March 13 – March 22, 2025; 17828 nm and 2193 days after departure from La Rochelle

Indeed it was! Coming from Cuba after three months, Isla Mujeres overwhelmed us. First we suddenly had to cope with lots and lots of boats once we entered the channel between Isla Mujeres and Cancun mainland. Sailing vessels, diving boats, sport fisher, fisher boats and of course speed ferries between the island and the mainland. WOW! In one hour we had seen more boats than we had seen the whole three months before combined. The anchorage, packed with boats. And ashore we were confronted with many pale (or red) skin tourists, including their rented golf carts, taking pics at the few highlighted spots at the island . The port office for checking in was at the beginning of the main touristic and party area. Bars, souvenir shops, restaurants, golf cart rentals, pharmacies and more alternating. Only being ashore an hour already gave us a quick impression of Isla Mujeres daily life. We definitely had to get adapted!

Well, the checking in procedure for sure let us forget the busy life of the island. It was THE MOST tortuous and complicated check in procedure we have experienced so far. Even though we thought we were prepared, the procedure took more than 5 hours and yet we still had to pick up the final official paper the next day. Coming on the dot at 9am at the port office, not to loose any time, we started the long international check in procedure. After filling out several papers which seemed to be asking more or less the same information, we had to find a copy shop and get 5 copies of all those papers as well as of our passports, boat paper and insurance. Smart cookies as we were, we had already copied the three latter ones. Still we had to copy the other papers. Not such a big deal, but if you have to wait for 15 min just for the copies, and knowing you need to get through the whole protocol somehow in time, you already get nervous. However, back at the office we had to wait for the medical check. The nice lady at the office had called the doc but no-one knew when he would actually come. Without the doc’s permission we could not proceed further. Waiting was the main task that day. Fortunately the small room was air-conditioned and had a few seats. Meanwhile another sailor couple joined us. They had done half of the procedure already a day before and were “only” waiting for customs and agriculture (don’t ask what that means, we didn’t know either). While we were waiting for the doc, the German couple were trying to find out when and where to go to customs. Again, nobody seemed to know when someone would be at the customs office or how to get in touch with them. Anyway, we enjoyed their company and exchanged cruising experiences. Once the doc came, he checked all our papers and told us we had to rewrite the crew list because we mixed up the arrival and departure places. Ergo we needed to get 5 new copies. While Norbert was getting the copies I answered all the necessary medical questions and in the end he measured our temperature. We seemed to be healthy enough to enter Mexico. Then we were allowed to proceed and go to immigration to get our passports stamped. As we had payed already online we thought that would accelerate the process but of course it did not. The friendly officers couldn’t check whether we had paid and they weren’t allowed to accept our online confirmation just seeing it. Guess what? Right we had to print out that payment confirmation. Fortunately there was another print shop who accepted an usb stick to get that damn, yet important printout. But here again, it felt like every single local person needed that print shop that day. We waited another 20 min or even longer to get that desperately needed confirmation. Though I have to admit, everyone – except the doc- was very friendly and helpful. Ok, back at the immigration office they still needed to call Mexico City or whoever was in charge to finally accept our payment. And eventually after almost an hour we got the stamps in our passports. Hooray! And off we were back at the port office. Now it was as well customs and agriculture time. Thanks to the German couple who had meanwhile caught the officials for customs and agriculture we didn’t have to wait for them. Just when we came back the customs lady had arrived too at the port office and on her coat tail her agriculture colleague. Lucky us! The customs lady was great! She took all our papers, put stamps here and there and asked us if we had taken photos of Altimate. (Oh I have forgotten to mention, everyone of the officials took all the papers and put stamps on them and I think they also each kept one. We were completely confused as we had so many papers with stamps and still without.) She picked the pics she wanted of Altimate (from inside and outside, engine number, boat registration number and a few more) and I sent her the desired pics. Now we could follow the agriculture lady to her office. Together with the Germans we were there getting our last stamps. It took again like, I don’t know how long exactly, but it felt like ages. Yet we were pretty happy to have managed to get it almost done in one day. The poor Germans had spent almost the same time as we had just for customs and agriculture.

The agriculture lady was checking what kind of food we had aboard and if we had brought plants, animals, seeds. Nothing fresh was allowed no meat, cheese and whatever. Of course we denied we had anything like that aboard. That was so strange in my humble opinion. Everyone knew that we were all live-aboards and therefore knew we always have food aboard. But still we were forced to lie to get our last necessary stamp. That was the crazy, stupid way it was. Anyway, back at the port office, the nice lady, satisfied with all our stamped papers, now let us pay the port office fee. That fee as well was not payable at the office, of course not! Another sprint to the bank. That fortunately took not that long and we thought we were done just in time before the port office would have closed at 2:30pm. But because the only official who was allowed to give us the final stamp with signature or whatever was necessary was not in. That was why she asked us to come back the next day. Hooray!!!!
Starving, as we had left Altimate without having had breakfast that morning (not our best decision) we were desperate to get something to eat. As we had heard there was a good taco bar at the middle part of Isla Mujeres (the opposite side of the northern, very touristy side where we were), we decided to walk there. I think, due to our torturous morning and our bellies screaming for food, our brain had stopped working. Instead of checking where the taco bar exactly was we just kept walking direction south. It had been not our smartest decision. When we finally, after a 40 min walk, rather tired and dehydrated reached the area where the bar was supposed to be, we couldn’t find it and nobody seemed to know. Hungryyyyy!!! Well at least we had found the one super big supermarket of the island named “Chedraui”. That was at least cheering us up. After Cuba it looked like food heaven for us. Everything was available in many different varieties. Finding the supermarket was for sure the best part of that day. We bought a few things and ended up having “breakfast” at 4:30pm in a very simple small restaurant with unfortunately terrible food. Tired, yet at least full we dragged ourselves back to Altimate. What a day. Welcome to Mexico!

The purpose of going to Mexico was getting spare parts for Altimate, a medical check up for us and visiting my friend Eva in Mérida. After that we wanted to sail back to Cuba, spend a few more weeks there making some east miles good to get a better sailing angle to go back to Panamá for the hurricane season. Our original plan of sailing to Belize and Honduras islands after Mexico was skipped due to difficult sailing direction from Honduras/Belize to Panama and costly anchorage/check-in fees in Belize.
So our main duty the next couple of weeks was organising. El Capitano took care of the spare parts and I took care of our medical check up. Thanks to my friend Eva that part was comparably easy. She introduced me to a doctor friend of her and he again organised a complete check up for the two of us. That was great, as we only had to take the ferry once to go to Cancun where the hospital was. The check up took almost the whole day but on the other hand we were done in one day. Actually we would have been done at lunch time but one of my examinations was in the late afternoon. That gave us time to go shopping as the hospital was right next to a huge mall. What a pity, who the hell likes shopping? Again at first it was a little overwhelming being back in consumer world but I got adapted within seconds. Yet strolling through the mall with everything available looked different after spending 3 months in Cuba where literally nothing was available. We grew up taking consuming and having everything available for granted. Cuba taught us to appreciate that luxury. I would guess I enjoyed strolling through shops more than my dear El Capitano, whereas he appreciated the possibility to connect into the free wifi to watch a soccer game. However, pure luxury compared to Cuba.
Anyway the absolutely best and of course reliving part was that the results for both of us turned out good. No scary blood results, nor heart issues, blood pressure in perfect shape, male and female organs in age appropriate conditions…yeah, just nothing to worry about! Very important at our age and especially after 7 years not having seen a doctor. (I do not count the check in doc, as in my, of course unprofessional opinion, measuring temperature doesn’t show that much of our bodies health, does it?).

In between organising and after our check up day we also tried to explore the island. We did long walks along the rough east side of the coast and some days almost walked around half of the island. All in all there was not that much exciting to explore. The north side with its beautiful white beaches was packed with sun bathing people and a lot of bars, restaurants etc. The middle part was so narrow that it was just the connection to the south part of the island. The south offered some fancy private houses and some bigger resorts. Nothing much exciting, at least for us. That’s why we focussed more on work which needed to be done on Altimate and meeting up once in a while with some sailors. I also organised my trip to Eva to Mérida and was soon off to see her.