Cancún begins clearing some 50 abandoned boats from the Nichupté lagoon

On September 23, crews towed 14 abandoned boats out of Cancún's Nichupté lagoon in a single day, the first of roughly 50 that the Benito Juárez council says it has identified across the lagoon system. Some of those wrecks had been in the water for more than a decade, El Quintanarroense reported. The mayor called it the largest operation of its kind the city has attempted, and it took five institutions working together to start it.

The lagoon is the body of water most visitors cross without really looking at. The hotel zone wraps around it on a narrow strip between lagoon and sea, Bulevar Kukulcán runs the length of that strip, and homes, marinas and tour docks sit along its shores. The boats left behind after storms and accidents have been part of that view for so long that they had stopped registering as something that could be removed. The lagoon is also where the city's largest road project is taking shape: last week we reported that the Kukulcán interchange joining the Nichupté bridge to the hotel zone is 57 percent built.

The first day

Mayor Ana Paty Peralta watched the work from the parking lot of the Jardín del Arte, at kilometer 4.5 of the hotel zone, alongside the port authority (Capitanía de Puerto), the Mexican Navy, the federal protected areas commission Conanp and the boat operators' association Asociados Náuticos Quintana Roo. Local businesses lent cranes to lift out the boats lying close to shore. "Today we are acting," she said, according to the council's bulletin. "An operation of this size has never been carried out in our city." It did not happen overnight, she added: the partners had spent many months planning, down to where each maneuver would take place.

The detail had been set out five days earlier. At a working meeting on September 18, the council's secretary general, Pablo Gutiérrez Fernández, said the first phase would concentrate on boats near the shore that could be dragged out, and that later phases would bring in barges, cranes and specialized platforms for the boats further into the lagoon. "We are moving from identifying the problem to taking concrete action," he said. "The Nichupté lagoon is a fundamental part of our natural heritage and we are going to recover it step by step, responsibly and within the law." The council dates the program itself to August 26, when it began, with federal authorities and the nautical sector, to put the lagoon's abandoned boats in order.

The division of labor is clear. The nautical association did the towing on the water on the first day and will supply barges for the later ones. The council is holding the recovered boats in the municipal impound lot, with tow trucks and traffic police handling the moves on land. The Capitanía de Puerto runs the legal process. Fernando Haro Salinas, the city's director of ecology, told El Quintanarroense that this means the port authority contacts the owners, or hands the boats back where an owner is already known. Francisco Fernández Millán, president of Asociados Náuticos, told 24 Horas Quintana Roo that every boat on the list has a registration and an identified owner. According to Por Esto, owners who come forward will pay fines plus the costs of removal and storage, and boats that go unclaimed for three to five months will be destroyed.

Why a protected lagoon needs the boats out

Nichupté is not an ordinary harbor. The lagoon system lies within the Manglares de Nichupté flora and fauna protection area, and it is a Ramsar site, a wetland listed as being of international importance. Conanp and the city's ecology department are overseeing the removal so that the maneuvers do as little damage as possible to the mangroves around them.

That is also why the boats matter more than their appearance suggests. The environmental authorities at the event said the vessels had been left behind after storms or accidents, and that beyond the eyesore they carry chemicals, batteries, fuel and other waste that ends up in the water. The mayor, repeating the point Conanp had made to her, listed fiberglass, plastics, fuel, corrosive material and metals among what an abandoned boat sheds into the lagoon and the sea. Fernández Millán told 24 Horas Quintana Roo that some of the boats may still hold batteries or fuel, which is why each one is being lifted with particular care.

What is settled and what is not

The numbers are not yet firm, and it is worth being plain about that. The council's figure is about 50 boats. Por Esto puts the total at between 45 and 50, El Quintanarroense at more than 50, and 24 Horas Quintana Roo at 53. The size of the first phase differs too: the council spoke of 22 boats on September 18, while Haro Salinas told El Quintanarroense it was 23, with the remaining nine of that phase due out the following week. What every account agrees on is that 14 came out on the first day.

The timetable and the bill are less certain still. Por Esto reports that the work will run in three stages until December, and that the operation is expected to cost between two and five million pesos, much of it paid by the boat operators themselves after almost three years of pressing the authorities to act. The council has not confirmed either figure; its own statements speak only of later phases on different dates. Fernández Millán, for his part, told 24 Horas Quintana Roo that the removal has no fixed end date, because every boat is a separate operation that depends on where it lies, how deep it sits and what equipment it needs.

The mayor also named what she wants to tackle next: rehabilitating the Jardín del Arte, which she called part of Cancún's identity; regulating paddleboards, kayaks and canoes on the lagoon; and bringing order, with proper signage, to the traffic of wave runners and yachts. Those are stated plans rather than adopted rules, and none has a date yet.

For people who live, work or stay around the lagoon, from the hotel zone to the homes and marinas along its shores, the change is a simple one. Water that has carried the same wrecks for years is starting to be cleared, by the people who use it most. For more on the city and its homes, see our Cancún page.

Sources: Municipio de Benito Juárez, bulletin on the removal of abandoned boats from the Nichupté lagoon system, Cancún, September 23, 2026, and bulletin on the September 18 working meeting chaired by Pablo Gutiérrez Fernández. El Quintanarroense, September 23, 2026, quoting Fernando Haro Salinas. Por Esto, Elisa Rodríguez, September 24, 2026, for the three stages to December, the cost estimate, the fines and the three to five month deadline for unclaimed boats. 24 Horas Quintana Roo, September 24, 2026, quoting Francisco Fernández Millán on the count of 53, the owners and the timetable. Main image: Serge Melki, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.