Boobs Cruise- Latest Status

So here it is.

Last Monday (19th), a Police Launch drove past the cruise and the two cops on board took a short video of the boat as they passed. They did not stop us, or question the Captain via Radio.
On Thursday 22nd the Governor (in his weekly announcement) mentioned increased restrictions, including pertaining to boats specifically.

On Friday 23rd we heard at 9:15am that the cruise must be cancelled. The video must have come to light in high circles, and possibly prompted the Governor's previous night's remarks.

On Saturday 24th, the video somehow made it onto various local Facebook news pages and websites. This was shared widely, among more similar sites and pages. Of course, the fact some people were naked and others topless added spice to the story. Had it been a bunch of families of similar numbers, there would have been no story at all.

Apart from a tiny bit of outrage from the usual suspects, there were considerably more likes, laugh and love emojis, with people tagging their friends saying let's go.

Some larger news sites said that the video was taken on Friday 23rd - it was not - we did not run that day. They used headlines such as "Just 24 hrs after the Governor's announcement, a group of naked tourists ignores sanitary measures."
Part of that article also stated :
"It is important to mention that in Mexico, there are no official norms that regulate nudist practices in public, these activities are accepted by the authorities in certain areas of the country since the 70's, one of them is Riviera Maya"

Also on Sunday, we proposed a set of changes we would make that would ensure compliance and try to avoid further publicity. These were accepted by the boat company, the Capitanea (Coastguard) and Cofepris ('Health Dept'). I confirmed the 26th July cruise would go ahead only after this had been agreed.

Today Monday 26th we were told at 8:15am that we were cancelled again. I believe this time it was not because we were doing anything wrong, but to avoid further media coverage and possible embarrassment to higher-ups. I am pretty sure we would have had people chasing us around in boats all day looking for more videos, which would have blown the situation up again. Nobody wants that.

Also, today 26th July, a new online newspaper article came out where the President of the Nautical Association (Francisco Fernandez) defended us and said (paraphrase):

"The boats have no limitations on the type of people or the concept that the company carries. Indeed they have been running this service for many years... they do not go anywhere where normal people go."

So, we take it day by day. If we can go Friday, we will. But as you can see from the above, there is little danger of the cruise being shut down for good. The news will slip off the front page pretty soon and something else will take its place.

As we say in England:
"Today's news is tomorrow's chip paper"

 

Once again, we have to cancel the Boobs Cruise scheduled for tomorrow - July 30.

This (as before) is due to increased Covid Restrictions imposed by the State Governor, which have recently been extended to include boats. We aren't the only ones affected, there is a hip hop themed evening boat cruise that runs three times a week that has also been similarly cancelled.

We have further discussions over the weekend, and I'm reasonably confident we can go ahead on Monday.

All other (regular) boat tours have been requiring proof of vaccination or negative PCR/Antigen test results taken within the last 72 hrs since the beginning of this week. This is something we are going to have to do too, unfortunately.
Refunds of deposits will be sent tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are sold out for Monday 2nd August so won't be able to transfer anyone across.

The situation changes day to day, so I would encourage anyone who is thinking about booking for August or September to go ahead and book as usual. Especially as we will be strictly observoing the reduced capacity restrictions and will sell out more often than not.

There's no risk in booking for future dates. If the tour doesn't go ahead, then your money is refunded.

Apologies to all for the inconvenience, and for the late notice. We've been waiting on the outcomes of meetings.