Saturday-Friday 19-25 Feb, Mexico days 31-37, El Cid Marina: Tracking down nasty smell, a bit of drama while kiting, lazy days in the resort, checking out procedures.
For our last week in Mexico, before we head south to Honduras, we remain totally spoiled in the wonderful El Cid Marina and attached resort. Plus doing maintenance and a day out kiteboarding.
Lazy days in the resort, where we enjoy afternoons at the various pools and also discover a newer section, Ventus, which was only opened 3 months ago. It has wonderful gardens and an excellent rooftop terrace, bar and infinity pool looking west over the mangroves.
The only negative we have is the drinks, which are second rate at best. We joke that they “surely have to be watered down”. So, one time we asked for a drink that they surely couldn’t screw up – a basic gin & tonic. We watched as the bar tender poured Beefeater gin almost to the top of the glass, then topped off with tonic. Obviously, that was going to be a very strong drink, but it was pathetically weak with barely even the taste of gin. Clearly the spirits bottle themselves are already watered down and likely the bar tenders themselves don’t even know it. But beggars can’t be choosers, now can we?
Kiting: It’s a sad fact that any piece of equipment left untouched on the boat for more than a year will develop problems. The last time I attempted to kitesurf in Bahamas, I was let down by a leaking bladder (kite bladder, not my bladder). Meaning the kite would not stay inflated. I had purchased a new bladder set that year, but up till now it has remained in its packaging, yet to be installed. Being in a marina, with nice grass lawns to work on, it is the ideal place to do this rather tedious job. I task which makes changing the inner tube on a bicycle tyre seem like child’s play. But after 2 hours and quite a bit of swearing, Oana and I have the 3 new strut bladders and the main leading-edge bladder replaced, pulling each one through the outer material tube with a lead-line.
After an inflation test, I go to put the kite back in its bag, when I notice lots of tiny pieces of corroded aluminium lying in the bottom. I trace this to a clam cleat on the control bar which has completely disintegrated with corrosion, rendering the control system totally useless. Pfff. As usual, as I fix one problem, another one surfaces. But with most boaty problems, although annoying when first discovered, it’s always good to catch before the equipment is actually needed.
With all my gear now fixed and carefully inspected for other issues, we finally get to go kiting, along with a fellow cruiser, Dave. We drive just over 1 hour to a long sandy peninsula north of Cancun where tourist development has not yet reached. There is only a kite school nested among the palms. The shallow water in the leaward side is perfect for kiting. And especially so since it is now 3 years sine I last kiteboarded, in beautiful Anegada in the BVIs.
I have a great time kiting back and forth for several good hours, skimming over the shallow turquioise water along with many other kiters. But unfortunately, Dave was not so lucky. His own kite had a leak (he didn’t do his maintenance!) and my backup kite was a little too small for him, so he packed up early.
So far, I had managed to keep my kite totally dry, but I went for one last session, and this one caused me some drama. During a jump, I accidentally activated the “oh-shit” control. Well, that’s what I call it. Its real name is a “safety release system”. Should you get into trouble, you activate it and the kite instantly depowers and falls harmlessly into the water. In deeper water, this usually means needing a rescue. But luckily, I can stand-up here and I quickly get myself sorted ready to go again. But during the process, I lose control of the kite and it powers up into the air, taking me clean off my feet and dragging me through the shallow water. In this sport, such a situation is not unusual. It’s only water and other than potentially swallowing a bit there is no real danger. But as I’m being dragged, I sense something dragging on my left ankle. Then the feeling is gone, and it is replaced by panic. It was my swimming short being dragged off, and now they have completely disappeared in the stirred-up sand behind me!!
So, there I am, with the kite still trying to drag me further away from my shorts and the board floating off too. What to do first? Whatever it is, standing up is not an option because there are people all around and I’m certain male nudity is a hail-Mary type sin in Mexico! Only thing to do it pull the “oh-shit” knob again (you see why I call it that now …), get the kite back in the water then crawl back up wind fumbling in the murkiness searching for my shorts, whilst images of myself walking to the beach in my current exposed state flash before my eyes!
Now, sorry to spoil what could have become an even better tale, but I did recover my shorts and once back in their rightful place, my dignity too. By the time I’d walked to recover the board, the kite lines were completely tangled, leaving me no choice but to have a long walk back upwind to the beach, carrying a very sandy kite and a bird’s-nest of kite-lines.
When we got back to the marina late afternoon, it took me a full 2 hours to clean the kites and gear, not to mention my hair which was totally matted with dried salty sand. As for the state of the hire car, well, cleaning that will be the next day.
It was a fun day, but I really should stop trying to do tricks and jumps. I’m clearly getting too old for the consequences of getting it wrong.
Chasing a horrible smell.
Ever since Emma left us, there has been a really horrible smell in the forward end of the boat, and we wonder what on earth she could have done!? It smells like a rat has died or the toilet has been leaking. I remove several panels but find no leaks in the plumbing. Then, as I search in the bilge compartment under the bathroom floor, which I can only do using a mirror and endoscope, I believe I have found the smoking gun. A brown looking item in the shape of feces! God knows how it got there, but when I try to grab it with my long pincher tool, it turns out to be a very rusty tool that had been dropped down there years ago. So, no smoking gun after all.
But while down there I did find another issue. During manufacturing, the HR guys must have sealed up all the bilge drain holes to stop things falling in there. But annoyingly, they never removed the tape. I’d previously found this in lots of other compartments and simply pulled the tape off. But in this inaccessible compartment, using only endoscope and mirror, it proved a very frustrating task.
Still with no sign whatsoever of where this putrid smell was coming from, we can only conclude that the poo-pipes have suddenly lost their ability to hold back their internal smell, so we decide to try circulating some rydlime to clear any internal buildup of deposits. The plan being to put both the toilet intake pipe and the exit pipe in a bucket with rydlime and circulate.
Then, at last, we find the smoking gun. As I go into the compartment to undo the inlet pipe, the smell knocks me back. This is also the compartment where we keep potatoes. And I notice one of them has bubble emanating from it. Bottom line, the potatoes were totally rotting and smelling like a dozen dead rats. And I curse, because I should have known that smell from my teenage days of doing potato riddling in the local farm – where we had to riddle out the rotten potatoes from the good ones. It was a memorably horrible job.
So, sorry Emma for our thoughts. The smell had nothing to do with you!
Preparing to depart
All these days we have been watching the weather and it looks like Saturday will be our departure day to Honduras. A mild cold front is coming which will put some northerly direction into the usual easterly trade winds. Perfect for our southerly trajectory. We spend the last couple of days making the most of the resort, doing laundry and checking out.
Annoyingly, here we can only check out using an agent at the cost of $260. Annoying because if we had been in Isla Mujeres we could check out ourselves at a fraction of this cost. Also annoying because here they insist on a “safety inspection” and charge another $50 for that too. Plus, it turns out to be a bit of a joke. The safety inspector just stands on the jetty and asks us safety related questions while he ticks boxes on a form and gets me to sign. It’s just another way to earn the government $50 and frankly another “don’t bother coming cruising to Mexico” message. Which is a bit sad, because we have really enjoyed our time here.
