Puerto Morelos & The Seaweed Attack
Puerto Morelos marks a minor milestone on our 2022 travels – it’s our 48th bed of the year, one more than our previous record which we set last year. And it’s only August. Altogether we’ve been travelling for over 180 days so far this year – we’ve only been in our own home for 49.
The pristine white sand beach which is in all the on line photographs has a sargassum seaweed problem just now. Having talked to people here and then researched it ourselves, it seems the current situation is abnormal with unprecedented levels of sargassum growth this year, with a reported 24.2 million tons being pulled from Mexico’s Caribbean beaches in July alone. Incredibly that’s not a typo – 24 million tons!!
Here at Puerto Morelos there’s a floating barrier which doesn’t appear to be stemming the flow, and a tractor which pulls an agricultural looking piece of machinery along the strand line each morning, picking up and depositing large piles of drying weed at various points along the back of the beach. This stuff doesn’t smell too good when it dries either, but they’re doing what they can to keep it clear.
There’s plenty of it darkening the otherwise turquoise sea too, severely restricting the areas suitable for bathing, a bit of a shame given the beautiful colours of the warm waters glinting in the sunshine. No doubt this is all hugely unwelcome to the tourism sector after the last couple of years.
Several things are different here from all other points of our tour of Mexico: far more English is spoken for a start, and we can even pay by card everywhere! Well, almost everywhere. There’s an ATM which dispenses US dollars rather than pesos, information signs are in both languages, people are no longer surprised when we fail to understand their Spanish.
Yet Puerto Morelos is still, happily, a million miles from everything we’ve read about the more popular resorts of Cancun and Playa del Carmen with their all-inclusive complexes. This is a quiet laid back former fishing village where beach yoga is popular and the attractions lie in snorkelling, diving and fishing trips rather than theme parks.
Michaela heads out on one of those snorkelling trips on our second morning. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a choppy sea day which, together with the sargassum forest and overhead cloud, restricts visibility somewhat. She does see some great stuff, and captures some decent underwater shots, but she reports that although she enjoyed it, it wasn’t as good as the Red Sea earlier this year.
While Michaela is out there (I just can’t master the breathing techniques in order to snorkel!), I find myself confined to barracks with my first dose of this whole trip of…..err, shall we say “travel tummy”. Michaela had a bit of a bout back in San Cristobal so all in all we haven’t fared too badly for such a long trip.
Without this seaweed invasion, Puerto Morelos would be a lovely little beach town stop: plenty of decent restaurants, a well pitched bar and music scene, and the beach and sea would at any other time obviously be gorgeous. Yes it’s a touch touristy – it’s a beach town after all – but it’s nicely low key all round. Close by the main square is the town’s quirky point, the precariously leaning remains of the original lighthouse, knocked sideways by Hurricane Beulah in 1968 and still half sunk into the sands. Its more sturdy replacement suffered a similar fate in 2005 but has been handsomely restored.
Grackles call and squawk in the palm trees which bustle in the breeze with a sound like castanets, overhead the sky is always dotted with pelicans and frigate birds, the slender grace of the latter so different from the heavy artillery look of the former. Yet they’re both beautiful in their own way.
Each day the sweaty humidity of the morning is dispersed by the afternoon breeze which comes in around 1pm to temper the burning sun, the same breeze which sways the palm fronds in such an attractive way. Unfortunately that lovely breeze has a downside in that it also carries ashore the stench of the drying seaweed, smelling in its worst moments a bit like a mix of rotting eggs and raw sewage. Not nice.
There’s some cursing going on in Puerto Morelos just now. A seaweed attack blighting this beautiful coastline is the last thing anyone needs after two years of COVID. The widespread nature of the problem means we’ll probably meet up with the damned stuff again, but first we’re heading back inland to explore more of Mexico’s ancient history.
Next stop Valladolid.
23 Comments
wetanddustyroads
Wow, 180 days of wonderful exploring … you’re doing a great job! Despite the smelly seaweed, Puerto Morelos looks like a lovely seaside town. We like Michaela’s photos (Berto says, any picture under the water, is a good picture 😉). Hope the tummy is better (maybe a beer will help)?
Phil & Michaela
Oh it would be a great beach town if only it wasn’t being bombarded. Unfortunately I’m even off the beer at the minute – it’s that bad! Sure it’ll be gone soon, there will come a point where I instinctively know that beer is now the answer!
Gilda Baxter
The seaweed issue was there when we visited in 2018. I remember how it smelled so bad. The highlight of that trip for us was swimming with Whalesharks, incredible gentle giants.
Enjoy Valladolid 😀
Phil & Michaela
Thanks Gilda, yes we read about the whale sharks but haven’t seen any reference to it here, maybe it’s the wrong time of year.
RM Gant
Well written and informative article! Spent an afternoon in PM this past May, exploring a partial ownership vacation rental offered by The Fives Resorts. Especially loved the “Off The Beaten Path” feeling of the town!!! 🙂 Was just curious as to why your Mexico travels are labeled under “Central America”??? Creates the perception that you weren’t touring North America (which is composed of Mexico, the US, and Canada).
Phil & Michaela
Ah…err….to the first point, thank you very much, that’s much appreciated. To the second one….err…oops. We know how it happened in the first place (won’t bore you with detail but it’s to do with a change of route) but we can’t believe that neither of us noticed it through all of our posts!! Oops…
Matt
Just want to let you know, you are correct in llavero México travel under Central America. The UN designates anything south of USA on North American mainland as Central America
Toonsarah
A shame about the seaweed and the travel tummy too. I sympathise with the latter in particular as I’m a bit prone to it 🙁 Despite those downsides Puerto Morelos looks like our sort of beach town, nice and low key.
Phil & Michaela
Yes, really would have been great without the bas bits! We’re not too prone to travel tummy but we all know it happens sometime.
Latitude Adjustment: A Tale of Two Wanderers
We were in Tulum and Isla Holbox in May of 2019 and the entire coast was affected by the sargassum with no end in site. Fortunately Isla Holbox was not effected. Sadly from what locals told us the seaweed season is longer and worse than years past. Here is our post on the environmental disaster of Tulum:
https://latitudeadjustmentblog.com/2019/06/01/tulum-mexico-paradise-lost/
Unfortunately with the advance of climate change the seaweed situation is spreading rapidly in the western Caribbean.
If one is planning to go to Mexico or the Caribbean they should look at this forecast:
https://sargassummonitoring.com/
The resort hotels are not going to be so upfront with the situation.
Sorry to hear about the stomach issues. We both got Montezuma’s revenge when we were in Mexico City. Not fun!
Cheers!
Phil & Michaela
We had no idea the weed issue was so bad in truth – it really is a blight on the coastline.
WanderingCanadians
I am envious of your travel to being home ratio! It’s a shame to hear about how the seaweed invasion and how it has impacted the beach as well as the visibility when snorkeling. I actually like the leaning lighthouse and I’m glad that even though it was damaged awhile ago, it’s still standing!
Phil & Michaela
We liked it too!
leightontravels
Your opening shot of Puerto Morelos beach is wonderful. How unusual about the seaweed issue, I’ve never heard/seen anything quite like it. It’s always nice when, in the midst of a long period of travel, you come across a place where there’s more English and conveniences. Feels like a reward after al the hard mileage, right? While I’ve never been to Cancun or Playa del Carmen, it seems clear that this place is way more authentic and much more chilled. Love the snorkelling shots, I would be up for doing this again, as have only done it once in Malaysia. Like others, I’m also a big fan of the Leaning Lighthouse. Stay well guys and don’t let the seaweed get you!
Phil & Michaela
Yes unfortunately I think we’ll probably be meeting up with the seaweed again later. Puerto Morelos would have been such a lovely stop without that blight.
Alison
I love Michaela’s underwater shots. That’s sad about the seaweed and shame you can’t swim much or at all. Great shot of the two lighthouses.
I hope you’re feeling better and are taking probiotics everyday.
Phil & Michaela
I don’t even know what probiotics are!! Anyway, the gut rot is, happily, history now!
Annie Berger
What a ‘bummer’ you’ve been hit by a case of horrible seaweed AND traveler’s tummy in Puerto Morelos as the town looks stunning otherwise in Michaela’s photos. I hope this comment gets through as I keep getting ‘error’ messages when trying to write comments on your two most recent posts. I look forward to reading more about your travels away from home. Are you missing home base at all or still happy to explore the wild blue yonder?
Phil & Michaela
Yes received ok Annie. We don’t miss too much about home and are very happy travelling long term. But having said that, we’ll be heading home in two weeks’ time and we’re really looking forward to catching up with friends and family.
Victoria
We lived in Puerto Morelos from August 2021 until May this year. The sargassum was there all the time. We loved the snorkeling around Ojo de Agua, but in the end the sargassum situation was a dealbreaker and we moved away to the Pacific coast.
Phil & Michaela
Thank you so much for commenting. Yes we can understand that – the weed kind of changes everything. Where on the Pacific coast are you? In all our travels all over the world, Puerto Escondido remains one of our very favourite places on Earth. Absolutely love that place. Are you anywhere near there?
Fergy.
I can see how this place would be attractive to many people as it is not ridiculously touristy but still retains a suitable amount of “otherness” to appeal to the not completely resort orientated traveller.
It is such a shame that damned seaweed is such a menace, life must have been hard enough here in the tourist sector with the virus. I do hope they can find a way out of it.
Phil & Michaela
My sympathies were with them on that front.