The Turneffe Islands, located about 25 miles South-East of Ambergris Caye and 15 miles due East of Belize City form the largest of Belize’s three atolls and covers an area of some 205 square miles. There was a flourishing natural sponge fishery at the turn of the century but disease and competition from synthetic sponges brought this to an end in the late 1930s. This maze of mangrove-lined channels and tiny uninhabited cayes were once the haunt of pirates who brought captured females here from Bacalar, just over the Mexican border. Offshore, at both the northern and southern end of the atoll, beautiful reefs and dramatic walls offer incredible diving with great visibility.