Puerto Adventuras 2006

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

020-30.000 N
087-13.320 W

Ahoy from Puerto Adventuras, which is clearly a slice of Americana cut out of Mexico.

Puerto Adventuras, which is across from Cozumel and is about 30 south of Cancun, is a beautiful marina complex complete with tons of condos, hotels, restaurants and shops. It's quite a shock to someone who's been out on reefs for weeks and weeks. I haven't seen anything like this since Freeport, Bahamas. It's extremely protected from the seas and appears to be very secure. And for sailboats, it's only $17 per night which includes power and water! WOW, such a deal! The only problem is that the voltage is too high, sometimes 135-140 V.

Getting in/out of here can be a bit exciting. The channel, which is only about 100' wide, has a coral reef on one side which has a series of green buoys and a rock break wall on the other. Don't get too close to the break wall as several large rocks have tumbled into the water. Good sized seas are regularly breaking on both sides, making it an exciting surfing ride in. Oh, the waypoint in the Rauscher book is wrong. 20 29.806N and 87 13.489 is dead in the center of the channel between the buoys and the break wall. Also, there are two yellow range markers at the end of the channel that you should line up with while coming in.

The marina staff speaks great English and is extremely helpful. We had no problems getting med-moored and hooked up to facilities. We were quickly adopted by some of the Condo owners and have an open invitation to use their pool, which is great as the pool that we're supposed to use is a 10 minute walk to the other side of the marina.

Another boat that we had been traveling with, Alegria, went to Cozumel in search of work. They described it as "plastic fantastic" as they can finally use their credit cards. They also described it as being designed to extract the maximum amount of money from tourists. Well, I can assure you that this isn't far off.

A major attraction here is the "Swim with the Dolphins" show that goes on 3 times a day. It costs you something like $63 to get into the water, but if you want to do anything with the dolphins, that's extra. I guess that the average is $119 and if you want the full ride, it's $190! Oh, and then a video is $50 and still photos are extra....Yikes! Can you imagine if you had several kids! And people are lined up to do this constantly. They do this in a circular waterway which is lined by the restaurants, and there's regularly three groups of 10 people out swimming with the dolphins. Fun to watch, but not for us.

There are two nature/echo-tour parks named Xcaret and Xcacel (they love "X"s) which allow you to play with sea turtles, dolphins, manatees, etc which are in the area. Both do a great job of extracting $s...to the tune of $35 to $50+/pp. I guess that they have great shows too, but after having spent months on the reefs swimming with these creatures in the wild, we can't see forking over that kind of money.

However, we're about to head to Tulum, which is a set of ruins about 33 miles south of here. These are supposed to be the best ruins on the east coast of the Yucatan. We were going to anchor there, but were warned not to as the anchorage is pretty much open to the sea. Alegria did and had a rather sleepless night. Speaking of anchorages, we tried to anchor at Punta Ya Yuum, but it was way to shallow and didn't provide any protection from some a large easterly swell. We went back to Punta Allen and Alegria went on to Tulum.

One great spot that we did go to was Playa Del Carmen. Talk about a fun spot! The beautiful beach is lined with dive shops, fishing shops, and bars. And the water is very clear. Fifth Ave is a block from the beach and is closed to motor vehicles. It's packed with shops and restaurants and really comes alive at night. We had a great time working our way down the beach and then back through town. One of the condo tenants from here is a sax player who's played with many of the greats. He was playing on Saturday night at a restaurant named Apasionado. We had a great time listening to the music, but I can't recommend the food.

Our plans are to leave the boat while we tour inland and then we're headed back to the States. We'll be back from 4/2 thru 4/17. Looking forward to seeing our friends and family!

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 351