Just getting on the ferry was quite comical in itself. Various porters were falling over themselves to help us with our vast luggage. One of them arrived suddenly with a seriously dilapidated looking wheelchair and insisted that I hop in. Within about 4 yards, he hit a large stone and combined with my rather excessive gravitational force, we ripped one of the front wheels clean off the wheelchair. I quickly grabbed my crutches and we pegged it on to the ferry before anyone could say anything.
As seems to be the case in most forms of transport in Mexico, someone had let a couple of chancers set up an unnecessarily mahoosive speaker on the top deck of the boat and they blasted out and sang over some cheerful tunes for the half hour journey. It was quite pleasant, although totally baking.
The island itself is pretty tiny at just 8km long, and between 300 and 800m wide. The main town is at the north end and that was where we stayed in a very nice hotel called the Marcianito (the little Martian). The nicest beach is on the north side too, know as Playa Norte. Here's a couple of piccys.
I was supremely chuffed to find that as the island was so tiny, it was possible to hire golf carts fairly cheaply to burn around in. Clair wasn't so keen on the idea, particularly as she would be the one driving, and on proper roads too whilst attempting to avoid all the other crazy Mexican drivers. Check us out, it was proper hilarious!
Clair started off driving and took us all the way round the island. Here's some shots we took on the way. Even though it was a bit cloudy at times, the colour of the sea was just incredible. These next two shots are actually of a zip line you could chuck yourself along out over the water (we didn't unsurprisingly).
There were tonnes of these gorgeous sea birds floating effortlessly in the wind. They are such a beautiful shape. I'm going to try and make a glider like one when I get home.
Right down on the southern tip of the island there were a few iguanas just chilling on the cliffs. Clair got a picture of this fella just chillaxing with his head on his paw.
The southern tip complete with Mayan ruins almost completely destroyed by recent hurricanes.
Looking into the distance at the mahoosiveness of Cancun's Zona Hoteleria.
I chilled in the golf cart while Clairy crept up on these seagulls and Pelicans chilling out on the beach on the atlantic/carribean facing eastern side of the island. This side takes the brunt of the storms the island receives.
As a result you get some fascinating weathering of the rocks.
Clair also found the beaches on the east side were littered with broken coral.
Here's a wacky place that someone had built. It reminded me of a Dr Zeus house.
Some more gnarly rockage.
Her driving was top notch apart from one incident where she didn't see a speed bump. However after lunch I insisted that I wanted to have a go. For me to do it, I had to use my left foot (fortunately they're an automatic type of thing) which meant slightly squashing Clair to one side, but I found I could. This worked just fine until a bit later on when I was trying to park it and rammed it quite hard into someone elses golf cart when my brain had a brief spasm about which way my foot was supposed to go for the brake. Luckily no damage was sustained.
Here's a nice one of Clair gazing out to sea. The Playa Norte has suffered from quite savage erosion, and the beach is now tiny compared to what it once was apparently. You can see some sandbags by Clair's feet which they've put down to try and prevent much more.
And here's one of me pegging it around town after we had to give the cart back.
All in all it was a thoroughly pleasant few days. Eventually though we had to head off. Here's a picture of the town as we left it.
And a slightly sweaty one of us (well I was anyway).
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