Here’s Where I Live on Ambergris Caye

Morning all, This is an oddly specific post, I know.  But I run into people (or readers) almost weekly that ask me what it’s like living off the grid on Ambergris Caye or ask me how I boat to town each day.

(I don’t live “off-the-grid” and I don’t take a boat to town each day)

So I thought I’d publish a brief post for clarification.  And perhaps give some more information about my point-of-view on the island.  My home base – or home bases.  And maybe a bit of insight about the layout of the island.

I live 8 miles north on Ambergris Caye – in a small house just north of the X’tan Ha Resort.  And just south of the property/cabanas called Tuto Belize.

Pic below:  The cabanas at Tuto yesterday.  If you follow my Instagram stories, you see it almost every day.  We walk our dogs on their gorgeous 2000 feet of beach.

We live by the YELLOW STAR.

We live on the grid!  Electricity runs all the way up to about 14 or 15 miles north Ambergris Caye – to a resort called Tranquility Bay.  (Check out the drive from our house to Tranquility Bay here)  Public water does not.  We collect rainwater in the rainy season in a cistern and hope it lasts for the dry season.  Sometimes it does…sometimes we need to get a water delivery while we wait for the heavens to open.

And it takes about 30 minutes to drive up to the house from town – over the bridge, on the paved road (to about 3.5 miles north), passing the Secret Beach junction (turn-off) at about 4.5 miles and then along the hard-packed though rutted road.

View heading over the bridge.

And the road at about 7.5 miles north.

Ok…that’s where I live full-time.  But Jeff, my boyfriend, owns and operates Cayo Francis Farm and Fly (which I always call “the camp” – perhaps confusingly!)

So here’s the map where you can see the two locations.  Our house (YELLOW star) on the reef side of the island – the side with roads and town and utilities)

And then the Camp is on the west side of the island (RED STAR).  Secret Beach area is indicated with the LIME STAR.

The camp (RED star) is a different matter.  This property is totally off-the-grid.  Solar power, no roads – only reachable by boat.  The west side of Ambergris Caye, while growing quickly around the Secret Beach area, is still relatively untouched.

We can reach the camp two ways.  Jeff parks his boat in town…

And we head out, thru the San Pedro Lagoon (You can see it in the map above) – and then north along the west coast of Ambergris Caye.  About 4 or 5 miles north of Secret Beach.

So drive from YELLOW Star to San Pedro town in golf cart, hop in boat, head out the lagoon, up past the LIME star and up to RED star.

Why do I get the feeling I am confusing this even more?  🙂

OR…you will notice that home (YELLOW star) and camp (RED star) are shockingly close to each other.  What separates them is the Cayo Frances lagoon.  A very shallow (as little as a foot of water in spots) lagoon with lots of winding mangrove channels.

To traverse Cayo Frances you are gonna need a kayak or a paddleboard or a very shallow little boat.

Enter the little Saltmarsh skiff.

Andress, who manages the camp, can come across the lagoon – from the camp – and pick up up at the property just behind Xtan Ha.

15 minutes later (a bit more if the tide is very low and we need to do a bit of poling across the very shallow parts) and we are at the camp.

So…most of the time I’m at the house, some of the time, I’m at the camp…and yes.  I just made things more confusing!

I’ll leave it there.  Since we are about the head from the camp into town…

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