Travels with Hayley

So after dithering about what to do today, I’d finally reached out last night at 8pm to a pearl farm on Cozumel (an island 45 minutes away by ferry) to see if they had any availability, which happily they did. It must have been fate though – normally they don’t run tours on a Sunday but they’d had to cancel one on Tuesday due to bad weather so had moved it to today. And it had been fully booked until yesterday morning until some people dropped out. So kismet, like I say!

I headed off pre 7am to walk to the ferry port, about 40 minutes away. The town was waking up around me with a street market of second hand clothes being set up in my neighbourhood and street sellers firing up their burners to start the day’s cooking.

Onto the ferry and discounting the option of sitting inside with the air conditioning , grabbed the last seat on the outside desk (benefits to travelling alone, always much easier to find a spare chair!) As we set sail from the dock, I noticed a couple of guys at the front setting up microphone stands and guitars. 5 minutes later they were ready and, in a move that made everyone hoot with laughter, kicked off with the not inappropriate for the setting at all, titanic theme tune! They played for the whole journey, it was brilliant – mainly Spanish songs that were obviously really well known as all the locals were singing along, and then they threw an English one in at the end for the tourist tips. It was absolutely brilliant, such an uplifting way to start the day. What with live entertainment and sea sickness pills I could get right into travelling by boat!

I hopped in a taxi at the other end – the directions given for the meeting point were ‘second exit by the side of the petrol station’ which didn’t sound very promising, but fortunately it was a lovely little marina and I went looking for my boat, La Ostra (the oyster).

Needing to use the facilities by this point I thought I’d just wait and go on the boat – but on arrival to La Ostra I made the possibly haphazard guess that there might not be a fully equipped bathroom on board…so thanks to the directions from the local fisherman, managed to find the (mosquito filled…) toilet on the other side of the marina. This people, is why we arrive at things early. Unexpected diversions!

Duly the hosts arrived, siblings Isa and Pancho (half Mexican, half German – which apparently is a mix that produces very attractive people!) but by far best of all – Ganesh the golden labrador. Apparently he loves a trip out on the boat so when there’s enough weight limit (I had to supply my weight for the boat before I joined – I couldn’t decide what would have had more effect since I’ve been here – all the tacos or all the sickness so played it safe and rounded up…) he comes along for the ride.

There was only 4 other people on the tour, 2 retired couples from the states, of which 2 were siblings (to be clear, the siblings weren’t a couple, not that part of the States…!) They were really lovely and had been half a dozen times before so I felt fairly sure it was going to be good. They may have thought I was a bit forward however as within 10 seconds of meeting them had asked if one of them could suntan lotion my back! Honestly one of the only downsides of travelling alone.

Pancho was more your strong silent type and captained the boat, as Isa gave us a little run down on the day’s agenda. She was most enamoured with my accent and kept repeating things I said ‘I wish I sounded like that’. Funny isn’t it, I’m desperate to learn Spanish and sound all sexy and Latin – and the more cut glass the Bristish accent gets the better they like it. The grass is always greener…

We sped out to sea in The Oyster, leaving the chaos of the port far behind us and enjoying zipping across the beautiful water, striped in various shades of blue and turquoise. Warm breeze on our faces and whipping through our hair/fur (Ganesh, no one else was exhibiting any visible signs of fur to my knowledge) we headed the 45 minutes to the farm on the north of the island. Halfway along we passed a shipwreck left over from Hurricane Dean in 2007 – we all felt very sorry for the owner until Isa informed us of the prevailing rumour that he’d left it out to sea after seeing the hurricane forecast to get the insurance money!

We arrived at the ‘farm’. Imagine a perfect desert island – white sands, palm trees, shells the size of a dinner plate. This was it. Absolute paradise. I could barely speak for the first few minutes and the other couples who had been before were happily enjoying my stunned reaction.

The farm is a family project, bought and owned by the father in 2001 when he gave up his construction business, and now run by the 2 siblings. The amount of work seems enormous for the yield – only 200 pearls per year – and Isa confirmed they can only make it work financially because of the tours that were started up about 12 years ago.

We learned all sorts of fascinating facts about how you farm pearls – it’s super technical but at the crux of it, you gently prise an oyster slightly open and embed a ‘nucleus’ – a tiny white ball made of shell, inside it. The oyster will then cover the nucleus with nacre, the iridescent ‘pearly’ layer. Interestingly, the nacre is always 2-3mm thick, it’s the size of the nucleus that changes, but it’s dependent on the size of your oyster species as to how big a nucleus you can put in. Here they work with a very small oyster so they can’t really produce pearls much bigger than about 8mm, whereas other species that would barely be worth getting out of bed for!

Other oyster fun facts:

1. Farmed freshwater pearls are much cheaper then marine as you can wedge in about 30 nucleus (nuclei? Nucleus’? What’s the plural? Is it like cow/cows or sheep/sheep?!) at a time and cross your fingers a whole bunch will take, rather like the early days of IVF. Marine pearls have to always be grown one at a time, hence the increased cost.

2. From catching the tiny fingernail sized oysters in the sea through to harvesting the pearl itself takes 3 years. And you can’t always guarantee the pearl will take. What a commitment!

3. If you put clove oil in the water with an oyster it causes all their muscles to relax and they open up without having to be prised open. Apparently this ‘relaxation technique’ was first used on fish. I cannot even imagine how someone first came to this realisation can you?’

4. Natural marine pearls can have a pastel tinge (more so in freshwater pearls), but on the whole anything that isn’t mainly white, gold tinged, black (Tahitian pearls) or pale blue (Akoya pearls, from Japan) is likely to be dyed.

We visited the ‘lab’ to see the equipment used for the seeding (the inserting of the nucleus). It’s not often you see a wall in a laboratory patched with rusting corrugated iron or with discarded lifejackets and scuba kit laying around, but I thought it gave it a rather nice rustic/lived in feel. All this learning had made us a bit peckish though so we headed back to the palapa (an open sided hut with thatched roof made from dried palm leaves) and ate some beautiful fruit and cookies.

Next on the agenda was what they call ‘speed snorkelling’ which thankfully was not quite as rapid as I had feared! Ever since I failed to learn to scuba dive many years ago, I’ve been a bit traumatised by the whole face mask, breathing underwater thing and haven’t successfully managed to do even any snorkelling since. I had a go in the ceynote earlier in the week but the mask wouldn’t fit properly so I kept getting water up my nose, panicking and then forgetting to swim! So I was a bit nervous about this – but feel the fear and do it anyway is my motto on these trips so I was determined to try my best.

This was the absolute best way to get over it, I’m so, so glad I did it. They put you in a life jacket (they had to find me a kids one as the adults ones were massive, I think they cater for the American/Mexican market or the more ‘relaxed gentleman’ one might say…) so you don’t have to worry about actually swimming. Then there’s a long rope attached to the back of the boat with a life ring at the end you tuck your arm into and the boat just drags you along. All you have to do is concentrate on breathing and looking under the surface. It even meant I had a hand free to hold my nose through the mask to alleviate any chance of salty water snortage , my biggest enemy to success.

It was amazing. A.Maze.Ing! I saw massive, chunkily plump starfish looking like something from a child’s cartoon, fish of all colours with coloured spots, stripes and iridescent fins, enormous clumps of coral 10 feet tall and wide, rising in gloomy mounds in the distance until you got closer and saw they were covered in hundreds of filigree, dairy milk purple sea fans, all slowly waving perfectly in time with each other in the current, like a slightly eerie, silent underwater ballet. And a sting ray – an actual sting ray! Believe me when I say it is totally possibly to squeal very loudly with your face in the water! I also got to see the oyster towers which are anchored to the ocean floor where the oysters are kept when they are growing the pearls, the sacks that the tiny baby oysters get harvested in, and the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe which the father sank there many years ago to protect the farm from hurricanes (she was doing a 100% sterling job until Covid, since then 2 hurricanes although only categories 1 and 2 out of a possible 5. Isa suspects long covid may have diminished her powers…)

Pictures below aren’t mine as I didn’t have a waterproof camera but have been taken by other people at the same spot and were exactly what I saw.

Back on the boat everyone was laughing as I was so excited and they kept saying how proud of me they were – I hadn’t let on exactly how nervous I was but it must have showed anyway – they were all so kind. We headed back to shore where Pancho was cooking his famous cheeseburgers with pineapple and avocado (yes it sounds weird, yes they were utterly delicious) and while we waited for the feast to be served I swam in the sparkling aqua water with the lovely Ganesh (who when he’s tired drapes his front paws over your arms to take his weight, I felt honoured!) and repeatedly pinched myself that this was actually my real life. I might have actually shed a tear or two. I never, ever take this stuff for granted I promise.

A quick post lunch relax and a chat – Isa and Pancho are originally from Mexico City and I was telling them about my cable car tour, the murals and the airplane library – they had never heard of any of it, they were amazed! Isa is going to take the tour next time she’s back haha!

Then a quick lay down in the hammock and a relax with the loyal pooch with a Diet Coke (for me, not him) and then it was almost time to leave – but one more thing before we were done. The island has the most amazing shells that wash up on the shore – all shells are protected here meaning you can’t remove any from the beach – so instead they use them as decor. They’re around the bottom on the trees, tucked into branches, in little piles on the sand. Before you go, you get given a set of felt pens and invited to decorate one and leave it somewhere. After a while the sun bleaches off the pen and returns them to their natural state, but a little bit of you can stay in this incredible paradise until then.

I wasn’t sure what to put on mine at first and then realised – one of the things I really hope I’m doing with travelling (aside from having the best time ever!) is inspiring all my beautiful nieces and nephews to go out and explore the world when they can. So I wrote all seven names (Tom, Rosie, Fran, Josh, Chloe, Darcey and Arlo) on the shell and tucked it into the most sheltered looking tree so they will be there as long as possible. Hopefully one day they will get to go there and decorate one of their own. Also kids – I promise I tried my best to use a colour I thought you’d like for your names – Arlo, I promise it was very much orange and not red like the photo looks like!

A last minute excitement as the resident, very tame racoons appeared just as we were getting up to leave. Apparently these are very friendly and often actually come up to be pet, but Ganesh was on guard duty today (mainly because there was a spare burger he wasn’t taking his eye off of…) and so they didn’t venture too close. They were incredibly cute, what a last minute bonus.

Having left a little piece of my heart on the island, we headed back to our trusty vessel and set off south again. The guys that had been there before were telling me all the interesting things we were passing – for example, a huge beach that was an island until a hurricane a few years back and now it’s a peninsula. How wild is that! The earth actually moved.

Being a Sunday and taxis thin on the ground, plus wanting to walk off the burger, I walked the 40 minutes back into town – passing what seemed to be a number of large, impromptu parties which I think were people gathering to watch the sunset/have an excuse to drink – where I bought a ferry ticket (they run once an hour and I’d just missed one) and browsed the shops.

Some confusion then when I was denied entry to the ferry – turns out 2 ferry companies operate from there and they leave on alternate hours ie one company does 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, one does 2pm,4pm, 6pm etc. I’d managed to buy the ticket for the boat that didn’t leave for another hour again. But look – there’s worse places to while away another hour than sitting on a comfy bench at the dock with a drink, people watching, writing diaries and marvelling over the day’s photos. I was most definitely not complaining.

On the ferry (which was the alternate company to the one I had got that morning and much swankier), I chose to sit outside again and found out that the musicians this morning were not a one off, seems like each ferry ride, no matter what time or which company will entertain you with live music! These ones were great too, I really loved it. I was on the window seat of a set of 2, and a little Mexican girl of about 9 or 10 was sitting next to me, her parents behind. She’d smiled shyly at me when she sat down and when it was time to tip the musicians I tapped her on the shoulder, nodded my head enquiringly towards them and held out 40 pesos (a couple of pounds). She immediately nodded agreement and bounced up and down in excitement until they came along and she could put the money in the hat.

Trips like this bring home no matter how many differences it might seem like there are between us, people are so similar at the core. We didn’t have to share a language or need words at all for her to know what I was offering, and I knew a child of that age would be desperate to put some money in the hat. It’s tiny connections like this, like the lady at the laundry laughingly spraying me with fabric conditioner, the gift of the hummingbird origami, the guys in the punk bar sharing food and drinks with me, the pork guys who just wanted a selfie – moments like this transcend a shared language and just make the trip so special.

On a much less flowery note, you’ll be thrilled to know I made the security lady’s day getting onto the ferry – you have to take your bag off to be x-rayed and I got mine hopelessly caught in my earring and she had to rescue me. Which was hard as we both couldn’t stop laughing! After all that I was rejected from boarding the boat so had to go back through her machine again an hour later, the shame!!

Finally made it home at 10pm after walking the 40 minutes from the terminal as taxis were understandably like hens teeth with hundreds of people alighting the ferry at once, and grabbed a garlic prawn pizza from the tiny pizzeria attached to the hotel. Now I know I was tired and hungry, but I honestly think it might be the best pizza I’ve ever eaten. I was making little yummy noises the whole way through! I was devastated to only be able to finish half but don’t fear, I picked the expensive bit (the prawns) off of the discarded side and ate those too – I’ve been trained well 😉

Tomorrow I fly home so will be a bit of a hanging about day so really, this was my last proper day here. I can’t think of a better way to have spent it. I’m so lucky.

Lots of love always xxx