Puerto Morelos, Mexico

The weather report missed by a day and we found ourselves totally exposed to a North West wind in Cozumel's poor anchorage. Leaving Serene there we pulled anchor a little after 5 am in the dark with 2 to 3 foot waves rolling in. Our best bet was to make for the main land that sweeps northeast here giving us some protection from head wind and waves. We made great time with the wind on the beam for Puerto Morelos. This anchorage was quite shallow and once again we hooked just inside the barrier reef and dropped anchor in 7 1/2 feet of water at low tide. This is a very small resort town where maybe %90 of the population are tourists. We still have not checked into the country and this is not a port of entry. We reported in to the port caption that spoke English well , explaining that we were unsuccessfull in checking in at Xcalak or Cozumel and weather would keep us here for another week or so. He was great about it getting on the phone and getting the various people down to our boat starting within an hour. By the time we made it back to the pier they were already there and waiting. They got us checked in quickly, short the health department which went to the port captions office the following morning. We got our paper work to take to the bank for our clearance. We took a cab to Cancun and the bank which we had wanted to go to anyway. Had a small problem with immigration not giving us the bank routing number and we had to make a dash around the corner to the immigration office. Approaching the guard at the door he explained that the office closed 5 minutes ago. There were still long lines inside and a young man that spoke English asked me what i needed. Explaining to him, he translated to the door guard who allowed us in. Relieved we didn't have to make another trip, we were back to the bank to pay our fees. That done we looked around town. We were looking for the market area which turned out to be just like the vendors in Cozumel , very aggressive with much the same items. That out of the way we enjoyed the atmosphere of Puerto Morelos with its small town atmosphere. It did have souvenir shops but not the aggressiveness of the big cities. After we were here a couple of days Serene rejoined us.