What you can see on the Punta Nizuc cams
One view looks over a resort beach with its loungers and the flat, clear water sheltered by the reef, where the color of the sea changes with the depth. Another looks across low coastal scrub to the rocky tip of the point and a small jetty. Two more, from a large resort a little further south along the coast, look over its pools and terraces to the beach and the sea.
The tip of Punta Nizuc
This camera uses a fish-eye lens from among the sea grape bushes behind the point, so the horizon bends into a strong curve. The round leaves of the sea grapes fill the foreground; beyond them a pale tongue of sand and coral rock runs out into the water, with a short wooden jetty and a line of buoys marking off a swimming area, and the open sea stretches to the horizon.
With no buildings in sight, it is the wildest-looking of the Cancun cams, and a good one for the clouds and the shades of blue over the reef. Like the beach view, it belongs to the NIZUC resort and is streamed through ipcamlive.
The AVA Resort, looking north
From high on the AVA Resort, just south of Punta Nizuc, this camera looks north along the curved, terraced facade of the hotel and its chain of long pools to the narrow beach and the sea on the left, with the green of the coast running on towards the point.
The resort streams it with its name, the date and the time on the picture.
The AVA Resort, looking south
From the same building, this camera looks south over the resort's great saltwater lagoon, a pool the size of a small bay, with its loungers, palms and gardens, to the beach and the sea at the top of the picture.
In the first light of the morning it can still be in black and white, until the day is bright enough.
The beach at NIZUC, Punta Nizuc
Set low at the back of the beach, this camera looks along a resort's stretch of white sand at Punta Nizuc. On the right, rows of grey loungers and furled umbrellas stand in front of the resort's modern buildings and palms; on the left, calm, clear water laps the shore, and far off the low line of the coast runs to a single tower on the horizon.
Sheltered by the reef, the sea here is usually flat, so this is a view for the light, the clouds and how busy the loungers are rather than for waves. The resort publishes it through ipcamlive.
The point that kept Cancun's old name
According to early Spanish sources, the Maya called the whole island Nizuc, a name translated as "promontory" or "point of grass". Today it survives in the name of this point. The Nizuc channel, at the southern end of the hotel zone, is one of the two openings that connect the lagoon with the sea, and it was probably the route canoes took to reach the Maya town of El Rey, a few kilometers north.
Under water, the point belongs to a national marine park created in 1996. Its reefs are the northern end of the Mesoamerican Reef, which runs for about 1,000 km (600 miles) to Honduras. Off the point lies one of the galleries of MUSA, the underwater museum of art: life-size sculptures in about 4 meters (13 feet) of water, open only to snorkelers, made to be colonized by coral and to draw visitors away from the natural reef.
When to watch Punta Nizuc
The point looks out to the east, so the sun rises in front of it, and the morning light shows the reef best, with the dark patches of coral clear against the sand. Because the reef breaks most of the swell, this water can stay flat while Playa Delfines, just north, has waves: comparing the two cams is a quick way to judge the sea. Before a snorkel trip to the sculptures, the first view tells you how clear the water is.
Nearby
El Rey and Playa Delfines are a few minutes north. Lagoon boat tours wind through the mangroves and reach the open reef by way of the Nizuc channel. South of the point, the road leaves the hotel zone toward the airport and the Riviera Maya.
Getting there
Resorts take up most of the shore at the point, though the beach in front of them remains public. Snorkel trips to the reef and the sculptures go with licensed operators, and they stay ashore when the port is closed for bad weather. Use reef-safe sunscreen, never stand on or touch the coral and keep your distance from the sculptures.
