Would you like a little salt with that?

The perfect day on a perfect island

And you thought I was referring to a tequila shooter, with lime and salt, but no, I am referring to living on the windward side of an island in the Caribbean.

We live on Isla Mujeres a small island just off the coast of Mexico near Cancun.  It is paradise with its sunny warm weather, gentle breezes, turquoise waters, friendly people and cheap, cold beer.  However we have discovered there is a price to pay for living in such a beautiful location.  It’s called salt! 

The beautiful spume rising off the surf coats everything with a salty residue.  Our ocean front windows are currently caked with a week’s worth of salt – it makes the ocean look a bit fuzzy when viewed through the grime.  Every bit of metal corrodes, yes, eventually even stainless steel.  You should check out our cutlery drawer –rusted corkscrews, knives, and utensils.  Plastic is my new favourite!



My personal handyman fixing icemaker

 Electronics are the most sensitive to corrosion, rust, high humidity, and salt.  The various microwave ovens have burned-up in eight to ten months.  We have had three - progressively cheaper - coffee makers in three years.  The satellite stereo system lasted about a year, while the refrigerator icemaker and the dishwasher motherboards died exactly a week outside of the warranty period.  We replaced our deck furniture with a concrete and cushion sofa after two years, as the steel frame on the original set was quietly dripping rust onto the patio tiles.  The four ceiling fans get repainted every six months with white marine enamel to slow down the rust.



Francisco and Juan with cushions for new concrete sofa



The light bulbs seize in their sockets with rust or corrosion, and changing them involves a pair of needle-nosed pliers and lots of cursing. 

We did bring down special electrical grease from Canada to prevent that little problem, however my personal handyman decided replacing the entire socket with the light bulbs corroded inside, was more time and energy efficient.  (His time and his energy!  The replacement sockets can be purchased by the dozen at Home Depot for a $1.50 each.) 



Three repairs later, and we bought a new dishwasher



We recently had all of our expensive chrome-plated bronze Helvex bathroom fittings – towel bars, shower heads, sink taps replaced under warranty due to corrosion.  They were less than two years old.  We had great service from the Helvex head office in Mexico City.  We sent them a couple of items for their warranty department to inspect, then next thing we know we have a very large, and very heavy box delivered by courier replacing every single item in the three bathrooms.  Fabulous service.



Repairing a friend's gate - hinges corroded

 On our monthly list of chores, we spend a day lubricating every door lock, hinge, plus window and sliding door security locks with WD40.  Then we polish twenty stainless steel kitchen cabinet drawer pulls with Bar Keepers Friend and treat with a light coating of WD40.  Next chore is to polish the rust off of the stainless steel cook top, and wipe down the stainless steel front on both the dishwasher and the refrigerator with WD40. (WD-40 stands for "Water Displacement 40th Attempt". The inventor Norm Larsen was attempting to concoct a formula to prevent corrosion in nuclear missiles. He claims he arrived at a successful formula on his 40th attempt.)  For more interesting uses of WD40 check their website:  http://www.wd40.com/uses-tips/

If you think we are grumbling about the cost of replacing items damaged by the salt, we're not.  The way we look at is very simple.  In Canada our annual property taxes on a lakefront lot with a 2000 square foot house cost $8000.00.  Here on Isla an oceanfront lot with a similarly sized house the annual property taxes are less than $100.00.   It’s a small price to pay for living in paradise. 

After completing all of these repairs my personal handyman - Lawrie - needs a cold beer, or two.  Jeez, the bottle opener needs some WD40 too!

Salt of the Earth

Some time ago Freddy Medina, who owns El Arreciffe (the Reef the Bar and Grill) here on Isla Mujeres, mentioned that his island ancestors gathered salt from the island's landlocked briny lakes.  The salt was used for preserving fish right up to the time that electricity and refrigerators became available.  I thought that was pretty interesting story so decided to research the salt works on Isla Mujeres.

Salinas Grande on Isla Mujeres

For several weeks I had been cruising the internet trying to find more information about the salt works without much success – until I found the Aztlan Association and website.  This association is a group of forty-five, or more, experts on all things Meso-American.   Their backgrounds range from professor at the University of Arizona, the curator of the Ancient America Museum Exhibitions, a PhD Candidate at the University of Texas, to a Gallery Specialist of Pre-Columbian artefacts at Boca Raton Museum of Art Florida.  (You get the idea!)  The number of PhD degrees, attached to the various names, is amazing.  I am one of a handful of “amateur” members of the Aztlan Association.  Thankfully a number of the professionals were more than happy to answer my questions.

Some of the inhabitants of the Salinas Grande

The gist of the story is that when the Spanish discovered Isla in 1519 the islanders were already using salt as a preservative as well as trading it to the mainland villages from what is now Puerto Morelas in the south up to as far as Veracruz in the north for other supplies.  According to Fernando Alcocer the salt was traded for products like skins, meat, jade, obsidian, cotton blankets, and honey.  The salt works were exploited by the villagers of Dolores, the original name of the town at the north end of Isla Mujeres – which is now referred to as el Centro on the island. 

As Rae Clare, another member of Aztlan Association sent me a quote from a book written in 1880's by Alice lePlongeon: "At the beginning of the fishing season, men and women would collect the salt that was deposited by evaporation on the shore of the pools.  They seemed to regard it as a kind of picnic, though the work was laborious, especially for the women, who stood up to their waists in muddy water all day long, putting the salt into large turtle shells that served as vats.  It would have been almost impossible to transport the salt by land to the village of Dolores; the only roads are narrow pathways through the thicket, and the soil is so rocky and uneven that it would have been very tiresome to walk, much more so to carry a load."

Looking across to the west side of the Salinas Grande

The Spanish Salt Survey of 1605 stated that Isla Mujeres produced around 650 tons of salt annually, however in 1977 one of the Aztlan members interviewed a long-time islander Don Ausencio Magaña, who thought the total would be closer to 100 tons annually.  Around 1974 the three salt pans were abandoned, and they became an unofficial location to dispose of household garbage. 

At some point between 1979 and the present time the Salinas del Cañotal which is now referred to as the Salinas Grande became a city park.  It has been refurbished with a wide and relatively smooth walking or biking pathway that circumnavigates the Salinas, along with lighting and benches.  The concrete walls, surrounding the Salinas Grande, are repainted every three years in the campaign colours of the current presidente/mayor.  We have been through the purple and orange administration, then the pink and blue administration, then navy blue and orange period, and recently pale pink and green.

A side benefit to the Salinas being cleaned up is that there is a variety of birds that has taken up residence in the former salt pans.  

We have seen spoonbills, herons, egrets, frigate birds, and gulls of course.  Good photo-ops for nascent National Geographic photographers! 

Friendly neighbours

It always amazes me what information can be found on the internet.  But I wouldn't have thought to research the salt works without the original comment from Freddy Medina who started me on this quest. 

Hasta Luego
Lynda, Lawrie and Sparky

The Salinas of Isla Mujeres - mentioned in Tormenta Isla Book #3 of the Isla Mujeres Mystery series.

Murder and mayhem in paradise!

Buy Tormenta Isla Book #3 here

Bloomin' Bougainvillea

Moving to Mexico in October 2008 I was ecstatic about the gardening possibilities in a tropical zone. I love gardening, and especially love flowers. The entrance courtyard was perfect for a grouping of large terracotta pots that could hold a profusion of flowering plants. The ocean-side of the house had unlimited possibilities for a garden either in pots around the patio, or perhaps a few set into the beach area. We also have two upper decks that would look stunning with terracotta pots overflowing with brilliantly coloured flowers. I could hardly wait to get started.

Bougainvillea sprawling over Maria del Mar Hotel

The first plants that we bought were eight raspberry red Bougainvillea; that ever-present thorny vine that climbs and clamours over houses, hotels, restaurants, and fences everywhere in Mexico. Four vines went into the planter in the carport, and four more into a planter in the courtyard. I had thought to mix in a variety of colours, such as strawberry pink, flame orange and snow white, but decided to stick with one colour and build the colour palette with other types of flowering plants. The plants responded beautifully to their new home, quickly sending up four and five foot long shoots into the air, grasping for things to climb. And then the cooling winter winds started! Disaster!

Bird of paradise that lasted a few months

It turns out that the cool winds that enticed us to build our oceanfront casa on the windward side of Isla Mujeres are hell on gardens. Even though the temperature seldom drops below 20 degrees C (about 68 degrees F) tropical plants are a wussy lot, turning brown and dying back at the slighted dip in temperature, and especially when a cool salty wind blows across their leaves. Even the tough invasive plants such as the Moon Vine, a white-flowered, night blooming and very fast growing relative of the Morning Glory, turn black and wither into the ground waiting for the arrival of warmer weather in April or May. Sissies, they have no idea of what cold really is!


Our Flores de Mayo

But I was not to be deterred! I will overcome this minor setback. Out came the Bougainvillea, and in went a Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May otherwise known as a Plumeria). It did fine, offering a profusion of yellow-orange flowers, until the winds started. At that point every leaf on the plant dropped and we were left with a stark-naked plant to grace our carport entrance for the next six months. I have also tried Gardenias in pots along the outside wall of the courtyard with their heavenly scent perfuming the air, causing passersby to comment on the delightful smell. Died! They hated the winds in the winter, and hated the intense heat of the summers.

Then there was the month of Geraniums - cheerily displaying their blooms from various terracotta pots. Ditto the above results. At some point I even tried purple Chrysanthemums thinking them tough enough to at least survive the cool winters. Nope! The salty winds killed them as well.


My Favourite!  Orange Hibiscus with Red Centre

Finally - Hibiscus thrived on my upper street-side deck, tucked away from the winds. We have had months and months of delightful eight-inch vibrant orange blooms with a deep red centre. Stunning! Until August arrived - nearly killing the plants with the intense afternoon heat. Rats! We moved both pots out to the ocean-side of the house, playing a dangerous game of waiting until the heat abates on the west side, hoping to move them back before the breezes intensify on the east side of the house.

Our Ocean-side Patio

So what does thrive on an ocean-front lot? Coconut palms. We now have five pots of coconut palms on the patio. The upper deck has two recuperating Hibiscuses, and one presently healthy Rosemary plant. The courtyard currently has one palm, an assortment of citrus trees that I am experimenting with, a large pot of orange Canna Lilies, and another pot holding a yellow Hibiscus. So far so good. Not exactly the Gardens of Babylon but it's a place for small lizards, geckos, beach dogs, and cats to lounge.

It's still paradise for us, with or without the Bougainvillea.

Cheers from paradise. 

Isla Mujeres Mystery series 

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