Docker Captain's Summit in Mexico
Docker's third summit was held in Mexico in between Cancún and Playa del Carmen, here's how it went.
Last year’s summit was in Istanbul, Türkiye. This time around it was in Mexico, specifically in an all-inclusive resort in between Cancún and Playa del Carmen which is in the Yucatán Peninsula (eastern Mexico).
Like my previous summit posts, this will focus mostly on the personal experience of the event since I plan to make future posts around the technical topics.
When you spend a year chatting online with your friends who are also Docker Captains and work at Docker, it’s such a nice feeling to arrive in a different country and see them in real life. I still can’t believe we get to experience these events as Docker Captains!
# 10+ Years of Docker Captains
I’ve been a Docker Captain now for 10+ years and I’ve seen Docker along with the captain’s program evolve over this time. Docker is stronger than ever and in my opinion the captain’s program is the gold standard for building a community.
As Kenan said in one of his talks at this event, a community is built 1 person at a time. It started with a handful and now there’s ~350 captains from around the world.
Here’s a few group shots of each captain’s summit so far.
Summit #1: ~40 captains in Lisbon, Portugal
Summit #2: ~50 captains in Istanbul, Türkiye
Summit #3: ~80 captains in Mexico
There were so many new faces this year which was great to see. It’s getting to the point now where we all barely fit in 1 camera frame!
A huge part of the success of the captain’s program is Eva. She’s so thoughtful, patient and detail oriented. She does an amazing job managing the captain’s program. It certainly would not be the same without her!
In the photo below, that’e Eva on the left, me, Aurélien (works at Docker) and Kristiyan (Docker Captain), his selfie arm is unmatched:
The captain’s program isn’t just the captains. It’s all of Docker too. There isn’t this “boss vs employee” mentality. We’re all friends and we’re all on the same team. If I’m chatting with Eva or Michael who works at Docker but used to be a captain, it’s no different than any of the captains.
Speaking of Docker, it was nice to meet new folks I’ve never met before who work at Docker, such as Mat (Chief Product Officer), Alissa (VP Brand / Content), Ajeet (Developer Advocate) and Dan (Developer Success Advocate).
# Seeing the Invitation Email
It’s a really good feeling to look at your inbox and see Eva’s profile with a subject that reads “You’re invited to the Captain Summit in Mexico!”.
The email arrived at 1:56pm EST on July 1st. It’s funny because I was in a work meeting that just ended around that time. Within a minute I got sign off at work to take 3 weeks off and by 2:01pm EST I replied saying I’m 10000000% in, without question.
I think Docker hit the sweet spot in giving us about 7-8 weeks of notice. That’s plenty of time to arrange time off from work, get your travel documents in order and also plan a personal trip if you’re going to combo it off the event.
Since I already had my passport it was no problem to visit Mexico from the US.
Event Days
Here’s the timeline for this year’s summit. It was the same as previous years where there’s 2 full event days, padded with travel days:
- Sunday, Sep 27th: Event travel day in
- Monday, Sep 28th: Official event day 1
- Tuesday, Sep 29th: Official event day 2
- Wednesday, Sep 30th: Event travel day out
I’ll be classifying these as day 1, day 2, day 3 and day 4 in this post.
# Docker Is Helping Unlock the World
It’s so nice that Docker is flexible with the flights. All they ask is you book a round trip economy flight and be mindful of the price. In my case, direct flights have always been the cheapest and I’ve been able to book flights where the return date was 2-3 weeks after the event. The prices were often cheaper as well, a double win.
Last year with Turkish Air, I YOLO’d random seats for the 10 hour flight and got a window and aisle seat. That’s because they wanted something like $50 extra each way to pick a seat. This year it was a ~3.5 hour flight with JetBlue and I was able to pick the seats at no extra cost, to which I grabbed aisle seats both ways. This flight was a breeze (literally):
On the way there it was an Airbus A321-231 and to return home it was an Airbus A321-200. I have to say, these Airbus planes are comfortable. Leg room was good, I’m 5'11" (180 cm) and my body felt normal after landing.
I’m really thankful there wasn’t a problem because the east coast US was getting hammered by a nor’easter storm that weekend. It was pouring rain with crazy wind all of Friday, Saturday and into Sunday morning which is when my flight was. Hundreds of flights got cancelled or delayed on Saturday. I had to be up at 5am but sleeping that night wasn’t easy:
Thankfully everything was good to go on Sunday. The weather was still bad but there was only a 10 minute delay. The takeoff was a little wild with all of the wind but we made it in one piece which is all that counts.
Adventure Time (Personal Trip)
I won’t go into too much detail but…
I’ve never taken a road trip in my life so I figured a 19 day road trip after the event to take a 1,900 km (1,200 mile) loop around the Yucatán Peninsula felt like a good introduction.
It was unforgettable in the best way possible, that’s for sure. After the event I took a colectivo van from the resort to Playa del Carmen, then rented a car and immediately started the journey.
I ended up driving to and staying in Valladolid, Mérida, Xpujil, Bacalar, Tulum, Playa del Carmen and Cancún for 2-4 nights in each place, driving through other cities (Izamal, etc.) and seeing many biomes (Calakmul, etc.) along the way.
Mayan pyramids, ruins, underground limestone caves, water caves, cenotes (fresh water sink holes), tropical rainforests, beaches, lagoons, boat tours, kayaking, snorkeling, islands, cities, rural towns, great people and amazing food were all on the menu.
Since I wear prescription glasses, I picked up a snorkel mask on Amazon before the trip to match my prescription, it worked wonderfully:
I still can’t believe 7 pairs of clothes, laptop, the snorkel set up, water shoes and a 28L dry bag all easily fit in (2) carry-on backpacks. I’ve used this combo of bags now for every trip on multiple airlines without issues. It’s a 26L SwissGear backpack and a 20L nylon backpack for under the seat. Fully packed it was 7.7 kg (17 lbs) and 1.5 kg (3.5 lbs) for each bag.
If anyone is curious I had an eSIM and ended up using 4 GB of data across the whole 3 week trip. That was with a ton of Google maps (I pre-downloaded most maps) and posting photos along the way without thinking about it. I didn’t even have Wi-Fi for 2 nights in 1 hotel and downloaded quite a few videos from the Docker Captain’s WhatsApp group we had going.
Ok, back to the event!
# Day 1: Arrivals
I arrived at my local airport around 10:00am. Since Eva is the best, she grouped up a bunch of people based on their arrival times and terminals to get transportation from the airport to the resort once we landed in Cancún.
Turns out, Sujay was flying in from Malaysia and happened to have a connecting flight in JFK (New York) which is where I flew out of so we had a chance to meet at the gate and talk for a few hours before boarding the same plane.
It was funny because we were sitting near each other and looking around while using Slack to sync up and eventually were like “wait, I know you… I think!”.
After landing we made our way to the resort which was incredible. I’ve never been to an all inclusive resort or Mexico. It was like walking into paradise:
At this point it was about 2:30pm. By the time we made it to the lobby a number of captains were there. Rachid, Julien, Estefania and quite a few others were there. We all met at previous summits, it was nice seeing their faces and catching up a little bit.
The resort attaches a bracelet to your wrist and that becomes your room key and provides access to anything. A bunch of us were joking around later on because it felt like stealing. It’s like wait, you can just walk up and get anything you want and not pay? Yep, exactly!
Sujay and I both checked in and split up to investigate our rooms. The place was huge and had a number of sections.
This was the view from outside my room for the next few days:
I think I got lucky because I was on the top floor in a section that was 1 minute away from the pool with a waterfall. It was like getting a head massage:
Just out of frame was Jorge enjoying the pool. He and I ended up being neighbors. We’ve met a few times in previous summits. Always a pleasure to catch up!
We chatted for a while and then I ran into Pawel, this photo isn’t where we met but we took a selfie later on during the summit, he’s a nice guy and fun to chat with:
We walked around the resort. Since he’s from Poland he enjoys walking. We also joked I might be an anomaly because most people from the US don’t like to walk and if they do, it would be with a cheese burger in each hand. I averaged 30,000 steps a day in Mexico, I hope it satisfies the Europeans haha.
We randomly discovered a well designed mall:
On the way there, we ran into Max who I also met at previous summits. It was probably 4:30pm or so at this point and Max was hungry for tacos so the 3 of us took advantage of our wrist bands and got a few small tacos just around the corner.
They were tasty, I didn’t want to eat too much because there was a captain’s dinner coming up in the evening but I’m not going to turn down tacos ever.
Mingling
Before dinner we had a chance to all meet up in 1 spot.
The meeting point was nice, there were snacks, drinks and a lot of great company. Here’s Ajeet, Sujay, myself and Jorge. I’ve seen a Ajeet a million times online over the years but never in person until this event:
Docker arranged bags for each of us which had a Docker next shirt, sun tan lotion that looked like a marker and a hand written note from Eva. Just a reminder at how thoughtful Eva is (❤️), and also mindful of the environment we’re in since it was 32c (90f) most days.
I didn’t get a photo of the bag there and at this point I’m writing this post 1 month after the event where the bag looks like it’s been through the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so here’s the bag in all of its glory at Chichén Itzá which are ruins a number of us visited after the event:
Welcome Dinner
Around 7:00pm we started to gather in the spot for the welcome dinner:
That’s Michael from Docker and Don (captain).
It was a nice area to walk around to meet people and get food / drinks. I didn’t grab any pictures of the dinner but it was quite good. I just remember having meat and vegetables with some type of cheese cake for dessert.
While walking around I met up with James, Nigel, Don, Timo’s wife, Timo and Jorge:
Shortly after that Don suggested doing Tequila shots. I happened to be standing next to him and Nigel so I joined in. I’m not a big drinker so that was an experience.
After a few shots your stomach gets warm a few seconds later and then 10 minutes after that you’re internally debating if you’re still on planet Earth. While I have a low tolerance of alcohol, thankfully my stomach is ok so it was fine.
Karaoke Time
A whole bunch of people went up like last year so we had a chance to hear songs from many different countries. Out of respect for everyone, definitely not posting any photos or videos of that here haha.
Kristiyan convinced me to go up with him and a few others, at least now I can officially say I’ve done karaoke even if it was only for a few seconds. One day I’ll request this song.
I forgot when I went back to the room, I think around midnight. I just remember after being up for around 20 hours, falling asleep was easy.
# Day 2: The Real Event Day 1
The resort had an excellent breakfast buffet which started at 7:00am. Officially we were set to meet at 9:00am, I ended up popping in around 7:30am.
They had everything you can think of. Eggs, pancakes, waffles, bagels, bread, fruit, nuts, cheese and a bunch of drink selections with juices, milk, tea and coffee.
I grabbed a plate, loaded up a few things and saw Pawel so we chatted for a bit. As time went on more and more captains were arriving.
As it got closer to 9:00am we all started to make our way to the convention center:
Through out the day there were a bunch of sessions where Docker let us know what they were up to. I’m keeping this light on details until they make certain announcements. All I will say for now is, Docker is stronger than ever, they have a laser focused mission and are dedicated to the future.
Ice Breaker
We had really fun break out sessions, such as getting randomly assigned to a table with ~6-7 people and being prompted to learn more about each other. After 10 minutes or so we rotated to a different table. I liked this style of meeting captains a lot more than previous years where we had 1 on 1 speed dating style conversations, since it was very hard to hear folks. This year was perfect.
Most slides were confidential but I don’t think Eva will mind this being shared:
For one of the prompts we had to come up with a business to start. Our table was Don, Per and a few others.
Don is a master chef when it comes to pastries and one of the women at the table really liked making coffee. It felt like a good idea to start a dessert and coffee shop. I requested we name it “Cannolis and Containers” and it stuck. Don suggested we design the cannolis in the shape of containers which was brilliant. I didn’t think of that as I was focused on the alliteration of the name. Team work!
After we all chatted for a bit it turned out that most of us played a musical instrument, so it was natural that this business would set up a relaxing atmosphere by having a deathcore band. Per really liked that idea haha, I believe his reaction was “that’s very specific”.
I didn’t want to get too specific like symphonic or blackened deathcore, after all it’s a public business and we need to have variety to cater towards the masses!
Power Point Karaoke
This one is always a crowd favorite. Docker provided us silly slides and folks would go up and craft a presentation around them with no context other than the slides.
I’ll refrain from posting photos or giving details. You’ll have to become a Docker Captain to experience it. I’m sure Nigel and Timo remember theirs haha.
Lightning Talks
There were multiple rounds of lightning talks given by a bunch of different captains. They were really good. It’s interesting to see what other captains are up to.
I remember James gave a talk on reversing how Docker Sandboxes work, he described himself as an archaeologist so I approached him later that he must get stickers made of himself as “Indiana James”.
Lunch
After that we had lunch at the buffet. Now that we’ve grown to 80+ captains at this event it’s funny imagining all of us leaving the convention center to visit the buffet area as 1 group.
A handful of us made it to the entrance and asked the waiter if they had a table available and when he asked how many, we said about 80.
I couldn’t find any photos but it was a nice spread. You could find pretty much anything within reason. I know there were a number of folks from India who were vegetarians and they seemed to have no problem finding good options.
I’m pretty sure Marco even tried their pizza. Given the resort was not put up into flames, I’m guessing it was acceptable to him, especially since pineapple wasn’t involved.
Limited Edition Swag
After lunch, Docker put out a bunch of stickers and a few skulls, I’m really happy I got a chance to get one. I put it on my desk and it’s a nice reminder of the fun we had as well as my experience in Mexico:
Docker’s marketing team is really top tier. That sandbox sticker on the right is cut out in the middle so you can contain something within the sandbox.
Break Out Rooms
After lunch we finished out the event day by having a choice to join a number of different break out room sessions based on your personal interest.
There were 4 to choose from and we’d have an opportunity to do 2, one on each day.
On this day I picked the one with Jen. She is a part of Docker’s marketing team. She was doing videos. One of the prompts was 10 years of the Docker community. It felt like a good match since I like making videos and I’ve been happily using Docker for 10+ years.
The event only just ended a few weeks ago so the videos haven’t been posted yet but I’ll update this post with it when it’s available. I’m guessing the video will end up being a collage with other captains since most prompts were short.
Since that finished a little early, some folks were walking around the lobby. I ran into Fyka who is a new Docker captain. She had a drone which was cool. We also recorded a few short videos together for her Instagram.
Also, here’s Sergei, Francesco, Marco, me and Kristiyan. Marco had a good shirt selection:
Swimming with Jelly Fish
Kristiyan and I met up after the break out room and he suggested we go swim in the ocean. The resort had its own dedicated beach area.
I went back to my room to get a bathing suit and decided to leave my phone there because I wasn’t sure about leaving it on a beach chair unattended. I know no captains would steal it, but there were other guests and also a bunch of wild life like Coatis which are basically Mexican raccoons. They were smart and hungry:
At this point I walked all through the pool area to the beach and only then realized I have no way to contact Kristiyan on where to meet, but I did run into Sergei near the beach and he was interested in swimming too. He also had his phone with him so he messaged Kristiyan.
It was very anti-climatic. There were a bunch of sharp rocks and after about 15 minutes we discovered there were small jelly fish. All 3 of us got stung a few times.
It wasn’t painful, just mildly annoying. It felt like your skin was being stretched and turned a little red. Kristiyan found a lifeguard tower and they had vinegar spray to let us use.
At this point it was about 5:00pm so we parted ways to get ready for dinner.
Japanese Hibachi Dinner
Besides the buffet, the resort had a bunch of restaurants. However, when you have 100+ people with staff included, you can’t just show up all at once so Eva broke us out into different groups. There was dinner at 6:00pm or 8:30pm at multiple restaurants.
I ended up in the 6:00pm slot at Japanese Hibachi. I have a feeling Eva took into consideration who is friends with who because it felt like she did a nice mix of putting you with people you know and new faces.
Our chef put on a good show and yes, that’s a duck made out of white rice near me and Julian. With that said, the sound effect the chef made every 10 seconds will haunt my dreams until the end of time. Ouuhhh Ouuuhhh!
It was a good time and a nice meal. It’s funny how even in Mexico, the food tasted very similar to Japanese Hibachi in New York.
Exploring the Beach
Rashi and I ended up sitting next to each other at dinner. She’s a fairly new Docker Captain so it was nice to meet someone new to the community and learn about her introduction to tech and Docker.
She had mentioned never seeing the ocean and we knew there were different events going on near there later in the night so we decided to walk there.
I love how my sense of direction never fails in the best / worst way possible. I swear every time I think I need to make a right, it ends up being a left. It’s more fun without a map. Trying to find the beach was like that movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle but we made it eventually.
At this point it was already dark out but we saw some activity in the distance, and there turned out to be a dance contest going on. Julian and Mohammad were already there on stage which was really just sand, a DJ and a host.
Eventually Rashi went up and after much convincing from Julian I did too. The problem was, Rashi already had someone to dance with (was it Julian or Mohammad’s +1?) so I was standing up there like an idiot dancing like Elaine from Seinfield.
It was one of those contests where the host says to do something and then you need to react, but he called me out within 1 minute saying since I was alone I was eliminated. Brutal, thanks Julian haha. All in all, it was fun in the end.
After a while, a winner was declared and a fire show started:
It was actually really cool and since we got there early, we had good seats since it was filling up quite fast. I learned later that fire shows were pretty common in Mexico. Almost every city I visited afterwards had street performers doing it in full costumes.
Randomly Walking
I think the fire show ended around 10:30pm which was too early to go back to the room so a few of us strolled around the resort with no plan, stopping for a drink or 2 near the lobby.
Once the sun goes down, it’s very comfortable outside. The pool was nice looking at night:
Around midnight I headed back to prepare for the next day.
# Day 3: The Real Event Day 2
Breakfast
Around 7:30am I headed down to the buffet. It was less than a 10 minute walk. I remember having eggs, fruit, cheese and some thick cantaloupe smoothie drink which I liked a lot.
A couple of us hung around until it was time to make our way to the convention center.
Sessions / Awards
There were more presentations by Docker and lightning talks by other captains. Shout out to Marco for giving his talk, as I travel to different countries I really appreciate how much effort is put in to learn a 2nd language, it’s not easy!
Docker also gave a number of well deserved awards to Ákos, Max and Igor:
Lunch
Like the first day, we had a buffet lunch. I had an assortment of chicken, tacos and other meats the first day, mixed with vegetables. This time around I had steak, some type of noodles and fruit for dessert. I’m not sure why I didn’t take any pictures, next time!
Group Photo
At the start of this post I included the main photo but the A/V guy also had a drone so we got a number of different shots from different angles:
It was a really nice venue and there was plenty of room.
This was much different than the first summit in Lisbon where we basically snuck behind a gate and took a photo in a parking lot. Back then we didn’t coordinate shirts either:
Break Out Rooms
I went to Usha and Michael’s room which was related to documentation.
Docker is revamping how they plan to introduce certain types of guides so we had a conference room style meetup around that. There’s not a whole lot I can share in this post about it, but it’s something I’ll very likely be contributing to in the future when it ships.
I think the direction Docker is heading with this change is a very good one.
Photo Opportunities
Given this was the last official event day, we had some time to meet each other and get any last minute photos together since folks are traveling at different times tomorrow.
Before heading out of the conference room, Jorge snapped a shot with Rachid, myself, Shivay and Fyka. Always a pleasure to see you guys again and meet new faces:
Marco’s popping in along with Julian, while Çiğdem photo bombed us in the back:
This is Max, Pradumna, Kristiyan and Sergei, always a pleasure seeing all of you:
Hasnae and I crossed paths walking out of the convention center, I remember her from last year where we both ended up getting the same lemonade drink at that Turkish restaurant that Igor suggested, thanks for the chat:
Here’s Mohammad and Rashi, until next time friends:
I don’t think Kristiyan was in enough photos this summit so just in case anyone forgot he was there, here’s one more with Fyka, Kristiyan and Metin:
Someone was a good artist and drew the Docker logo so Monali, Çiğdem, Marco and I stopped by for a photo. If you look carefully there’s also selfie-inception happening in the background with Rashi and Eva:
For everyone who I chatted with but didn’t get photos with, I hope to see you again!
Pool Party
A few of us had dinner slots at 6:00pm but at this point it was around 5:00pm and a bunch of folks were planning to meet at the pool. Some of us met at the waterfall and then made our way up to the main pool area.
We were having such a good time. Marco, Pawel, I and a bunch of us decided to skip the restaurant dinner with intent to eat at the buffet after the pool closed. We all had so much fun and had very interesting conversations haha.
There was an open bar in the pool and Eva mentioned a local Mexican drink called a Michelada. There were about 8 of us together so we all decided to have one. The bar tender loved that idea.
It’s especially funny because Marco and I aren’t big drinkers. We both tried a little bit but it wasn’t for us. Others liked it, others not so much.
It tasted like tomato flavored battery acid with a touch of “oh, so this is what the bottom of the ocean tastes like”. Eva did warn us, you’ll either love it or hate it!
Marco managed to give his to Oleg which was funny because he was on the phone pacing around the pool. 10-15 minutes later the drink was empty, I guess he liked it!
I tried to give mine to Timo but he treated it as radioactive. On the other hand his wife tried it but based on her facial expression, legend has it that glass is still being passed around the pool.
A bit before the pool was closing we were all chatting. KubeCon came up and I mentioned it will be the first time I’m going and that I’ll be helping run a booth with Plakar. Alba and others gave me tips on assembling a booth. Thanks for that! See you in November.
Dinner Buffet
After we got cleaned up, a bunch of us met for dinner at the buffet. Marco saw burgers and fries in one section so I also gave it a shot. It was surprisingly good.
At about 9:00pm Marco and I started walking around randomly and found out that many different things were going on in parallel. There was a circus, karaoke and more.
We ended up checking out the circus:
For anyone else at the summit, did you walk past that one theater area where the floor was polished so much that it looked like water since there were a few steps to go down? It was near the lobby.
After that we enjoyed the cool weather and walked around a while. We ended up getting a few mocktails. The one I had was a strawberry / mango drink that was one of the best drinks I’ve ever had. I wish I remembered the name.
In any case, we heard a lot of music coming from one of the lobbies. Karaoke was going on but we didn’t see any captains there so we kept walking.
Eventually we found the other lobby which had a ton of captains and staff. They were dancing and there was a nice area to hang around. While chatting with a few others, Marco and I explained what we’ve been doing and the circus. Those were the “circumstances” that led us here. Don was amused, right Marco haha?
We stayed there until a little after midnight and the group starting breaking up as certain folks had early flights the next day. It was a really fun ending to a wonderful summit.
# Day 4: Traveling Out
Sunrise
Some folks woke up early to see the sunrise so at 6:15am I left the room to walk towards the beach and Don was already there. A bunch of us got to enjoy the sunrise together:
The internet is a weird place so I’ve protected Don’s identity!:
Breakfast
Some of us made our way to the breakfast buffet shortly after. I ended up going with Marco, Jonas and a few others. It was nice to reflect on the summit. Marco and I met a few times at the previous summits and I hope we continue to meet up, it’s always a really good time!
While at the buffet, I saw Ákos and Kristiyan one last time (for now):
It was getting close to when I had to leave since I had a rental car pick up in Playa del Carmen at noon. I ended up leaving the resort around 10:30am.
On the way back to the room some of us were walking together and we saw parrots. That’s Metin on the left (we met last year in Türkiye) and Darragh holding the birds:
Metin and I both decided not to hold them because funny enough we both thought they would immediately go after our eyeballs.
That’s a Wrap
All I can say is, what a fantastic time. I have nothing but endless gratitude towards Eva, all of Docker and all of the captains who make up these events.
I very much hope to see all of you again!
P.S., on the way home a few weeks later I was wearing the summit shirt and thought I saw another Docker enthusiast with legendary Docker swag but nope, it’s a dude who likes wine:
Do you have any questions about the summit? Let me know below!