Living on a 40 feet Sailboat on the Cancun Lagoon

I’ve never really been the kind of guy to go to all inclusive hotels. Once in a while on a cruise ship is fine, but it’s not because I happened to be in Cancun for a month that I had to go that route. There are other options around that aren’t the most common, but much more appealing to me. And living on an anchored boat off a dock in a rich neighborhood just next to the Hotel zone was the perfect change I needed.

In This Article...

1 The boat
2 Trying something new
3 it’s crocodile free
4 Support Ian with a TIP or Donation

The boat

It’s definitely not the usual plan, but why not! People tend to go the easy way and book their accomodation off those shiny postcard pictures of the latest five star hotels on booking platforms. That’s because it’s the way it’s always been done in Cancun. Now with services like airbnb, it becomes much easier to rent a condo apartment in one of the residential neighborhoods all around the “zona hotelera”, just minutes walk to all the touristic attractions of Cancun.

Digging a little deeper in the filters of airbnb by selecting “boat” and I found this really nice little 1971 Coronado 41 ft, refurbished yacht to suit tourist needs, including a kitchen, a bathroom, 2 rooms and precious air conditioning (not really standard on sailboats). Anchored off a pier on a nice little villa with a large pool in Pok-ta-pok neighborhood, it is walking minutes away to Tortugas Beach, one of the few public beaches of cancun. The experience was amazing! Sleeping to the balancing waves of the lagoon, listening to the water caress the ship, watching the sky full of stars from the hatch of the stern’s double bed birth. Just perfect! I had some of the best sleep I had in my whole 4 months in Mexico. And to such an extent, that my initial week reservation became an almost 4 weeks stay!

Trying something new

Funny enough, the person who was renting the boat before me was another world traveller who has reached every country in the world. Considering there are only about 100 of us who have achieved it, this is a hell of a coincidence. Then after thinking about it, i figured it’s not that random… World travellers like us are bored of the ursual hotel room, and even rental apartments. We look for a special experience as a priority, and this is most probably what brought the other world traveler to end up “on the same boat”.

it’s crocodile free

And if you are worried about those Crocodiles in the lagoon, don’t worry, you most probably won’t see any around the area. The only one I found in my whole month stay was far away from the villa, in a mangrove near the Starbucks in zona hotelera. So they are pretty much anywhere, anyway. In any case, crocodiles haven’t yet learned how to climb a ladder to reach cockpit of the sailboat. So rest assured. I was completely safe 🙂

The owner Luis is also very friendly and gave all the attention I needed to have a perfect stay. He even invited me around cancun to join him on one of his ocean swim excursions, or to some of those fancy bars around town. Needless to stay, you won’t be left “alone at sea”.

Do I recommend staying on a sailboat for your next stay? Absolutely! and If you want to rent the same, reach out to Luis on airbnb which is renting his beautiful yacht named “Pelican”.