Monday - Recon Trip

Monday everyone was up early, even Beth and ready to head to Cancun and Isla Mujeres to check out the possible marinas and boatyards.  Jerr rented a car and we headed north, without the advantage of a map to La Amada marina.  Fortunately we knew our way around Cancun enough and a general location, and with a bit of luck, we found it pretty easily.  La Amada Marina and Resort is very nice.  The docks are high concrete platforms instead of preferred floating docks and they are very proud of them charging almost US rates.  The marina was pretty empty but they didn't seem willing to negotiate the rate.  Their repair yard only had two boats in it and their rates were equally high.  While the area is very nice, it is also quite removed from Cancun and the local bus stop is about 2 miles away.  Overall, a month at La Amada would be equally expensive as a month in Key West.  From there we took the ferry to Isla and got a golf cart to get around.  We stopped in to see our friends at El Milagro and gain some local knowledge about boat repair on the island.  We also stopped in Marina Paraiso to check on their progress.  The south dock has been finished but not cleaned up, the pool is done, but the area around it hasn't been cleaned up.  The bar is finished and should be open later this month.  They have made great progress but it still isn't done.  From there we headed to the only boat yard with the capability to haul the boat out of the water.  Their initial rates seemed high but some local knowledge told us how to bring that down.  The decision still hasn't been made on where to go as alot of that depends on the insurance company which has been oddly silent.  We headed back to Cancun and stopped at Sams Club and then made our way back to the marina.  Dinner was take out from the local pizza joint and movies aboards Second Chance.  The good news is that both our anchors have been repaired and returned and we got word that the rudder had been straightened and could be installed tomorrow.