Yucalpetén

Yucalpetén is the puerto de abrigo, the sheltered harbour, on the western edge of Progreso, the port 36 kilometers north of Mérida. A channel through the beach, guarded by two breakwaters with small lighthouses, leads from the Gulf of Mexico into the inner basins behind the coast. The harbour lies between Progreso proper and the fishing village of Chelem, and the coast road to Chelem runs past it. The neighbourhood around its eastern side, also called Yucalpetén, has a navy base, the IX Zona Naval, and the Costa Club ISSTEY, a seaside holiday center of the state workers' institute.

Until the 1960s, fishermen on this coast kept their boats on the beach, where northers and hurricanes regularly smashed them. The harbour was built to give them a refuge: President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz opened its first stage on 1 June 1968, together with a cold-storage plant and a sculpture of a sailor reaching shore, called Angustia, in the plaza of the administrative area. In 1994 it was upgraded to a port for deep-sea and coastal shipping, with space for large fishing vessels and marinas for pleasure boats. It is also where boats from all along the coast run for shelter when a hurricane approaches.

Today the harbour has two faces. The industrial side, the Parque Industrial, holds about a dozen fish-processing plants, seven shipyards, ice factories and fuel docks, some of them run-down; a stretch of old dock collapsed in 2022. The tourist side, on the east next to the city, got new docks in a federal project finished in 2021, and recreational boating has boomed: by early 2026 an estimated 36 marinas held around 4,000 boats, and the town promotes sport fishing trips from here. Silting is a recurring problem, and deep-keeled sailboats sometimes run aground in the channel at low tide. For a visitor it is less a sight than a working waterfront: a place to watch the fleet, charter a fishing trip or set out on the water.