The following stolen, verbatim, from Richard Bejtlich’s policy:
“. . . I hardly ever accept invitations from people I’ve never met in person. Meeting once or twice at security conferences doesn’t count, unless it’s part of an ongoing conversation. I realize some people use LinkedIn like an extended address book. I don’t use LinkedIn like that. I use the site to keep ties with people for whom I can vouch or testify to their technical skills or interests. I never want to look at my LinkedIn contacts list and ask myself “Who’s that again?”
I expect some people might not care for this policy, but that’s the way I use the site. Thank you.”
Thanks, Richard!
I recently had a little trouble with my beloved Google Reader account. Specifically, the the All items counter was displaying the expected number of unread items, and the Updated subscriptions list was properly listing updated feeds and tags. However, the All items view itself wasn’t presenting me with a consilidated list of unread items. In their place: “Your reading list has no unread items.”
After a day or so of having to expand each tag to view new items by subscription, I decided that it was time to mosey on over to the Google Reader group and file a complaint with the board. A couple days passed, and I posted an update to document the fact that the issue was ongoing, in the event that it was being experienced by any number of other users.
Shortly thereafter, I received a message from one Justin H—-, Google Reader Engineer, informing me that they’d seen my message, and were already looking into the issue. A few hours later:
We’ve figured out what was going wrong with your account. It was an <embed> tag in one of your feeds (hexblog) without a src attribute, which caused our server to choke. We have a fix, and will try to get it out there as soon as possible. Thanks for being patient with us, you’ll get your Reader back in a jiffy.
And sure enough, a follow-up arrived that evening indicating that the team had developed and deployed a fix.
Thanks, Justin, and the rest of the Google Reader team. Keep up the great work!
PS – The Hex blog feed seems to be marginally broken, indeed.
[Danielle and I actually visited Ambergris Caye in October of 2004. I'm just now getting around to moving these notes to a permanent home.]
Getting there
There are (obviously) two ways to get from mainland Belize to Ambergris Caye: air or water. The water shuttle can take a couple of hours, and might be hot or rainy or both. We chose to take a ~15-minute Tropic Air flight instead. The plane was about the size of a large van, seated eight, but was generally smooth and comfortable. NOTE: If you manage to get to the head of the boarding line, you can probably snag the co-pilot’s seat–not the best seat for photograhps, but a wonderful view.
Getting around
Assuming that you choose to fly, you’ll arrive at the airstrip (literally, just an airstrip), which is on the south side of downtown San Pedro. From here, you can walk to your hotel (if you’re downtown), catch a golf cart taxi, rent a golf cart outright, or take the water taxi to your destination. Generally speaking, you should have little need for any type of transportation once you’ve settled into your residence. Unless, of course, you’re staying in one of the resorts on the northern half of the island, in which case you’ll take a water taxi to San Pedro and then proceed on foot.
Lodging
We stayed at Captain Morgan’s Retreat. We were in the multi-unit villas (seen here). The villa was clean, comfortable, and spacious. Being on the top floor, we had a magnificent view of the ocean, and a welcome breeze. The service was outstanding, facilities were well-maintained, and the food and drink at the resort restaurant were good.
Incidentally, we met a lot of folks who paid a premium for the “private” villas, but were disappointed to find that they lacked the space (and kitchen) found in the equally-private-and-convenient, but less expensive, multi-unit clusters.
In addition, we met several folks from Belizean Shores, which we visited a couple of times. Very laid back feel, and a terrific pool.
A good map of the caye’s resorts (and a handful of other popular attractions) can be found here.
Recreation
With the second largest living reef in the world just yards offshore, you’d be hard pressed to find a better place to spend a week snorkeling and diving.
To satisfy our deep-water urge, we signed up with the kind folks at Patojo’s Dive Shop, and couldn’t have been happier. The crew, equipment and dive sites were outstanding. Our primary divemaster was Martin. Martin was experienced, had a healthy obsession with safety, and went well out of his way to make everyone feel at home, both in the boat and on the reef. Other crew members were helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable as well. We’d highly recommend this shop to anyone planning to visit the island.
DIVERS NOTE: Ambergris Caye is the only Belizean caye with a hyperbaric decompression chamber.
If you care for snorkeling, you have a few options. The more popular (read: tourist) attractions include the Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark & Ray Alley. We paid a visit to both, but wouldn’t go back–(over)feeding the wildlife for the benefit of the camera-wielding tourists was a significant turn-off. That said, if you’re not much of an independent swimmer/diver, then this is probably a tolerable means by which you can get your fill of underwater wildlife.
As an alternative to these organized excursions, there’s a pretty good chance that your resort (or a local rental shop, if you’re not ocean-front) has kayaks and/or canoes available for personal reef exploration. Danielle and I took one out not more than 200 yards, tied off, and spent hours enjoying the seemingly endless reef system. If you have your own gear and an underwater camera, this is a great way to get some beautiful reef and wildlife pictures without having to shell out a lot of cash for an excursion or tolerate a large group.
An important thing to keep in mind when considering travel to the Belizean cayes is that, short of diving, snorkeling, and fishing, there aren’t a whole lot of recreational activities available. Non-water-lovers will likely end up planning mainland excursions. We never signed on for any of these, but they’re rumored to be fun, if you don’t mind an all-day trip–it can easily take several hours in each direction to get to and from the mainland by a combination of boat and bus.
Tourism
See recreation! Downtown San Pedro is terrific, but at six (small) square blocks, you can easily see everything that there is to see in one or two afternoons.
To burn what little time we had while we weren’t diving, we decided to rent a golf cart and see the caye. This was a lot of fun for a very brief period of time. Ambergris Caye is lovely if you’re near the water, or downtown. The breeze and distance from inland vegetation mean that you’ll have to endure few, if any, bad bug bites. Head inland, and you’re effectively circling a giant swamp. The sand fleas (or mosquitos, or whatever the hell they are) are hungry, unaffected by any form of repellent, and deliver an irritating bite.
Dining
There is an almost endless supply of good food (and booze) on the island, once you figure out where to look.
Fido’s Courtyard and Pier is probably the first place you’ll see, if you’re staying anywhere north of San Pedro. It’s located on the water, just of Front street, downtown. It comes off as a bit of a tourist’s stop, but the bartenders are friendly, the music is usually tolerable, and the beer is cold. There are some art and jewelry dealers under the same roof, as well.
Elvi’s Kitchen is one of the more “upscale” restaurants in San Pedro, meaning that you can still show up in a t-shirt, but you’ll pay a little more. Ate here twice. Food was good, although we’d probably recommend sampling some of the smaller places first.
The Reef Restaurant, located on Pescador Drive (“Middle Street”) in downtown San Pedro, might have been our favorite place to cool off and grab a bite. The Reef is a small, sand-floored restaurant with some of the best fresh ceviche and fish tacos on the island. Service was outstanding, prices in USD were comparable to fast food in the States, and our first round of cocktails were free in the evening! Highly recommend that anyone visiting the caye give this place at least one shot.
Photos
See also
