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The Deputy Commander of the Coast Guard told us the vessel ended up sitting right on top of the reef:

Cmdr. Gregory Soberanis, Vice Commandant, Coast Guard
"What transpired this afternoon was that the lead vessel which was a safe boat class vessel while entering the channel was using the marked buoy as a reference for entering that particular channel, which is the main channel in front of San Pedro Town. Unfortunately the marker buoy had drifted and had drifted a little too much to the right of the channel and it was sitting right on top of the reef. So the Mexican vessel which used that marker buoy as a reference point eventually ended up on the reef itself. The vessel has been removed from off the reef. DOE will conduct an initial impact assessment and based on those findings that will be included in the report which will be forward to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it will be dealt with on a state to state level."

Reporter
"Should they have waited for an assessment from DOE before it was removed from the reef so that a potential damage assessment could have been done when the vessel came off?"

Cmdr. Gregory Soberanis
"Under these circumstances what DOE did was that they have for example Hol Chan which is also another environmental agency who responded as well to go do an initial assessment of the situation to determine if the vessel can be removed and if any damage would be incur to the reef if the vessel would have been removed. In this case, that was done with the assistance of the coast guard and it was deemed that the vessel could have been removed in a safe manner without any significant damage to the reef, so the vessel was removed. Even after the vessel was removed, there were no damages to the vessel or to the engines of that particular vessel."

We'll wait to hear the assessment from the Department of the Environment.

We should note that The Mexican navy has an agreement with the country of Belize which grantees them innocent passage through Belizean waters.