Isla Mujeres History

    In 1876, young Alice le Plongeon wrote about living in Isla Mujeres with her archeologist husband. The town of Dolores had been established 26 years earlier, by ~fifty families fleeing the Caste War. She describes the bay as being lively, with large Cuban schooners, small island boats, and an occasional smuggler's sloop...       "The bay is generally animated, because many fishing smacks from Cuba frequent those waters, and the captains make the bay their headquarters, as the pirat es did at the beginning of this century. These smacks are generally handsome schooners, of thirty to seventy tons burden, divided in three compartments. The central one forms a large tank whose sides are perforated with hundreds of holes, through which the sea water passes freely in and out. As soon as caught the fishes are bled by piercing them behind the right fin with a thin, hollow, cylindrical tube, then thrown in the tank, to be transferred t...