The end is in sight...

April 13, 2007 Friday
We should make landfall at Isla Mujeres around midnight tonight. We have had a grand sleigh ride for the past 4 days with the wind behind us. We haven't run the engine at all except for dodging a squall the first night. This has been classic trade-wind sailing...and fortunately, the winds have been mellow but strong enough to move us well.
We have been surprised that we haven't seen many signs of life. We saw about 5 big ships when we were off Honduras, but absolutely no small craft of any kind including shrimpers and trawlers. The banks we crossed were supposed to be rich with sea life but we didn't see any fish feeding and strangely enough, there were no birds. I saw ONE bird several days ago. That's it! I didn't bother fishing because we didn't feel like messing with fish cleaning, etc. Other than one visitation of dolphins, we have been very alone out here.
We enjoy the informal nets of cruising sailboats that meet at 9AM on the HF radio. We talk to cruisers all over the western Caribbean and it's nice to know that someone is monitoring our progress and waiting for us to check in. We participated in nets in Mexico, Panama and now here. We meet a lot of people that way.
Once we get to Isla Mujeres, we are going to do some serious sleeping (and in the same bed). Standing watches hasn't been too bad for the two of us. The autopilot does all the steering, so it is just a matter of trimming sails and watching out for things that might go bump in the night. Still, we only have a few hours each day to hang out with each other. Andi has cranked out some great meals in spite of the challenging motion and last night at 3AM she crawled into a locker to grease the steering cables because big old me couldn't fit. She's amazing. Anyway, we're going to take some sacktime and then ready the boat for the next leg to Florida, which isn't really very far at all. Our friend Jeff is coming down to do that leg with us, so life should be even easier. If the marina prices aren't too expensive, we are going to take a slip and enjoy being on shore, including some tours of the pyramids.
We'll leave Isla Mujeres on the 20th. We'll try to get caught up on our internet work including putting up the pictures on this blog. We can't send those over the radio like this text message. Best to all of you.