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RandyYou may have seen Richie Sowa and his Spiral Island on Ripley’s Believe it or Not, or the Spanish TeleMondo channel. As promised to Richie, I finally got around to creating the Richie Sowa Spiral Island web site and decided to post information for adventure travellers who are planning a vacation to the Maya Riviera.. It’s full of color photos of this unique floating wonder and is gaining popularity as there is no other site that has the depth of information on Richie’s Spiral Island.
I met Richie Sowa, a unique expatriate British street musican and street mural artist in early January 2001 during my 8 months in the Yucatan peninsula area from Oct 2000 to May 2001.
I ventured to many maya ruin sites, including out of the way ruins and all the tourista sites. I carried my digital camera and digital video camera to every location and documented most every unique site. Spiral Island holds special memories for myself and many people.
I’ve seen about one episode of SURVIVOR and haven’t watched since. It’s popular, but it pales in comparison to the 5 days that 20 people helped Richie Sowa move his large tennis court sized floating tropical wonder from it’s safe location in a canal in the south corner of Puerto Aventuras.
This adventure saw the island slowly move down a 1/2 km channel towards the ocean, and then out into the choppy waves of the Caribbean, and almost drift towards Cuba for an hour, before a parasail boat rescued us and towed us into the location of choice 1 km south of Puerto Aventuras.
If you are near Puerto Aventuras and want to visit Richie Sowa and his island wonder, you can most likely find him at one of the street cafes in the Puerto Aventuras village. All the locals know Richie. If you visit is floating island bring him a bottle of water. He’ll appreciate it.
DaveRichie,
Thanks for posting information about this man’s incredible story and his island. What a unique story!!
~ Dave
JohnGot a new canon digital 330, learning how to use it will post later, would like to see pictures of Richie Sowa spiral island, going to Cozumel in July would like to visit the island…….?
CasWhat an inspiring story! We should all be so lucky (& bold) to build our dreams like this man!
StephenThats my crazy uncle. I’ll hopefully be visiting him soon and stay on the island.
DaveStephen,
Does Richie still have a website? His old mac page no longer works as far as I can tell.
I did find this website which has some great photos of the actual island and Richie. http://www.sambarcroft.com/pages/Spiral/spiral.htm
The photo linked here is from this website: http://www.sambarcroft.com/ where you can find many more photos.
Sorta reminds me of the floating man made Uros Islands in Lake Titicaca in the high altiplano of Peru, cept those islands are made out of reeds.
If you stay on the island, let me know how it is. I might like to visit Richie. Also send me some photos if you take any, and if its ok, I will post some on my photos page!
Regards,
BobbiThis is incredible. Looks like fun. Dave, inquiring minds want to know: Where’s the john? And the shower if there is one? And what happens when the weather gets rough? And how and how often does Richie go off island? Looks like Dave needs to go here and write us a story. OR…I may be going to Cancun this fall. Perhaps…but I wouldn’t want to intrude. Ok, I’m lying. I’ll go if no one else volunteers!
The G ManJust got back from Mexico a few days ago and visited Richie on the old Fat Cat (Catamaran) that leaves daily from Puerto Aventuras. He’s now built himself a little boat from a bottomless wreck and guess what keeps it afloat, you guessed it BOTTLES! Must say I think he’s done a great job building it but I think his ideas and are a little wild and fairytale like. I must say though, don’t go for a swim around his little island, the water is freezing and after being told by Richie and the Skipper of the Fat Cat that no marine life was to be found around there due to the water, we saw a 5ft Baracuda swim by!!
ThomasThe water is a bit cool because it probably comes from a cenote cave. I can’t imagine it is freezing. I visited the island last year. Looks really nice. About three years ago I helped Richie move the island out into the open ocean. It’s not designed to withstand wind and waves. I’ll probably see Richie again this year. He was trying to work out a deal to put the island in a better location. It must have fell through.
Thomas
Col IboHe had an idea to float it back to middlesbrough.I know he is a genius,but someone please tell him not to do this.Must get over to see you soon mate
