Today dawned cloudy and windy with showers. During the night, a severe thunderstorm struck the area with lightning more intense and frequent that anything I’ve seen, even in Florida! There was one stroke of lightning that I’m sure hit our building, but I could not find any evidence of it. The flash of light and clap of thunder were simultaneous! The power went off, but returned in about 10 seconds, thanks to the back up generators at the Mayan Palace.

The guys (minus me) were picked up at 7 a.m. for their fishing trip. Off they went to Playa del Carmen. The rest of us slept in, since it didn’t look like it was going to be a very nice day. Judy, Joan, and I headed to the Havana Moon for breakfast around 8:30. Again, we were treated to those delicious pastries to go along with our breakfast. Joan selected the fruit plate,

while I had the Mexican scramble.

Talk about one HOT breakfast! But I was able to cool it off with that delicious Mexican orange juice. I don’t know what is so different about it, but it’s better than any Florida juice I’ve ever had. As we were leaving the restaurant, we see the rest of the crew at the opposite end of the restaurant. The fishing trip was cancelled due to rough seas and bad weather…EVEN THOUGH THE CAPTAIN WANTED TO TAKE THEM OUT ! Thank goodness for some common sense on our guy’s part.

With the weather a bit unsettled, we still decided to spend the day by the pool. Not many towels out today! Intervals of sun and clouds made the day pleasant enough. No complaints here…we’re on vacation! We played some cribbage by the pool, had a few Happy Hour drinks, and just enjoyed the day.

I walked out to the pier and checked out the beach.

Lots of beach here, but not much area where you can get in the water. Too many rocks.

There are efforts by the Mayan Palace to create a man-made reef to keep the sand from eroding. Lots of wave action here, so not too good a place to snorkel, but we could see plenty of fish there.

Later in the afternoon, it started to shower. We headed back to the room. Since our suite was the largest, we all gathered there. We played some cribbage, followed by a very spirited game of “Donkey”. All of us played, and the only casualty was Judy when she broke 2 fingernails. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this game. Everyone was too involved to take any photos.

Since the weather was so poor, we decided to go to the Havana Moon restaurant for dinner.

Of course, as we started the long walk to the restaurant, it started to rain. Serious rain! We stopped by the towel stand (it’s open until 8 p.m.) and used the towels to try and stay dry. The Havana Moon was fairly busy tonight, due to the weather. Shortly after being seated, it began to rain…HARD ! Harder than I’ve ever seen it rain! And it continued to rain the entire time we were there. The roof began leaking in spots. On stage where the Cuban band was setting up was getting very wet. They were supposed to start at 8, but never got going until 10. Meanwhile, dinner was served. I had the Caesar salad with grilled chicken, Judy had a delicious BBQ chicken, John and Jackie both had the roast duck. Jim had a seafood stir fry, Joan, and Yvonna had steak, while Frank had a sirloin steak stir fry. The food was very good, and the presentation was nice.

We sat and listened to the Cuban band for a bit, along with a lot of discussion about tomorrow. We had scheduled a day long trip to XCARET. Talk of canceling it ended up being “let’s wait and see”. Maybe the weather would change.

The rain finally slowed to a point where we thought we could return to the room minus the Ark and the pairs of animals we thought we’d need. The pathways were running torrents of water, and it had rained so much and so hard, that the pool was overflowing! The water was actually running into the bar area of the swim up bar. Estimates were that we had experienced 6 inches of rain in 4 hours. A real tropical deluge!

What will tomorrow bring?