Last day on Isla Mujeres

Friday 4 Feb, Mexico, day 15, Isla Mujeres: Snorkeling day then last evening out.

The wind has dropped at last, finally allowing me to take Emma for snorkeling without being swamped by waves. In fact, today is perfect for being in the water: hot with clear skies.

As a starter, we set off to the very calm spot right near to the boat, where all the tripper boats drop their snorkel-tour guests as a “break-in” session before they go further offshore. There is a wreck of a small barge there and we can just about stand up. Emma has snorkeled before, but this should get her confident before we go more adventurous.
The little wreck turns out to be brilliant for snorkeling. It’s so shallow that the sunlight reveals perfect colours on the fish, colours that are always lost in deeper water. To start with we are greeted by an extremely friendly group of small yellow striped fish. So friendly that they swim just centimeters from our masks. Yet if you try to touch them is impossible, they are too quick. Then inside the hold of the wreck is teaming with little yellow fish and under the stern we find beautiful black and coloured angel fish. I’m not sure that we can even beat this experience! As we get back into the dinghy a snorkeling boat arrives, dumping its 20-plus occupants into the sea complete with life jackets. We are glad we had the place to ourselves.

After a warm-up and coffee back on board, we set off again. This time for the big one. A 3-mile dinghy ride out towards Cancun where the Garrafon Natural Reef Park is, along with the subaquatic museum of art. This is where they have placed all kinds of sculptures on the sea floor for snorkelers, divers and fish to be attracted to. The waves are pretty big out here, at least 1 meter (3ft) high, coming in from the open sea after the recent winds. But nothing dangerous. The dinghy rides up and over them no problem. There is also quite a current running, maybe ½ to 1 kt. So we plan to do a drift-snorkel, where I hold the dinghy and we just drift along looking at what is below.
First, we drift across the Art Museum, which is about 10-12m below us. It’s interesting but not something I would pay to dive on. Lots of statues of figures, a VW beetle, and several other weird things. What is more interesting is watching the scuba divers below us, and swimming over their rising bubbles of expelled air.

Then we head offshore even further where we see another group of dive boats. We are a long way out now. No snorkelers here, just us! The dive boat kindly tells us where the reef is and where to start our drift snorkel. Like before, we both slip into the water and swim along with me holding a rope (painter) to the dinghy. The coral reef is probably 8-12 meters below us but visibility is so good, we can see everything. It’s a nice piece of reef with lots of coral plants and sea life. A very good first-reef experience for Emma. I dive down occasionally to get GoPro shots of the life. And when I come back up I have to swim quite hard to grab the dinghy again – which drifts much faster when I’m not holding onto it. After 40 minutes we come to the end of this section of reef and the sea floor turns back to just sand. We have drifted about ½ mile.

In the evening, after dinner on board, we take our last trip into the town. We settle into a bar with nice Mexican music. But just as we get our drinks the band stops and starts to pack up. We are a tad disappointed. It’s only 9pm! But then another set of musicians set up and start playing superb salsa music. Really lively. And soon people are up and dancing. Boy-oh-boy, I so wish I had the coordination to dance Salsa – it’s just amazing to watch a couple who really know how-to. We could watch them all evening. Then suddenly, the guy of this first dancing couple gets down on one knee and proposes and the whole restaurant applauses. Thankfully it’s clearly a “yes” and she is immediately in tears. By the end of the evening the whole street is filled with people dancing, including Oana.

It was a great day and a wonderful last evening that we didn’t want to go home from. Tomorrow we will sail down the coast to El-Cid Marina in Puerto Morelos.