Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve
Bacalar Chico is located on northern Ambergris Caye. It is a longish trip, a little over an hour, but frequent stops for places of interest make this a worthwhile tour. Bacalar Chico is within the Belize Barrier reef Reserve System World Heritage Site established in 1996. On the way to Bacalar Chico the visitor will find excellent snorkeling spots along the way and even a nature reserve, Cayo Iguanu that is a nesting area for the red-brown egret and the roseate spoonbill. The ranger station at San Juan offers some small Maya mounds to explore and a nature trail. The tour includes motoring through the channel that the ancient Maya cut through what was then the southernmost tip of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, creating Ambergris Caye and making it an island separate from the Mexican mainland.