Day 4 – Lobsterfest – Ambergris Key 2015

Around 8am before heading out to San Pedro.

Woke up a little later than usual this morning. I think all that Caribbean sun helps you sleep better. I got up out of bed around 5:50am and strolled down to the Green Bar for some coffee. I prepared two cups, one for the matriarch and the other for me, the joker of the family. Got back to the room and woke the kids to up to get ready to head out this morning to the big city. We headed out to San Pedro this morning at 8am for the last day of Lobsterfest.

Estrel's - Where we had a delicious breakfast.

Mo shuttled us this morning and we got to the big city right in time for rush hour. San Pedro is small town of around 67k inhabitants. It is located on the southern point of Ambergris Caye (pronounced “Key”) and is a melting pot of nationalities. It is where everything happens and where most of any type business, restaurant or bar are going to operate out of.

The view is in the town center Catholic
Church with Olivia looking at the ocean.

Main goal of today was to hit Captain Sharky’s, the city’s bait and tackle shop. I wanted to get Thomas a cast net. With no stores on our side of the island, there is basically nowhere to purchase bait unless you catch it yourself. We grabbed some additional weights, hooks, leaders and jigs.

One of the many billboards in town. Artwork is everywhere.

We quickly learned that even though today was Lobsterfest, it wouldn’t start until around 6pm. Neither of us had any desire to hang out for the next 10 hours in the center of San Pedro waiting to chomp down on some spiny crustaceans only to say we were there. We did the next best thing – Breakfast at Estel’s. The restaurant was ocean front and had some amazing dishes. Olivia had a coconut lobster soup and I believe her exact words were – “Oh my gosh, this is the best soup EVER!!” Anna had phenomenal lobster sandwich with fries. Thomas had a cheese & chicken quesadilla and lobster tacos. During our meal we were greeted by Scrappy, a local four legged greeter. Scrappy was unique because he ate nothing with carbs. You would think that an average dog would love to give their mouths a taste of bread, potatoes or quesadilla shell. Nope – this guy was only interested in lobster or chicken. Talk about a diva dog!!!

We stopped here for some appetizers. 

Local Vegetable Store

After breakfast, we walked the city, which only has three roads (south to north). Even though the streets have official names, most everyone refers to the three main roads as Front (ocean facing), Middle and Back (bay side). We popped our heads in and out of several shops throughout the morning. Olivia found a beautiful bracelet at Belizian Art, a store with goods from a compilation of over 100 local artisans.

Since we would not make it until later this evening, we planned to catch a ride back with Mo at 1pm. So we only had several hours left to shop, eat, drink and wander around. We hit Elvi’s Kitchen for some more appetizers and tried some of their specialities. We had a drink at Lola’s, a bar owned by a man from Chicago. Grabbed some groceries and before we knew it, it was time to head to the boat.

Waiting to take the shuttle back to Portofino at 1pm.

Upon arrival back at the resort, Thomas and I headed out to see if he could catch us some bait fish. First cast – 6 sardines. Oh yeah … this was the ticket. We fished and caught numerous snappers, grunts and a medium size barracuda and one of the other docks near the resort. After a few hours we head with the rest of the bait back over to our dock and continued fishing. Somehow, I managed to reel in a Moray Eel --- Wow --- not what I wanted to catch but it put up one heck of a fight. Right before getting it onto the dock, it broke free. Yeah… I was very glad I did not have to cut the line or attempt to pull the hook. Thomas and I threw out multiple more times and ended up keeping two Grey Snappers for dinner. 

Tyler and Olivia chatting up the early evening.

Local thief!

The night ended up with fireworks being set off about one mile out over the ocean. We thought it would simply be a couple of poppers, but quickly realized this was to be a show. How cool was that. Out in the middle of nowhere, totally away from the City, by the second largest barrier reef in the world, at low season, with the family, drinking beer and all of a sudden to see that. Turns out the resort two down is owned by a CEO of a small company some of you may know - Cisco. He apparently likes to come down several times a year and have a little fun. If I were a smart man I would head down and see if I could mange to sit and have a couple of cold one with him

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Huge stingray I saw off of one of the local docks we fished today. The picture does not due its true size justice.