Flight to Caye Caulker

Caye Caulker

About Caye Caulker

Coordinates: 17°44 »²33 »³N, 88°01 »²30 »³W Caye Caulker is a small limestone coral island off the coast of Belize in the Caribbean Sea measuring about 5 miles (north to south) by less than 1 mile (east to west). The town on the island is known by the name Caye Caulker Village, though the correct name from old maps is Santa Elena. Some have said the islands name is derived from the practice of caulking or sealing the seams in wooden boats to make them watertight, due to the high number of shipwrights on the island. "Caye Corker", the alternative spelling of the name used by British cartographers, has largely fallen into disuse. This was a phonetic spelling which in older English was pronounced the same.

It is now generally agreed that the name was derived at a much earlier date from the Spanish name for the island "Cayo Hicaco". This refers to the Hicaco plum which grows wild on the island and was gathered by Spanish seafarers to combat scurvy.

Caye Caulker is located approximately 20 miles (32 km) north-northeast of Belize City, and is accessible by high-speed water taxi or small plane. In recent years the island has become a popular destination for backpackers and other tourists. There are over 30 tiny hotels, and a number of restaurants and shops.

Geography

The island is basically a sand bar over a limestone shelf. Underwater caves are found in the limestone (which have claimed the lives of several scuba divers exploring them). In front of the village, a shallow lagoon, between 6 inches (150 mm) and 14 feet (4.3 m) deep, meets the Belize Barrier Reef to the east. In front of the village, the reef is known as a dry reef with the reef exposed at the surface, while further north the reef is a deep reef and lies under 2 to 8 feet (2.4 m) of water. This area is popular with windsurfers.

A narrow waterway known as the Split divides the island in two. Some people state that the Split was created by Hurricane Hattie in 1961 which devastated Belize City, however villagers who actually hand dredged it maintain that it is largely a man-made feature. The Village Council Chairman at the time, Mr. Reyes, recounts that he and others dredged the waterway by hand after Hurricane Hattie opened a passage a few inches deep. This made a practical water way between the west and east sides of the island, intended at first for dugout canoes. The increasesd flow of tidal water has natually dredged the opening to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep until larger boats can now easily pass. The natural erosion continues to this day and threatens the soft sand banks of the waterway.

Belize

About Belize

Belize (pronounced /b?'li?z/) is a country in Central America. It is the only officially English speaking country in the region. A British colony for more than a century, it was known as British Honduras until 1973, and became an independent nation in 1981. Belize is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Sistema de Integración Centroamericana (SICA), and the Commonwealth of Nations. With 8,867 square miles (22,960 km²) of territory and 297,651 people (Belize CSO, 2007 mid year estimate), the population density is the lowest in the Central American region and one of the lowest in the world. The country's growth rate is 3.5% (2006 estimate). It is bordered to the south and west by Guatemala, to the north and northwest by Mexico and to the east by the Caribbean Sea.

History

The Mopan Maya, were the original inhabitants of Belize. The Maya civilization spread itself over Belize beginning around 1500 BC, and flourished until about AD 900. European settlement began with the Baymen, British pirates, privateers and English seamen as early as 1638.

The origin of the name Belize is unclear, but one idea is that the name is from the Maya word belix, meaning "muddy water", applied to the Belize River. A less likely idea is that it derives from the Spanish pronunciation of the surname of the pirate who created the first settlement in Belize in 1638, Peter Wallace.

Another account believes the early settlement of "Belize in the Bay of Honduras" grew from a few habitations located at Belize Town and St. George's Caye into a de-facto colony of the United Kingdom during the late 18th century. In the early 19th century the settlement was called British Honduras, and in 1871 it became a Crown Colony.

Taking advantage of Spain's inability to establish control over present-day Belize, Englishmen began to cut logwood, a dyewood greatly valued in Europe as the principal dyestuff for the expanding wool industry. By the 1770s, a second tropical exotic timber, mahogany, replaced logwood as the main export from Belize. The economy of Belize remained based on the extraction of mahogany until the early 1900s when the cultivation of export crops such as citrus fruits, sugar cane, and bananas came to dominate the economy.

Hurricane Hattie inflicted significant damage upon Belize in 1961. The government decided that a coastal capital city lying below sea level was too risky. Over several years, the British colonial government designed a new capital, Belmopan, at the exact geographical centre of the country, and in 1970 began slowly moving the governing offices there.