Mexican Independance Day

So last year on my birthday, William, Henry, and I sailed our little 21’ Sea Pearl cat-ketch over to Double Bayou and then up the Anahuac River to the annual Alligator festival. One evening, when a friend couldn’t hail us on the VHF radio, he called the U.S. Coast Guard, who called Lora asking if she had heard from us. She said that she didn’t expect to hear from us for two more days. The Coast Guard said that they were going to send out a helicopter to search for us, and she told them that they shouldn’t. She assured them we were okay. There were no storms, we knew what we were doing, and that we had probably just pulled in somewhere else. An hour later the search helicopter flew right over us, but didn’t see us even though we were right where we said we would be. We made the evening news!

The next day, motor-sailing up the Anahuac River, the outboard motor bracket broke, and it plopped right into about 12’ of water the color of café con leche. I pulled on my swim suit to dive for the motor, feeling around in the murk. At one point I swam up on a submerged log, and I thought it was a giant alligator lurking on the bottom. A few minutes later, while still diving for the illusive outboard, William and Henry noticed an alligator about 7’ long swimming over to investigate what was thrashing about in the water. Yikes.

I returned the next day with a scuba tank, but I was a little nervous about my large reptilian friend. Even with a tank it still took me about two hours to find the motor. Lora and I celebrated with dinner at Papadeaux’s where to my amusement, I noticed that they actual served alligator; revenge never tasted so sweet!

This year, my birthday fell on Sunday, so we celebrated Saturday. It just so happens that September 16th is also Mexican Independence Day, and in Mexico it is celebrated on the evening of the 15th so that worked out well.

We left the marina on Isla Mujeres and went first to the fuel dock. One of our boisterous boys tied the bow-line while I tied the stern. After we fueled up and paid, we were on the dock dumping trash when I noticed that the bow-line had come loose. Our boat was swinging out into the busy channel, but our dinghy was still tied to the dock. Everyone jumped aboard quickly while I loosened the stern-line and told Lora to take off. I jumped into the dinghy and motored up to the boat and climbed on. The episode provided a couple of minutes of excitement.


After that, William climbed up to the spreaders, using the mast steps that he installed, and video-taped us as we motored through a narrow cut that leads out toward Cancun. One of our objectives was to photograph the boat on the turquoise water.

As we approached the coast, Lora commented that the sky was sure dark and that we would probably get hit by a thunderstorm any minute. I assured her that it probably wouldn’t hit us, and if it did, it wouldn’t be for at least an hour. Ten minutes later the wind was gusting to 30 knots and the rain was pouring down. We doused the mizzen sail and furled the jib, and moved along with just the mainsail. Everyone scurried below except William and me. We tried to stay dry under the Bimini. Fortunately, in about forty minutes the skies cleared; we continued toward Cancun, and took some pictures of Boisterous from the dinghy.

That night we went into town for dinner. For a buck, one gets a fish or chicken taco with beans, rice, a mini-salad, and pico de gallo. We also had some of Mexico’s famous pan dulce. While eating we were serenaded by fire dancers.

Later at the town plaza, we watched as the senoritas danced in their colorful dresses. The Mexican Navy band marched around; there were patriotic speeches, Mariachi music, the shouting of el grito, and then fireworks—all adding up to another memorable birthday.