2-19-2004 Thursday
Arrive at long last! Fly in to Ambergris Caye on Maya Island. Had my first Belikin at Jet's bar. Picked up at the dock by Hatcher from Belizean Shores and took the 10min ride North. The azure hues of the shallow water were absolutely breathtaking.

Got checked in, changed and settled. Meet that evening for a buffet dinner at Laguna Grill. Quite a selection, Favorite was conch on a stick. But then if you think about it, any meat on a stick is good for some reason.

Live music was on the agenda that night for Laguna grill. One fellow who is part of Belizean Shores and one of the members of Category X. Quite a selection. A few got up and sang. I almost did when they played Pink Floyd's “Wish you were here”. Graham Primo (sp) or “Primo” as he's called, also part of Belizean Shores did sing along with some Beatles tunes. He's an ex-pat who came to AC via Colorado, great guy. Kept smiling, talking about the weather saying, “you're gonna leave and I'll have to stay here with all this”. Later as we moved over to the bar we played “coaster football” across the bar with some other patrons. Sorry "bout that.

2-20-2004 Friday
Fishing at eight bells with Cap't Bicho. Talked to Hatcher, and he commented on our evening at Laguna Grill. I said “oh you heard about that”. “No I heard you” came the reply. Again, sorry "bout that. Eight of us had decided to venture to water. Bicho showed promptly with his son and Charlie in the other boat, and we were off to net sardines. We ended up on the southernmost tip of AC before we found a school of sufficient size to so us any good. This took about an hour and since I had arranged the trip, was getting uptight about what our other boat might be thinking. But hey, it was again, absolutely beautiful. Once we had our bait.

It was off to the reef. Bicho had to first find a couple of lobster traps in order to know his location, it was amazing, he slowed, circled, his son on the bow. Found the first one. Slowly, circling, “need to find the trap and I'll know where I'm at”, he said. “There!” and we were off to the spot. Who needs GPS?

We dropped anchor and immediately began to catch fish. Small yellow fin and grouper. Bicho asked “where do you want to go now?”. This struck me as funny, as here I was 1500 miles from home and he's asking me? It showed to me that he was/is an excellent host and guide. Always thinking of his visitors/guests, serving attitude, which is not only important for business, but for all of us as well.

We moved outside the reef, big waves. We would drift, move the boat, repeat. Oh let me rephrase that. We would drift, catch triggerfish after triggerfish, move the boat, repeat. We did this for about an hour. Never in my wildest dreams, nor on any fishing outing, have I EVER gotten tired of catching fish.

I got tired of catching fish.

We trolled for Barracuda for a while, no luck, then went to Sharks Bar for lunch, not bad. We finished they day snorkeling at Hol Chan. Neat, but the current was scary (see also Mikell's post). Bicho Jr. found a small conch shell and gave it to my wife. It was 3:00pm and we were done in, so we headed back to Belizean Shores. BTW, when you're on a dock, and it's the least bit windy, HANG ON TO YOUR MONEY! Needless to say we retrieved all the bills and paid Bicho with wet greenbacks.

Cleaned up and ready to party, we headed to town on the water taxi. Went to Fido's and immediately ran in to a boardie, Billb. Great guy. Come to think of it, I ran in to him and his pal Frank quite a few time at Fido's. I went for a walk and found Coconets. Went in to price pic xfers. Keep in mind the sign said OPEN.

Peter was there, feet up on the counter, Belikin at the ready, chatting with the new girl. Introduced myself, and asked the cost, the reply was, “$10.00 USD, disk supplied, but we're closed. Shared a laugh. Back to Fido's, found my wife being chatted up by AC's worst comic. She nearly slugged me. Later she had better conversation with Peter and Billb. Went to Jaguars Temple, exactly what I thought it'd be like. Back to Belizean Shores on the water taxi. Had a really great conversation with a young Rastafarian who was supervising new construction just South of Belizean Shores.

Who knows what tomorrow brings....

good stuff john....love it!

your gang is more into the night life than we were...so i'm living vicariously thru you...i'll know what i missed by going to bed so early every night!

can still relate to so much of what you experienced tho...yes...we have to warn people about that current at hol chan! i don't think it's always the same tho...depends on whether the tide's coming in or out maybe? but it can be a bit much when you get stuck in it!

keep up the reports...i know i'm going to enjoy them!

Tired of fishing???
No way! lol
Never ever say that again!
Thanks for a great report!
Hey... who was the "comic"

Thanks for the report. Nice of you to take time to share.

kcjd,

Good stuff! I have a question for you though. You mentioned pic xfers. Were you having negative/print film developed and then stored on CD or were you transferring images directly from a digital camera to CD? If so, is Coconuts the only place you found there that does this? I'm considering purchasing additional memory cards or a portable storage device to download, but if there are services in AC that can download and transfer to CD, then it will be better for me.

Angelo,
That price is for transfering from camera or SanDisk to CDROM. There is another place that will do it for the same price. BTW-Coconets is just a few doors north of Fido's.

Denverdan-Just pulling your leg. I'd do all over again in a second.

Later,
KCJD

we did the same thing...ran out of space on our memory card with days worth of picture taking to go...(it's a picturesque place!) and steve at coconets transferred everything to CD in minutes...$10. great deal. having an extra memory card is still a good idea tho...you can snap to heart's content wherever you are!

As an owner of a digital camera...and still learning how to use it..you mean to tell me that I can transfer memory onto a Cd rather than buying another memory card? You guys are great ...learning something new everyday on this board. I have a 128 card that I believe holds about 64 pics. I have the 16 that came with the camera so I guess I can get another 8 or so. You mean to tell me that I can unload those 2 memory cards, each time i fill them, onto a CD? And...each time I refill those memory cards...will I be able to download them onto the the same CD or do I need a different CD each time I download?

Thanks kcjd and mikell,

I'll have to call and find out if they can do it with any type of card i.e., xD, Compact Flash, SD, MMC, etc.

I'd also like to ask them if I can verify the pics on the CD after they burn it. Not that I don't trust them, but I'd like to make sure the CD burned OK before reformatting the camera media. It would really suck to get home and find out there's a problem with the CD.

angelo...

they will definitely confirm that the pictures did download to the CD OK...they will use another computer to check/open the files before they delete them from your memory card. i know they can do this for a great variety of memory card types...but it doesn't hurt to check with them.

by the way...we only brought a 64mg card with us (should have had 2 or a bigger one) but we use our camera at the "better" pictures setting...not "best". this allowed us to get over 90 pictures on that card. the only time you really need to use the "best" quality setting is if you plan to print very large pictures of your shots. the quality of prints from the "better" setting is certainly good enough for anything up to (and probably beyond) an 8X10 print. i have already printed several 8X10 pictures on my home printer...and the quality is superb! you can't tell the difference from professional prints.

just a tip...check the "quality" setting on your camera...i wouldn't recommend the lowest quality because you might want to make a few larger prints...but in my opinion, there's not much to be gained from the highest setting which really limits the number of pictures you can take with a card.

and...no...you can't add more pictures to a CD...you'll have to get the next batch burned to a new CD.

we ended up with almost 200 pictures ... half of them on the 64mg camera card and half on the CD we burned...so with 128mg card...you should be able to shoot to your heart's content!