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Yucatan Peninsula |
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Sunday, |
Captain and Jerry went to town and watched the Daytona 500. Brady finally went to the reef off of San Pedro and caught crabs, ha ha ha! Even better underwater footage now. Captain made snapper and we relaxed on the boat. |
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Monday, |
Prepared Chiriga for departure to Tulum, maybe, tomorrow. This is our last night in Belize. We will miss all of our new friends and this beautiful country. A shout out to all of our new friends, you know who you are, thank you and peace from the crew of Chiriga! I think I’m gonna cry. |
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Tuesday, |
Well, we are on our way. Raised anchor about 10am and raised the sails outside the reef. Catching winds 15-20 knots from the N.E. and doing 6 knots. We were all bummed about leaving Belize when suddenly a pod
of 4 killer whales joined Chiriga! It was quite a show! They played with Chiriga for over an hour. Racing on the bow, then swimming ahead to turn around and charge back at the boat, then suddenly an instant from
impact, they would spin upside down and go underneath missing the keel by inches. We were trolling two fishing lures and Brady was worried they might get snagged in the line or hooks. I started reeling in the lines
and as I did they began to play with the lures. The drag on the reel would go off and then let up then go off again. For being as large as they were, one close to 25 feet in length, they are extremely agile and
aware of their surroundings. They are very intelligent too. They new exactly where the hook and line was and not once was there an accidental snag. As I finished reeling in the lines they would race right up to the
lure and then stop and bump it along. They began then slowly and gently rubbing the sides of the boat spinning up on their stomachs then on to their sides so they could look up at us staring in awe down at them. Got
some of our best footage yet. Go to our Killer Whale gallery to see some stills from the video. |
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Wednesday, |
Winds still 15-20 knots and had about a 2 knot current pushing us. We began hitting 5-8 foot waves head-on. We were coming off the top of the breaking waves to have the bow crash down into the valley of the next. Very rough! Hard to stand at all and forget about trying to use the head! Brady had “fun” trying to cook, for the first time, lobster/crab cakes on the roller coaster. We passed Tulum too late in the day to see our way in and out of the cut in the reef. A special note to “Halfpint” and the “nnylF” family, “Simon says do this....”, I tried to get there again, maybe next time, love always, “notnuB”. A lone dolphin joins us on our course, but as Jerry said, “Seems a bit anti-climatic in comparison to the killer whales yesterday.” We continue North for Isla Mujeres. |
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Thursday, |
Reached Isla Mujeres at 2:15am. Rested up and then checked in with immigration and customs. Did some maintenance and preparaton for our Gulf crossing back home to triviality. Nice night of wandering the island and eating tacos de puerca for 10 pesos each! Simple things. Oh yeah, one more thing, we drank more beer, .........again. |
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Friday, |
Continued preparing Chiriga for the crossing. Later, Brady visited the gravesite of the pirate, Fermin Mundaca. The following is this interesting story taken from, “Cruising Guide to Belize and Mexico’s Caribbean Coast”, by Captain Freya Rauscher. The Saga of Fermin Mundaca “Fermin Mundaca de Marechaja was a prominent slaver and pirate during the early 1800’s. He sailed human cargo, “black ivory”, from the ivory coast of Africa to the New World until
the abolition of slavery put an end to his miserable business. He came to Isla Mujeres in the early 1860’s to retire, and as fate would have it, fell hopelessly in love with a lovely senorita Prisca Gomez.. More
than anything in the world he wanted to marry her, to make her his wife and mother of his children. Prisca Gomez was young and quite reluctant to marry old Mundaca. Check out the pics of Pirate Mundaca’s gravesite in our Return to Isla Mujeres Gallery. We celebrated our last night here by making margaritas and enjoying the sunset on the white powder sand beach. We toasted to our journey, our Captain and to Chiriga. |
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Saturday, |
Well......we are on our way back....uh...“home”. I took off for a weekend last month
Reading departure signs in some big airport
I think about Paris when I'm high on red wine
Jimmy Buffet |
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