Hol Chan Marine Reserve: Belize's Little Channel

A gap in the reef, 23 metres wide and 9 metres deep. That is Hol Chan. The name is Mayan for "little channel," and the whole reserve is built around it.

Why does one cut matter so much? Because it is a doorway. The channel opens to the sea beyond the Belize Barrier Reef, so fish move freely from outside to inside and back again, and they do it in numbers. Over 160 species have been recorded in the reserve.

Add forty kinds of coral, three species of sea turtle and a sandy patch nearby where nurse sharks gather, and you have a day of diving that stays with you. The reserve sits off Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker and covers roughly 18 km² of reef, seagrass and mangrove.

How the reserve came to be

In the early 1980s the fish around Hol Chan were thinning out just as tourism to the cayes took off. The cut was a productive fishing spot and also the place snorkelers and divers wanted to be. Arguments followed.

Proposed fishing bans were rejected. Public consultation began in the mid 1980s, and between 1985 and 1987 Janet Gibson worked with citizens, businesses, fishermen and the government to make a protected area happen. She wrote the draft management plan in 1986.

The reserve was established in July 1987 with funding from WWF and USAID. Enforcement started in 1989, and entrance fees for Zone A followed in 1990. Those fees, collected through a yearly licensing scheme on tour guides' boats, still pay for most of the reserve's upkeep.

The four zones

Hol Chan is divided up, and knowing which zone you are in tells you what you are looking at.

• Zone A: the Hol Chan Cut itself, inside and outside the reef. No fishing. Diving and snorkeling on payment of a fee.
• Zone B: the seagrass beds inside the reef. Commercial and sport fishing allowed with a license.
• Zone C: the mangrove swamps of southern Ambergris Caye. No commercial fishing, sport fishing under license.
• Zone D: Shark Ray Alley, added in 1999. A second charged snorkeling area.

Around the cut the water can be as little as 1.5 metres deep. On the ocean side the channel slopes away into the Caribbean; on the inside it tails off into the shallows. Zone B also holds Boca Ciega Blue Hole, a sinkhole opening into a larger cavern, which is not regularly visited.

What you will see

Spotted eagle rays and southern stingrays are common on the bottom of the channel. Look into the rocky outcrops for lobsters, moray eels and sea anemones. Brain coral, elkhorn and finger coral build the structure around them.

Jacks, groupers, snappers and barracuda all turn up regularly. Three marine mammals have been recorded in the reserve: the short-beaked common dolphin, the pantropical spotted dolphin and the West Indian manatee. Manatees are rare visitors.

The mangroves are nurseries. Among the roots you may find adult blue striped, French and white grunts, gray snappers, French and gray angelfish, and seahorses. Out on the seagrass it is parrotfish, hogfish and the occasional turtle.

Shark Ray Alley

Zone D is a shallow, sandy-bottomed area inside the reef. On paper it is unremarkable. In practice it is where the sharks and rays gather.

The habit goes back to fishermen cleaning their nets there before heading back to port. All that food in the water drew nurse sharks and rays in to feed, and local guides kept the feeding going once visitors started coming. The water is shallow and clear, which is why snorkelers love it.

Sea temperature and waves through the year

The water here is warm all year. February is the coolest month in the table at 26°C, September the warmest at 31°C. Wave heights sit between 0.6 and 1.1 metres, with the flattest numbers in September and October and the largest in June.

Planning a trip

San Pedro on Ambergris Caye and the village of Caye Caulker are the two bases, and both are close to the reserve. Entry to Zones A and D is paid, though you will not hand over cash at the reef: the fee comes through the licensing scheme on your guide's boat.

Worth knowing before you go: visitor numbers keep climbing, and that pressure is now felt by the coral itself as well as by the towns ashore. Clearance of mangroves in areas next to the reserve is another problem the management committee cannot control. Treat the place gently.

Dived the cut? Log it in Scubaspot with the depth you hit in the channel, note whether the eagle rays were on the bottom, and add your Shark Ray Alley shots to the site so the next diver knows what the reserve is really like.