Crossing to Isla Mujeres

Now that we had new sails installed, diesel tanks full, water tanks full, all our snacks ready to go we finally were ready to make the crossing to Isla Mujeres. Isla Mujeres is a small island just across from Cancun Mexico. It is a well known port for cruisers, with anchorages, marinas, and customs agents there to check in. The challenge of this crossing is the Gulf Stream.

You can go on a website called Windy. com and it will show you the most recent location and speed of the gulf stream. I don’t think the cruise ships or big tankers really pay attention to this current, but for boats like ours that travel at 6 knots or so, a 3 knot current makes a huge difference. If one were to take a direct route the trip from Key West to Isla Mujeres would be against the current the whole way. So what we had to do is go south from Key West towards Cuba, then travel just off the coast of Cuba south of the Gulf Stream, then cross the Gulf Stream again from the western tip of Cuba to Mexico. Being an American flagged boat we were not allowed to enter Cuban waters so we stayed off the coast in international waters.

Here is our trip

We had found a weather window where we had hardly any waves or wind. Nice for a crossing in that it is uneventful, but not good for sailing. We had to motor or motor sail the whole way. We were only able to go by sail alone for a few hours.

My mom had called before we left, saying there were so many people praying for us on our crossing that if we saw sparkling on the water it was angels leading the way.

Remember what I said about how much we do not get done while underway?

We did troll for fish. First we caught a little tuna—too small to eat but used as bait.

Then we caught a female Mahi Mahi.

We filleted the fish, and we had just got everything cleaned up and put away when we heard the reel go off again!

This one put up quite a fight, was fun to reel in. We filleted him as well. We had grilled fish that night for dinner. The next day I baked two loaves of Bahamian bread and we pan fried the fish and made fish sandwiches. Yum!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was beautiful, light breeze, calm seas. It was chilly the first two nights, we had hot chocolate on shift and wore jackets. But it was warm the last night as we crossed from Cuba to Mexico. We did see some cruise ships and cargo boats but they were easy to spot and far enough away to not be a problem.

We paused at the west end of Cuba, long enough for Benito and Benjamin to jump overboard and harvest some conchs. We were in about 20 feet of water. They quickly grabbed 3 conchs and put them on board.

Benito taught us how to open them to get the meat out.

He then made conch ceviche for lunch. Delicioso!

Benito is also a dive instructor and is going to certify all of us in Basic Open Water (recert for Kim and me). Benito did some initial instruction while underway, we will do our checkout dives with him in Mexico.

72 hours later we arrived safe and sound in Isla Mujeres, surrounded by the wings of angels and the prayers of our loved ones.