Posted on the Yahoo egroup by Skip Wagner, 2/23/09

Sammi Igarashi, Mike Warn, Miko Kitagawa and myself (Skip Wagner), were in Ambergris Cey Feb. 2008.

Ambergris Cey is nice, friendly, easy going English speaking people. A lot like Margareta easy on shore- you can walk everywhere, a lot like SPI easy on the water- a reef half a mile offshore (upwind) keeps the water pretty flat, almost glass flat up close to the reef. Wind was light for the week we sailed & found no problem getting SCUBA or snorkeling gear, so plenty to keep you entertained if no wind.

I think there was only one location to rent gear (at that time). A lot like Jibber's in quality and quantity of gear, but needed to be checked before hitting the water.. don't fix it tell it's broke maintenance meant every one of us had a broken harness line, out haul, etc. during the trip. The rental shop had Hobie cats you could take out (for free- part of reserving rental gear), so we sail out to the reef a couple times and snorkeled. Lots of fish and critters, even got up close (5 feet) to a group of dolphins that were playing with a lobster trap. Really cool.

We checked Cocker Cey and their rental spot, but I think Leo has a better operation in SPI, with only the gear he can haul in his van. Cocker Cey is much smaller (town) of maybe 500, so very mellow.

Hope this helped, Skip

Posted on the Yahoo egroup by Sammi Igarashi, 2/26/09

I can contribute some more info. The rental shop we went with is called Sailsports Belize. http://www.sailsportsbelize.com/ It’s run by Chris (can’t remember the last name) who moved there from Britain. It can be hard to get hold of people at times to make a reservation, but it’s easy to understand why once you get there. Their office is in a little shack at the boat dock. They mostly had JP boards and NeilPryde sails. The booms and harness lines were a bit dicey. The gear selection wasn’t too bad for us, chicks, since we didn’t need a 9.0 sail to plane. But like Skip said, it’s not like Velas, it’s more like Jibber’s. I recommend making a reservation so that you get the first pick of the equipment.

We stayed at a place called “Spindrift Resort Hotel”. http://ambergriscaye.com/spindrift/ We paid about $90 a night for a room with two queen beds, 1 bathroom, no AC, but with fans, with a satellite TV. Yes, you can watch Fox31 from Denver. They have many other types of rooms, some with kitchen, AC, balcony, etc. They had a free WIFI. The same building houses the bar called “The Pier Lounge”, the home of “The Chicken Drop”. The spindrift hotel has a balcony upstairs and you can watch Chicken Drop from there without fussing with the crowd down below. From this hotel, it was a short walk on the beach to the windsurfing shop. Maybe 50 steps?

For breakfast, we went to a deli at Ruby’s Inn. They had baked goods, burritos (with Belizean twist), fruit salad, etc. You guys have to try their Johnny cakes (if you are not a vegetarian). It was a lot better than sitting at a restaurant for breakfast. You can go get what you want bring it back to the hotel and eat it on the balcony overlooking the ocean.

Lobster burritos at “Wariguma” were all the rage when we were down there. It was humongous, and it takes two people to finish it. Wariguma is a hole in a wall kind of a place, only seating about 8 people at a time. After dinner, we usually went to Dan D’s custard shop for some frozen custard! Yumm.

As long as you stay in town, there is no need to rent a golf cart. You can even walk with your luggage from the airport in San Pedro to most of the hotels in town. People in San Pedro are VERY FRIENDLY and sooo pleasant. Not like typical foreign resort towns where all they want to do is to pester you to buy stuff from them.

Well, that’s about all.

Here’s a link to my webshots album with a bunch of pictures and videos Mike and I took on the trip. They are not very organized, but it’ll give you some idea what to expect.
http://tinyurl.com/sammibelizefeb2008