Southern Belize Coast

The southern end of Belize — Toledo District and the waters around Punta Gorda — is the country's least-visited coast and arguably its most ecologically complex. The Belize Barrier Reef runs southward here but fragments into scattered atolls and cayes as the continental shelf narrows. Port Honduras Marine Reserve, centred on the mangrove-cay complex north of Punta Gorda, holds manatees, West Indian tarpon, juvenile reef fish nurseries, and one of the densest mangrove systems in Central America. The Sarstoon-Temash National Park at the Guatemalan border protects red mangrove forests that are measurably larger in canopy than anywhere else in Belize. Garifuna communities along the coast maintain fishing and cultural traditions distinct from the Creole and Mestizo communities further north. The tidal regime is Caribbean microtidal but with slightly more freshwater influence than the cayes: rivers draining the Maya Mountains discharge into the bay and lower salinity significantly during the wet season, which runs May through November. Spring range 0.3 to 0.5 m. Predictions come from Open-Meteo Marine, accuracy class ±45 min / ±0.2–0.3 m.