Weather decides if you get to Banco Chinchorro
. . . we lucked out! Our trip was cancelled 1 day only!! I've never had snorkeling like this EVER!!! It was a rough day, so it's a bit bumpy . . .
Time stands still . . .
Our most adventuresome travel was like stepping back in time as we traveled 34km off shore from Mahahual Costa Maya to a small fishing village at Banco Chinchorro. Things haven't changed much here over the decades, but technology has arrived as some of the fisherman homes on stilts sport satellite TV and the fishermen are using a more labor and time intensive method of catching lobster live for transport to sea food restaurants around the world.
It's a coral atoll . . .
Banco Chinchorro is an atoll reef lying off the southeast coast of the Municipality of Othón P. Blanco in Quintana Roo, Mexico, near Belize that is one of the world's premiere shipwreck diving spots. Its beauty is gorgeously showcased throughout the 2009 semi-documentary film "Alamar" by Pedro González-Rubio.
The reef, which lies in Mexican waters 35 km offshore in the Caribbean Sea, is about 80 km east of the city of Chetumal,is approximately 40.2 kilometres (25.0 mi) long from north to south, and approximately 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) wide at its widest point. It covers an area of 800 km². The atoll has three islands, with an aggregate land area of 6.7 km.
The natural vegetation of the islands is largely mangrove near the shore shading into open woodland more than 20--30 m from the shore. There is a cayman reserve on the southernmost (and biggest) island. The islands (in common with many isolated tropical islands) are thickly populated with small crabs, which are tame and so easily trodden on inadvertently by visitors.
Some of the islands are inhabited by fishermen, who live in dwellings on stilts about 60-100 m offshore to subvert local regulations forbidding private construction.
music by Kammerer 07 - Sweet easy solipsism, 05 - Blue Monday Jet and 06 - Pedestrian babble
