Ambergris Caye

Ambergris Caye is the largest of the 200+ islands located off the coast of Belize.  It is only half a mile from the Belize Barrier Reef, which is nearly 200 miles long – one of the three largest coral reef systems in the world. 

Getting there was an adventure itself – flying just above the water in a toy airplane, with stops at other small islands along the way.  Our lodging was the Sun Breeze Hotel, in the heart of the little town of San Pedro – and right across the street from the airport. 

 

San Pedro was an interesting place to wander around – it’s about a mile long and only a few blocks wide.  Many of the streets are made of sand – great for going barefoot, but not so good for cars.  The local vehicles of choice seems to be golf carts.

Hotels, restaurants and dive shops line the waterfront, but there’s a skinny little beach for walking and people watching. 

And bird-watching, mustn’t forget the birds.  Without even trying, we did see birds as we wandered the beach and swam in the sea.  Here’s a friendly brown pelican that stayed around the hotel pier. 

We spent a delightful morning at Hol Chan Marine Reserve – a ten minute boat ride from town.  This is a protected area of about 3 square miles of reef, including a channel (about 25 yards wide and 30 feet deep) cut through the reef.  We went with an outfit called ‘Sea-rious Adventures.’   Since there were eight in our group, we were able to charter the boat and have our own personal guide to swim with us – to tell us where to look and explain what we were seeing.  Sweet.

What we saw was unbelievable – beautiful coral formations and zillions of fish.  Some that we remember include:  angelfish, butterfly fish, surgeonfish, horse-eye jack, chub,  grunt, margate, snapper, schoolmaster, beaugregory, sergeant major, grouper, basslet, parrotfish, hogfish, wrasse, goby, trumpetfish, tilefish, , green moray, goatfish, nurse shark, southern stingray, spotted eagle ray, and a green sea turtle.  And that’s probably not even half of the list – hard to take notes underwater.

Turned out to be hard to take pictures underwater, too.  It was a slightly cloudy day – great for the skin, but not so good for photography.   Here’s a shot of our guide showing us a live conch as a horse-eye jack swims by.

The good news about clouds is they help make a nice sunset, followed by a downpour.  We almost managed to get caught in the storm.