December 2019
This website is part of my Belize travel report. A description of my entire Belize trip can be found under this link.
The weekly passenger boat departs for Glover’s Atoll Resort & Island Lodge from Sittee River Marina near Hopkins. The resort and lodge is located on Glover’s Reef, a World Heritage Site and Marine Reserve, 55 km from Hopkins in the ocean, more than twice as far from the mainland as Tobacco Caye. The boat departs on Sunday and returns to Hopkins the following Saturday. Therefore a stay of one week is recommended. It is possible to arrive or depart on other days, but then there is a boat fee of USD 300 per way.
The place is run by a friendly French woman and her children. Thus, European customers can pay into a Euro account in France.
It is a simple resort where there is electricity and slow satellite internet only in the evening for a few hours when the generator is running. The reef is so far from the mainland that there is no mobile phone signal. Guests can choose between different levels of comfort. The possibilities range from self-catering in a tent to full board in a bungalow above the water. I decided to take half board in the bungalow above the water. As I had read that the island was a former coconut plantation, I wanted to live on coconuts over lunchtime. Besides, the Frenchwoman bakes excellent banana cakes.
The over-the-water bungalows
The sunsets were an amazing experience every time.
The view from the terrace of my bungalow
The sunsets from Sunset Point
I got the last bungalow no. 15, and at first I thought that I had got the least attractive bungalow, as it was almost a 10 minutes walk to the restaurant. But when after a few days a strong storm came up, I was glad about this bungalow, which was located in the most wind-protected part of the island.
But now to the snorkeling. Right in front of the resort there is a group of nurse sharks waiting for food waste.
In the large snorkeling area I regularly encountered rays, barracudas, bonefish, boxfish, angelfish, tarpon fish and many smaller colorful fish.
Cowtail Stingray
A young Barracuda
Bonefishes
A Spotted Trunkfish
Another species of boxfish
A young French Angelfish
Atlantic Tarpon
A young Schoolmaster Snapper
and here an older Schoolmaster
Blue Striped Grunts
A parrotfish species
I could not identify this fish.
Blue Tang Surgeonfish
The corals were healthy and showed a great variety. I was especially impressed by the fan corals, which I rarely see elsewhere.
On land, in addition to the countless beach crabs, three species of crabs lived in the forest. This brown one was the smallest.
There was also a slightly larger blue specie.
But the highlight were big Blue Land Crabs. The specimens on this island were not very blue, which is normal.
Unfortunately, I could only enjoy the atoll and the island for three days, because from Wednesday on a storm with very strong winds came up, which apparently only happens twice a year. People in less wind-protected above-water bungalows had to leave their accommodation because the waves were pushing through the floor from below and the wind whistled through the bungalow too strongly. They found shelter in unused cottages on the island. Snorkeling was now impossible. Because of the rain, the strong winds and the danger of falling coconuts, I was in my bungalow all the time working on my Guatemala travel report or reading.
Fortunately, the storm eased on Saturday the day I ended my stay, so our group returned dry in a catamaran to Hopkins.
This text is an automatic English translation from the German original by deepl.com