When you’re not a diver and only a reluctant snorkeler, it is hard to turn this WHS visit into a “good” one. Bacalar Chico NP is the only “land” component and my first choice would have been that one. But when I enquired in San Pedro (Ambergris Caye) I heard that there are no scheduled tours that go there, only private boat charters. That obviously would cost too much, so I settled for plan B: a fly-over over the reef. The Great Blue Hole after all is Best seen from the sky.

Both Belizean air companies offer scenic flights over the reef, at a scheduled time a few days a week. I booked with Tropic Air via the chat on their website for the next day. For the steep 262 USD I could have flown much further away, but well, it’s the best I could think of to cover this WHS. Maya Air does it cheaper at the moment (215 USD), but they were slow to react. My flight was flawless, we were on the way for 75 minutes (including a stop at Caye Caulker to pick up a 7th passenger). They fly with a Cessna Caravan, window seats only. It’s a bit like ‘doing’ the Nazca Lines, though without the helpful inflight commentary. There was less twisting and turning here in Belize, so no chance of motion sickness.

The main goal of the flight is the Great Blue Hole, which is a giant marine sinkhole. It doesn’t even look that big from the air – its diameter is 300m. Most amazing is its perfect circular shape. Your eyes keep being drawn to it. We first circled around it a few times with views on the left, and then the pilot made a turn to give the people on the right of the plane the same views. It might be better to sit on the left side of the plane because of the position of the sun, though at 1 pm there shouldn’t be much of a difference. Photography was hindered more by somewhat dirty windows and some clouds above us, which cast their shades on the Hole.

Along the way, you also cross a number of coral reefs and 2 of the reef’s atolls: Turneffe Island and Lighthouse Reef. Here it would have been nice to have the pilot point out which one was which (Lighthouse Reef is the one where the Great Blue Hole is, I found out later). Anyway, I liked the Dutch-pancake-like surface of one of them. In the water, you can also see bigger fish move around, most likely sharks.

To get a feel for how the reef and the sea feel up close, I did a sailing/snorkeling tour to Hol Chan. This marine reserve was dropped from the final nomination in favour of the Great Blue Hole. It was deemed “too small”, and what you will encounter nowadays is 10-20 boats and 5 times as many snorkelers tumbling over each other to view the green turtles, nurse sharks, and smaller fish that feed on the seagrass and each other. As an already protected area, it may be included again if this WHS is ever extended – IUCN suggested an extension in its Referral in 1996.

In my opinion, Belize’s islands and above the water line reef features don’t have the beauty of other marine and coastal WHS such as the Rock Islands of Palau, or the Gulf of California that I recently visited. I wonder why US American tourists, who really aren’t all divers, are drawn here in such large numbers. It must be the accessibility: there are many direct flights from US cities and they only take a few hours.

Fortunately, Belize had ended most of its extreme Covid rules a few days before I entered in March 2022, so no test at the border anymore, and mask-wearing is no longer necessary outside. There still was that annoying travel insurance you need to buy from a Belize company (even if you have a perfectly fine one already), plus an exit fee to leave the country. Ah well, I can’t think of a second WHS Belize will ever get, so little chance that I will return.