Xcacel Beach, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

mxbackroads--Xcacel Beach, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

This beach is just across the highway from the Chan Chemuyil.  It has been set-aside as a turtle birthing area.  That is turtles come up the beach to lay their eggs in the dark of night.  The sites are marked with make shift sticks and tape. For this reason the beach does close at dusk.  There is a 20 peso fee for admission to the beach.

When we first came the Chan Chemuyil the beach was empty.  Then towards Christmas and New Years more and more tourists started arriving and things go a little bit more crowded.  Our hope for an uncrowded beach after New Year's disappeared with the Mexican school holidays which started right after the 1st of January.

You can still get your beach walking in, just have to share it with more people than usual.

There is a crystal clear cenote at one end of the beach.  You go south from the entrance at the beach and it is signed.  It is a popular place and for many people a good place to get started on snorkeling.

The water temperatures of the cenote's stay at 77 degrees and are generally crystal clear.  Almost all the cenote's have small fish swimming.  I guess they could be acting like nurseries similar to oxbows and sloughs up north.

The beach is still the attraction.  This is the view looking north towards the point.  That is suppose to be the best place for snorkeling, however, every day we showed up at the beach the swells were just a bit much for snorkeling.  Cloud watching was pretty good.

Here is a close up view of the north end of the beach.  The Mexican wardens that patrolled the beach and collected entrance fees did not want you going around the point on either the north or south end.  Given the surf conditions there were warning flags flying on most the beach area.

Nice beach. It is even worth visiting on black and white days.

Book Read--One of the disadvantages of having e-books available at your library is that you will checkout books against your better judgement just to have something to read.  Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo is a book about a kids near death experience.  This is his fathers book on the event.  His father is a minister and this is a religious book.  Nothing wrong with that, but please this is more about FAITH than an actual kids near death experience.   So just make it a book on FAITH.