Silk Caye

Silk Caye is one of the Sapodilla-adjacent cays off Placencia in southern Belize, a tiny sand island with a few palms on it, sitting inside the Gladden Spit and Silk Cayes Marine Reserve. The whole island can be walked around in two minutes.

The reserve exists for what happens offshore. Gladden Spit, a promontory of the Belize Barrier Reef nearby, is where several species of snapper aggregate to spawn around the full moons of March to June; the spawn draws whale sharks, and the aggregation is one of the more predictable in the Caribbean. Access during that season is licensed, numbers are limited, and rules govern how close boats and swimmers may approach.

The cay itself is white coral sand with reef on all sides and a wall a short swim out. Snorkelling directly off the beach is excellent — turtles, rays and reef fish are routine — and the water is shallow and warm. The island is small enough that shade is limited to the palms and whatever the boats bring. Placencia itself sits on a sand peninsula with a sixteen-mile beach on one side and a lagoon on the other, and the village claims the narrowest main street in the world — a concrete footpath about a metre and a half wide.

The Belize Barrier Reef is the second largest in the world and a World Heritage site; it was on the danger list from 2009 until 2018, removed after Belize placed a moratorium on offshore oil and strengthened mangrove protection, which is one of the clearer conservation reversals of recent years.

Palms, sand, a composting toilet and everything else arriving on the boat. The reason to come is Gladden Spit a few kilometres out, where snappers spawn around the full moons of March to June and whale sharks come to feed — licensed operators, limited numbers, no touching. Outside that window they are not there.