One look at the sun-drenched streets of this Margaritaville-style tourist town on the tip of the Yucatan, and it's clear why the place is named "Island of Women". They're tanned, they're young, they're wearing tiny bikini tops and sarong skirts, and they are all over the place. That stuff in the guidebook about the name coming from a cache of statues of goddesses found in a cave was obviously invented to appeal to the highbrow. For everyone else, there are plenty of twentysomething gringa girls in bikinis.
We are again in a place where we are automatically slotted into the "walking wallet" category, where everyone who is not a local (and this place is small enough that all locals know each other) is a rich gringo tourist from whom the maximum Yankee dollars are to be extracted as quickly as possible. We can't walk down the street without being hawked rental mopeds, timeshares, telephone cards, jewelry. No, gracias. On the other hand, all the necessities of life are here -- grocery stores, internet cafes, restaurants -- so we are still doing our share of spending.
The day after we arrived, we dinked over to the marina to visit with a couple we hadn't seen in two and a half years. Vern and Kathy on Andante III were the first cruising sailors we met in our travels, and we met in during memorable circumstances -- Hurricane Dennis. Later that year they were southbound on the ICW and got hit by Hurricane Floyd, and they arrived at their Boca Raton house just in time for Hurricane Irene. They invited us to come visit and stay at their dock, but we prudently waited until hurricane season was over before getting anywhere near them. Needless to say, as it's hurricane season again, we were a little apprehensive when we learned that they were in Isla Mujeres!
But other than catching up with Vern and Kathy, and spending a little time with the Venus Rising folks we sailed up with, we haven't done much socializing. Nor have we done much touristing. There are supposed to be some pretty good reefs just off the island, too, but after seeing five tourist boats moored just off the reef this morning, and realizing that what we had thought were exposed rocks were actually the heads of several dozen snorkelers, we figured that any fish that might have been in the area would be long gone -- or obscured by brightly-colored gringus bikinus. Baking on the beach holds no appeal, when we have to share the sand with others. And so far we haven't seen anything in the gaudy souvenir shops that merits a second glance. (Some things, like the wooden flute carved in the shape of the male genitals, don't even merit a first!)
Mostly, I think, we are psychologically back in the US, out of cruising mode, even though we still have another 400 miles to go. It's fixed in our minds now that we are going "back", whatever that is; back to the US, back to non-boat-life. But "back" is probably the wrong word to use. In only the roughest sense are we returning, going "back". We are not returning to the city where we used to live. We are not returning to our previous jobs; we are probably not returning to our previous careers. We're not even completing a loop, since we're planning to leave Windom on the hard on Florida's west coast, where we haven't been before. We are not quitting cruising entirely, only taking a breather, doing something different for a while. We are not going back. We are going forward. We're just not quite sure yet to what.