plaza, we ran into some other gringo cruisers. The word had already spread about our weekend adventure, so they asked us for more details.
Bought a few groceries at the "super market" and some good bananas and mangoes from a sidewalk vendor. Returned to the boat with the groceries, and then Roy took his SCUBA tank to a dive shop to be refilled.
Now that the generator's working perfectly, the microwave oven has conked out, so I had to cook supper on the hotplate. Roy didn't like the way I boiled the vegetables, so I gave him three choices: (1) He could repair the microwave; (2) He could eat the vegetables the way I cooked them; or (3) He could cook supper himself. He chose to cook supper. Oh boy!
(Mom's dad came here from England and was accustomed to the traditional British style of very overcooked vegetables, which is how my mom cooked vegetables on the stove. Somehow microwaves are magical and she was not able to overcook them in the microwave, which I found out when we sailed with her later in Florida. Somehow carrots stay bright orange and al-dente, cabbage stays bright green and al-dente, no matter long she cooked them. I guess that was what Roy was talking about.)