Good snorkelling/diving in/near Guat

We're about to head off to Guatemala on the first leg of our RTW.
Plan is to fly into Guat city, head up to Xela to check out Spanish
schools, then go chill for a week or so before hitting the textbooks
for a month.

Can anybody recommend someplace(s) for non Spanish speakers to hit the
beach, do some snorkelling and diving, and generally reset our brains,
within sensible travelling distance of Xela? Done the guidebook
homework, and both Belize and the Bay islands look pretty good, but a
long bus haul away. Worth the effort, or are there closer
alternatives?

Dave wrote:
> We're about to head off to Guatemala on the first leg of our RTW.
> Plan is to fly into Guat city, head up to Xela to check out Spanish
> schools, then go chill for a week or so before hitting the textbooks
> for a month.
>
> Can anybody recommend someplace(s) for non Spanish speakers to hit the
> beach, do some snorkelling and diving, and generally reset our brains,
> within sensible travelling distance of Xela? Done the guidebook
> homework, and both Belize and the Bay islands look pretty good, but a
> long bus haul away. Worth the effort, or are there closer
> alternatives?

If you took Spanish classes at San Andres on lake Peten Itza in the
Peten, you would be reasonably close to Caye Caulker in Belice. The big
difference would be the village athmosphere of San Andres versus the big
city life of Xela.