Satellite image of Cozumel island also shows the 12 mile wide Yucatan Channel and a stretch of the Mexican mainland coast. The Miami-like resort of Cancun is on the mainland approximately 60 miles north. You can fly into Cancun and take the airport bus/ferry crossing. Or zoom directly into Cozumel's small, modern airport.

The largest inhabited island in Mexico and the oldest in the Caribbean group, Cozumel is located 12 miles off the eastern coast of the mainland (Yucatan Peninsula.) The limestone plateau that forms the base of the island is 34 miles long (north to south) and 11 miles wide (east to west) and, despite the boom in tourist and residential development in the past few years, continues to have vast expanses of untouched jungle and shoreline.

A Brief History of Cozumel

Mayans are known to have been inhabiting Cozumel since 300 AD and during the height of the Mayan empire the island became an important port for trade because of its strategic location between Honduras and Vera Cruz. In addition, salt and honey were produced locally and used for trade.

The Mayans believed that Cozumel was the spiritual home of Ixchel, the Mayan Goddess of fertility and love, and Mayan women are said to have journeyed from all parts of the vast Mayan empire to worship at her shrines on the island. In fact, the name Cozumel comes from the Mayan word "Cuzamil-Pectin" or "Land of the Swallows" because, as legend has it, she thanked the women for dedicating temples here to her by sending her favorite bird as a sign of gratitude.

(A sidenote for birders: There are two species of birds on Cozumel found nowhere else in the world: the Cozumel vireo and the Cozumel thrasher.)

Today more than 40 shrines still survive although most of the major ones were destroyed by the Spanish after Cortes discovered the island in 1517 and claimed it for Spain.

By 1570 a smallpox epidemic, another humanitarian legacy from Cortes, had reduced the Mayan population to less than 300 and by 1600 the island was virtually deserted making it an ideal base for pirates who terrorized the Caribbean during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1848 Cozumel's population began to grow again as it was reinhabited by Mayan and white Spanish refugees from the long and bloody Caste War on the mainland.

Over the next hundred years the little town of San Miguel developed into a small, relatively prosperous fishing village until the early 60's when it was discovered by explorer and documentary film maker Jacque Cousteau who put it on the map as one of the greatest diving destinations in the world.

For years after Cousteau's discovery divers were the island's only visitors. But in the 1970's the island began to experience the same kind of tourism growth that was effecting Cancun-although, thankfully (!) on a much smaller scale.