We’ve left for the islands. Journal. Farewell to mainland Mexico and friends. What does it mean when there are too many women aboard one boat? A yacht diving platform, encounters with Russians and non-Russians on the other side of the world
Our month and a half in wonderful Puerto Aventuras, on the Caribbean coast of mainland Mexico, somehow came to an end all too quickly. The crew longed for freedom and open water, for swimming and wind in our faces.
Besides, you don’t have to pay 25 bucks a day to anchor.
Our road trip inland through Mexico, to the Maya pyramids, was over, and the transmission had been repaired—so we were off to Isla Mujeres. We would check out there and bid farewell to the land of tequila and sombreros.
This isn’t tequila; it’s Maya chocolate at a hacienda deep in the state of Tabasco .
It isn’t easy to leave a place where you’ve settled in, but that itch in the usual place kept nagging: “Time to go!”
The night before our departure, the rain poured down and thunder crashed all night. Lightning lashed out from every direction, all together and by turns. The yacht sealed herself up against the rain and, as a precaution, had a special bowl beneath the window in the heads to catch the drips. We collected half a bowlful :).
Early in the morning, the first mate started losing her nerve, wondering whether we ought to postpone our departure. But the rain gradually subsided, leaving no room for a cowardly manoeuvre.
Leaving was sad. Nastya was staying ashore—we had lived in the same building as children. She had waited for us to come and visit her in Mexico, 20 years later...
In Puerto Aventuras we made new friends from Kyiv—Slava, his sister Anya and her husband Igor, their two daughters and two sons. I want to write a separate post about Russian-speaking Mexico and the ways people move here.
A farewell photo
Perhaps when you find yourself alone again gradually, rather than everyone parting in one fell swoop, separation is easier. How wonderful that we weren’t travelling this part of the way alone!
The plan the night before had been to turn Lady Mary into a sailing ferry, carrying another 6 to 8 passengers besides ourselves to the neighbouring island. By morning, the guest list had compactly shrunk to three, when Slava and Anya finally decided not to sail with us. But the girls from among our Russian-American friends—Yulia and her daughters Kathleen and Gabriela—appeared at half past eight. One hundred and fifty photos for posterity, and we cast off with an escort: Slava and Anya drove a golf cart along the quay beside us, all the way to the marina entrance.
“Your port side isn’t very photogenic,” Slava informed us. And we began thinking that it was high time to clean the “giraffe” streaks off that side too.
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Eight girls, and only me. From the mainland to Cozumel
The 15 miles from Puerto Aventuras to Cozumel were easy and anything but boring: the last time we had sailed with company was about 3 years ago. All the girls acquired photos on the theme of “Me on a snow-white yacht.” Fortunately for the uninitiated, there were no waves at all. True, there was no wind either, but that was a minor detail—the wind was switched on later.
After a little over three hours of sailing (sailering? sailification? making way under sail?), we had already dropped anchor.
Cozumel’s turquoise waters finally gave the crew a wonderful, cool night—not at all like the nights of stagnant air deep inside the marina—and gave both our own girls and our guests a chance to jump from the diving platform and swim.
If you have a spinnaker pole, be sure to turn it into a diving platform! A halyard, two guys—and your children are happy. After this passage, Elya officially announced to her mother that she wanted a yacht.
Kathleen, Lada and Elya
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After seeing our guests off on the five o’clock ferry, the female part of the crew went for a walk around the town centre, leaving the cap to rest: lowering the spinnaker pole, sorting out the lines and water cans—let the cap have a proper rest, just in case we went to sea tomorrow. And off we went to the ferry quay, where you aren’t allowed to berth..., saw our friends off, then ran into a couple of absolutely plastered Russians from Samara, who practically flung themselves around our necks after extracting a solemn promise that we would write. Why do they give people so much to drink on snorkelling trips (swimming in masks with the fish)? Though the man’s pupils were dilated. Do they do more than just serve drinks there?
We beat a retreat and, during our walk, realised that girls will be girls!—a couple of hours later, our wanderings brought us to Starbucks, where there was, predictably, air conditioning and internet, accompanied by some sort of pastry.
When we returned to the boat, we discovered that the weather forecast had ordered Lady Mary to leave for Isla Mujeres very, very early, or not to leave for another 3 days.
All the women aboard that day 🙂
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A lyrical digression on the meaning of life
How long it had been since we’d lain at anchor in open water! How we had missed space and freedom! At dusk I can sit for hours on the bowsprit, watching the moving lights of the occasional car, the figures of people, the splashes of fish and the glow of plankton, breathing in the damp scent of leaves and the mind-blowing aromas from the grills of waterfront cafés...
I thank the Universe for its gifts and for giving me the strength to take the plunge into our adventure :). Though really, what’s so difficult about it?...
At last, the boat once again has an atmosphere somewhere between an expedition and the first trip out to the dacha at the beginning of summer—something you never get when you’re in a marina.
Sunset in the bay at Isla Mujeres
While pondering the meaning of life, one distinct side effect of Mexico occurred to me: for some reason, I can’t write at all in the heat. It’s difficult to organise myself specifically to write anything worthwhile, either for my job or for what I call work.
But I have plenty of energy for reading, drenched in sweat, and replying to comments. And in the last week, I’ve also become hooked on a book. Thanks to the captain (he’s probably regretted it a hundred times by now ;)), I got my hands on a “zombie book”—The Farseer Trilogy. I’ve never liked or read fantasy. But now... a whole week in a fog: no articles, no posts, not even washing the dishes... :). I wish I’d hurry up and finish it.
Nastya still has enough energy for lessons, almost every day without a break. We aren’t sure how productively the child is learning, but she dutifully puts in the time, despite the clammy heat and the fact that all the other stars are swimming.
Starfish. Three
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From Cozumel to Isla Mujeres
The next morning, shortly after 7, we had already weighed anchor. It’s something like 45 miles to Isla Mujeres, and the favourable Gulf Stream accelerated Lady Mary to as much as 9.5 knots. Strong beam seas somewhat dampened the travelling enthusiasm of 3/4 of the crew; the young sailors lay down on deck to listen to audio fairy tales and French lessons, while the first mate amused herself with handicrafts—she made Lada a motanka doll.
The young sailor had wanted one very badly the day before, when I was making a Slavic talisman as a gift for our Nastya in Mexico and her husband—a pair of inseparable lovebird dolls. I tucked the finished doll beside the young sailor, who had dozed off listening to an audio fairy tale; today she was seasick.
Along the way, the Gulf Stream eased a little, together with the wind, as we left the deep water for the continental shelf, and we flew into our anchorage after lunch. And in the final hour, we even hooked a huge mackerel.
Actually, when we’re seasick, the young sailors and I aren’t very fond of all the fuss involved in landing a fish: furl the sail, haul in the catch, scoop it up in the landing net, unfurl the sail again. Meanwhile, we lose speed, a precious 10 minutes and 43 seconds slip away, and then we have to scoop up seawater in a bucket and pour it over Dad and the fish—or, more precisely, what’s left of it and whatever has been smeared across the cockpit floor and bulkhead— and scrub those scales off the deck... When all you want to do is lie perfectly still and contemplate eternity :).—
That’s Nastya and me grumbling. But at least we’ll have a grilled feast tonight!
As we entered the harbour, it suddenly occurred to me that Mexico was the first country since Italy 3 years ago where someone was waiting for us. It matters when someone somewhere is waiting for you, especially when you’re part of a small group on a very long voyage. You can’t grasp that feeling until you’ve gone to sea for years.
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Meeting Our Own
We had also made friends on Isla Mujeres after arriving in Mexico. A month and a half earlier, when we had only just arrived from Cuba, someone had called out to us in Russian from a yacht sailing past in the bay:
“Hello!”
“Oh! Are you Russian? Hello!”
“Are you Marina?”
“Yes, but how did you...?”
“Facebook :).”
Vitaly and Ulya made a quick run to top up their water and returned to the anchorage. Their yacht is called Chaka-Chaka, but no one except the owners knows that—its name translates rather unambiguously from Spanish, so in Spanish-speaking waters they decided to leave the hull pristinely blank. You can write whatever name you like in its place.
The guys had arrived at Mujeres back in January, and it was wonderful that they had stayed long enough for us to return from the mainland; they welcomed us and even photographed Lady Mary under sail.
Our girls lowering the mainsail
And then we sat on our deck until late over wine, dominoes and mackerel, as if we’d come home.
It was an excellent passage. Hello, cosy, dear old Isla Mujeres.
To be continued!