True to my word, here is a day on Cozumel. The ferry dock was getting some repair and refurbishing this morning and looking quite business like. The wind of a hurricane rips stuff loose and blows it around at 150 mph until it hits something stationary. The seas come pounding in and get up under the decking of a pier and may have just enough force to start lifting things up. This old ferry dock held up real well.
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Here is a flier for the CZ English language AA meetings.
This is the Mc Donald's landmark mentioned in the flier.
Almost all the boat and ship piers were destroyed by Wilma's seas. These two guys below are using an air powered jack hammer to break up the remains of this boat dock. The white tube is a length of plastic plumbing pipe that has an air hose blowing up it's length from below. It's called a 'lift pump' and as the air is blown up the pipe, water is then sucked in at the bottom. It's often used in treasure hunting and archeology work, but with a long hose on the bottom so the debris can be dumped down current from the work area, improving visibility. I'm not too sure of it's function in this application.
There is a serious upstairs 'drink until you puke' club across the street from one of the cruise ship pier landings named 'Carlos & Charlie's'. There are trained coaches with police whistles who roam from table to table encouraging folks to 'drink up'. I stopped in once to observe last year and the the mood was 'other worldly'. To add to the bizarreness they had a race car bolted to the ceiling. It survived the recent storm.
There is a dive oriented hotel named Barracuda right on the sea front, just south of downtown. They had a lovely sand beach behind a retaining wall and stone steps leading down into the sea for divers to explore the inner reef from. The storm surge scoured out all the sand , leaving just the rocks and some retaining wall debris. The seas also broke into the rear of the hotel and blew out the front. The day I visited they were repairing the retaining walls and starting to work on the building's interior.
(Note: Two months later you wouldn't know the place. the restoration is nearing completion and it is literally 'Better than New' as you will see in subsequent pictures later in this journal.)
Down the block from the Chedraui grocery store is a friends new home construction site. If it weren't for the missing tree leaves you wouldn't know it had stormed.
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One of my neighbors at the apartment building liked to visit this open air sports bar called Kelly's to watch football. I think there may still be a stool available.
This is the landing end of the downtown cruise ship pier. It's gonna be a while before they start tying up here soon. The cruise ships are currently anchoring off shore and sending the guests ashore on ferries.
These are glass block in the front of a sea front hotel. I always thought they were blown hollow in a form. Makes you wonder how the water got in.
There is a boatyard on the sea front with a Travel-Lift. It is normally parked in this 'Hurricane Proof' hanger with the owners elegent powered catamaran. Oh well.
This is the very popular diving hotel known as Blue Angel. None of their boats were damaged so they are bouncing back pretty quick. The hotel is at 40% capacity already
Next door is a new snorkeling outfit. That coral lined path leads to a sand chute enterance to the sea.
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I've seen these phone kiosks take a lot of abuse but never get knocked down flat like this:
The owner of the boatyard with the Travel-Lift lives in a compound across the street and uses this concrete Tug boat as a guesthouse.
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