Puerto Isla Mujeres Resort & Yacht Club, Mexico

One of our favorite get-to-by-boat hideaways is Puerto Isla Mujeres Resort & Yacht Club, a stylish but laid-back hideaway on sleepy Isla Mujeres. The resort is just a quick trip across the bay from the hustle-bustle of Cancun, and light years away in every other sense. A 30-foot private launch gave us license to switch at will between the quiet of lazy days and the pulsing beat of glitzy nightlife.

The trip—from the main dock in the heart of tourist mecca Cancun to the resort's tony yacht club dock—is just long enough to make the mental transition. We'd call for the resort's launch and zip across the bay, then up into a narrow, mangrove-lined channel to Laguna Macax. The noise, the crowds, the teeming masses were but a memory when we slipped in among yachts hailing from ports around the world and ambled back to our poolside suite.

Even better, Puerto Isla Mujeres doubled our boating pleasure. Each day, we summoned the resort's refurbished Liberty launch, a World War II classic, for a ride across the lagoon to even greater solitude—our palm-shaded chaises at the private beach club.

Fall/Winter 1999