A Canadian writer's life

Hidalgo Ave, Giovanna Flores photo

Friday, October 23, 2015

When Paradise Gets Wet, Really Wet

A week of grumpy weather

We fooled around with various ideas for a title for this week’s blog.

Titles like – some days you should just stay in bed, or a little adversity can pull a community together, or when it rains it pours!

You get the idea. It’s been a grumpy, wet week that has created a few problems for the island community.

Collapsed wall - TV Isla Mujeres

The first problem was an eight-foot-tall retaining wall that collapsed from the weight of water in the soil. Twelve inches of rain in twenty-four hours. It seems like we are back on the Wet Coast of BC – living in Vancouver, or the American equivalent of Seattle, Washington.

Murals painted April 2015, L Lock photo

The wall supported the popular volleyball and exercise area for seniors, located along the double road that runs from the east to the west side of the island, past the newer cemetery and the big church.

This spring, local artists were invited to decorate the wall with murals of local creatures: iguanas, hermit crabs, and turtles. It was one of my favourite murals, not part of last year’s big Panga Seed fourteen murals painted in one month blitz, but still a well-planned and beautifully painted wall.

Police cleaning up - TV Isla Mujeres

In Mexico, the local police are called out to help clean up disasters such as this. We have also seen the police painting crosswalks and speed bumps with the bright yellow warning colour, and reinstalling broken or missing stop or speed limit signs. In Canada, those jobs are handled by the city maintenance workers or the provincial highway department employees. Just another small difference we have noticed between Canadian, American, and Mexican cultures.

As the rain continued unabated, a notice was posted on various community Facebook pages asking any able-bodied people to help neighbours in areas that are flooding. Most of Isla Mujeres is barely above sea-level, while the southern end is maybe fifty feet above sea-level. That creates two problems. One: water runs downhill, adding more depth to the already saturated areas in the lower parts of the island. And two: the island is a sandbar in the beautiful turquoise Caribbean Sea. The tides are currently quite high, and the ocean water, combined with the excess rain, is creating havoc. The street corner across from Jax Bar & Grill had six inches of water, as did most of Hidalgo Avenue in Centro. We saw the new fire truck and crew busy pumping out the streets and into the ocean. The water eventually seeps back into town: pump, dump and repeat. But hey, it’s warm water, not icy cold snow-melt.

Lawrie with the hard-working Isla Animals gang

Also posted on Facebook was a plea from Isla Animals looking for temporary foster parents for several of their stray dogs. The lake at the Hacienda Mundaca Park was overflowing, saturating the area around the Isla Animals Clinic, and soaking through the walls and floors. The free spay and neuter clinics were cancelled for the next few days until the weather changed. Eileen, Doug Regn, and a crew of helpful volunteers were mopping the floors and moving the animal cages around when we popped by a couple of nights ago. They are such a hard-working group of people.

Crocodile prefers pond across from Isla Animals

The resident crocodile that has been moved by City workers - several times - from the pond across from the Isla Animals Clinic to the lake at Hacienda Mundaca – has returned to the pond, again. She likes it there!

One local humorist suggested that the availability of a better food source prompted her to make the trek regularly.

CFE changing the weak power pole on our street

Closer to home, we have had an interesting week, exacerbated by the rain and higher humidity.

Our third GE Profile side-by-side refrigerator died. Then our new hot water heater decided to take a day or two off from work, thinking that Lawrie and I would appreciate cooler morning showers. Our recently purchased 2005 Mini Cooper also wanted a short vacation. The engine electronics didn’t like the excessive rain.

Wet Policeman, CFE changes power pole

We decided to take the Mini Cooper back to the dealer in Cancun, where we purchased the car and get a diagnostic test run. The weather wasn’t too bad; it looked like things were improving. Just as the car ferry was docking in Punta Sam, a nasty windstorm blew in with pelting rain and high winds, temporarily grounding the boat in the sandy harbour. As the Captain applied full throttle to free the vessel, a freak wind-squall slammed the boat’s bow into the concrete docks. It was darn exciting for a few minutes with lots of nervous laughter from the on-board truck drivers and ferry crew. There was some damage to the boat and dock, but no injuries that we know of.

The guys struggling with fridge

Once off the ferry, our drive through Cancun got interesting as the rain continued to pelt down, flooding streets, making the ever-present potholes impossible to see.

We decided that since we were already in the city, to get the car checked we might as well search for a new refrigerator. Starting at Telebodega, then Liverpool, Chapur, and Sears, we finally settled for a floor model at Costco.

All the other stores said eight to fourteen days, more or less, before our purchase would arrive from Mexico City.

Islander José (Pepe) Martinez arranged a truck and two strong guys to take our new refrigerator from Costco to our house.

Taking the old fridge out

His quote was considerably cheaper than the Cancun-based fletes y mudanzas (cartage companies).

As the rain continued to pelt down, four guys wrestled the thirty-three-inch-wide beast into our house through an almost-too-narrow front door. Lawrie had already removed the door and part of the frame, but it was still a very tight squeak to get it inside the house.

The non-working appliance, thirty-six inches wide, was manhandled outside, over a neighbour’s propane tank and onto the street. Note to new homeowners: check the size of your main entrance before you purchase a large side-by-side refrigerator. It’s a small but frustrating detail we overlooked eight years ago when we had the house built.

The return of sunny weather

As for the weather, eventually this persistent storm got bored with bothering us.

It slowly dissipated, allowing the warm Caribbean sun to dry out our soggy little island.

Warm breezes, sunshine. It's all good. We live in paradise.

Hasta Luego

Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Thomas

Friday, October 16, 2015

Mañana doesn’t mean tomorrow, it just means not today.

Thomas, What the heck is that thing?

Huh! What the heck is that?

Close to sunrise, I noticed a small green light blinking on the ocean just south of our house, flashing on and off at regular intervals. Well, that needs to be investigated. Our camera has a decent lens, so I zoomed in for a better look; it was a huge marker buoy drifting free, and bobbing its way north towards our beach.

Fifteen minutes later, it ran aground, tipped over, and ponderously rolled in the waves until it was stuck about twenty feet from shore.

We emailed a friend who knew how to contact the naval base to advise them of the problem.

The buoy tipped over and rolled across the coral

A group of marinas (sailors) arrived, a non-commissioned officer with his crew, to check out the buoy.

Then the sleek navy cutter arrived, cruising back and forth in the deep water on the other side of the reef, unable to hook a line on the buoy due to the increased size of the waves and the shallow water inside the reef.

Waiting for a decision from the big bosses

The weather turned foul, so we invited the guys to take shelter on our patio, offering them coffee and snacks while they waited for a decision from higher up. The navy bosses were in communication with the harbour master, and two employees arrived mid-afternoon to check the situation.

One lucky guy was designated to retrieve the valuable GPS beacon. The ocean is very warm in October, but dressed in protective gear, it was a bit of a struggle for him to wade into the thigh-deep water and remove the heavy beacon, still transmitting its location at 21 14.5 N and 86 44.1 W. It is a good thing the beacon was removed, or we could have had ships trying to take a position reading off our house. We envisioned an unscheduled cruise ship visit similar to the Costa Concordia that ran aground in Italy in 2012.

Removing the valuable beacon.

By now, we were serving ham and chicken sandwiches to the on-shore crew, complete with a choice of coffee or pop. It is a pretty good gig, hanging out with us while the jejes decide what to do with the marker buoy. Around three in the afternoon, the officer in charge flashed us a big, friendly smile and said that the weather had become too rough and the cutter was not going to be able to pull the marker buoy back out to sea.

Oct 7th 2014 - before beacon was removed

“We’ll come back mañana, or when the weather calms down,” he assured us.

“Si, claro. Okay, no problem.”

Smiles and handshakes all around, and everyone departed: October 7^th, 2014.

Yep, a year ago last week, and we are still looking at the rusting bottom side of a huge piece of scrap iron. For the first few weeks, the air stank of rotting sea creatures, until our neighbours helpfully hired a young friend to scrape the dying barnacles and mussels from the exposed bottom. So how big is this thing? It has a six-foot diameter, and without wading into the water with a tape measure to get the exact measurements, we think it is about fifteen to eighteen feet tall. It’s big and it’s heavy.

October 11th, 2015 - still waiting

We have considered decorating it up for various holiday celebrations: Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Independence Day. We have had friends offer to paint it with cool designs. But no one will remove, or move it, or even consider cutting it up. It is federal property, but the feds don’t want it, the navy doesn’t want it, and the harbour master doesn’t want it. The first week or two that the buoy was here, it moved around a bit, a little to the north, a little to the south, ever closer to shore until it is now half out of the water and stuck between two rocky outcroppings. Our biggest concern is not aesthetics, but safety. A big storm could turn this thing into a missile and shoot it straight at our house, knocking out walls and ripping down support columns. Or, conversely, it could be swept out to sea during a hurricane, becoming a dangerous navigational hazard, unlit, unmarked, and big enough to punch a hole in a large ship.

One of several large plastic pontoons

We know it is not the fault of the great folks who work for the Navy or the harbour master. We have always had the greatest respect for them. They are willing and helpful. The decision came from higher up the pay-scale ladder. It is just not in the budget.

Well, then, allow a scrap dealer to cut it up and make a few bucks; it certainly is not going to be put back in service, damaged and dented from a year of rolling back and forth between two rocks. It’s a win-win situation. We get rid of a safety hazard, and a local person could make a few bucks salvaging the scrap.

A recent Cuban refugee boat near Casa Coral

Oh, and we have a couple of other little items that could be tossed into the salvage mix: several fifteen-foot long, by two feet around tubes of hard black plastic that were the pontoons for a Cuban refugee boat a year ago, now scattered along the eastern side of the island; plus another recent Cuban refugee boat that is currently lodged in the rocks near Casa Coral disintegrating in the waves. We love old marine stuff, anchors, old ships, and other marine artifacts, just not half-sunk vessels that are capable of causing major damage.

Hopefully, our “artifact” will eventually be removed, but as we discovered several years ago, Mañana doesn’t mean tomorrow; it just means not today.

Hasta Luego

Lynda, Lawrie, Sparky, and Thomas

Awesome bunch of guys!

Friday, October 9, 2015

Isla is Booming!

2015 concrete docks, bigger boats, new signs

Our little paradise here on Isla Mujeres is rapidly changing. We think it’s great. The focus has been gradually shifting from a sleepy fishing village to a tourist-based economy with more amenities available for everyone.

Our Presidente Agapito Magaña was ahead of the curve on this. A great many of the projects he has introduced have the tourism industry front and foremost, from having our beaches designated as the coveted Blue Flag status, to getting Isla Mujeres chosen as a Pueblo Mágico destination in Mexico. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Isla has been frequently mentioned in the news:

Ferry terminal - 2007 Lawrie waiting for friends

TripAdvisor - Top Beaches in Mexico

NBC News – Best Islands to Live On

Travel & Leisure - World’s Best Islands

Islands – Best Islands for Retiring Early

And as you explore the island on a golf cart, you can’t help but notice the construction of new homes, condos, and resorts, including the infilling of vacant lots in the local neighbourhoods.

2015 Street entrance to the new terminal

On our street, in the last seven years, there have been twelve new houses built, plus several other existing homes have undergone major renovations. Chris Shannon, Managing Director of Mundaca Real Estate (Isla’s biggest real estate company), told us that it is hard to keep up with the requests to show property. Their sales team is busy, and it’s a good busy!

At Punta Sam, the continental part of Isla Mujeres, a larger car ferry terminal is under construction. We haven’t heard what the projected completion date is, but it looks like the project is well underway. Hopefully, the new facility will have a better system for selling tickets to drivers.

It is amusing, and unnerving, to wait, and wait, and wait until mere minutes before sailing time to see if you are actually going to be able to get your vehicle on the ferry. It’s all part of the adventure of living here.

Feb 2015 starting to remove tower

At the south end of the island, Punta Sur, the large observation tower that was built shortly before, and severely damaged by, Hurricane Wilma in 2005, was finally demolished and removed in February of this year. The newspaper report said that there were 100 tons (metric tons) of metal to be removed. The demolition company cut the tower into several slightly more manageable chunks and lowered them to the ground.
At the present time, there are four modern homes/townhouses being built in the same area. The removal of that towering menace is certainly a relief to everyone living within its considerable reach, had it broken off and crashed to the ground.

Oct 2015 Four new homes at Punta Sur

Another new project this year was the completion of a new fire hall, next door to the renovated police station and across the street from the soccer fields. Now the new fire truck has a home out of the weather, and hopefully will last longer than the last vehicle. The previous vehicle disintegrated into a heap of rust. As we have often mentioned, living on an island surrounded by warm, salty water creates a huge corrosion and rust problem for anything electronic or mechanical, although for humans, it’s a perfect environment.

New fire hall and new truck

We know some of you will lament the changes to Isla, remembering the sand-covered streets, the small tiendas (shops), and the slower pace, but change happens, and we can’t go back. We wouldn’t want to. We love our large, well-stocked grocery store, the new hospital, a second gas station, the larger passenger ferry terminal, reliable electricity, paved streets and sidewalks. And the internet – well, it works, most of the time.

The island people have not changed. They are still the most welcoming and friendly folks you would ever meet, but now they have more employment opportunities to provide for their families.

Hasta luego, Lawrie, Lynda, Sparky, and Thomas