Just uploaded a photo on my twitter showing what a nice morning I am waking too. Looking ay what Earl became, I'm just so happy that Antigua was spared. Only a few places had bad flooding and I didn't hear of any structural damage. We drove across the island yesterday and all seemed fine. Some visitors and others who have never experienced a hurricane will be annoyed to hear that Antigua didn't actually get a hurricane yesterday. We received Tropical Storm conditions from a weak hurricane Earl as it missed us passing to our north. Even Barbuda which was close to the eye of Earl experienced only Tropical Storm conditions according to the Daily Observer today. Of course the flooding, all gone by now, was bad for some low flood prone areas, but for the rest of us who have experienced real hurricane conditions, this was nothing more than a very good drill getting us prepped for more to come. This brings me to the very weak Tropical Storm Fiona just east of the Caribbean. All forecasts show Fiona passing further away from us than Earl did AND as a weaker storm. We have to prepare for it just in case the forecasts are wrong but it looks like Fiona wont bother us. Further east the next blob is being given a very low chance at developing at this point. All good news for Antigua and Barbuda at this point. Sadly the same can't be said for other places that experienced Earl are are still in its path. I will take more photos and upload them to http://www.stormcarib.com/ later if i can. I just did this little video with my phone to show that the area that i live is normal.
I don't hear of any bad reports from the hotels and I think most are up and running cleaning up broken branches. The beaches on the west and south coasts will have had some erosion too. Freemans Bay was washed out due to all the rain waters coming down from the hills around it. I know that the same happened at some other beaches close to big runoff areas too. Darkwood Beach took a beating sadly and after years and years of Govenment permitted sand mining, the beach nothing like we remember.
I plan to be doing boat trips this week and could even start tomorrow.
Eli Fuller
http://www.twitter.com/antigua
http://www.adventureantigua.com/
http://www.antiguaisland.blogspot.com/
+12687257263
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Hurricane Earl Passes North of Antigua and spares the isalnd.
Although we experienced some flooding in areas around Antigua, we didn't experience hurricane winds island wide. I think the north side of the island may have had a few gusts to hurricane strength but thankfully we were spared. I will post some photos soon, but for now you can see a little video i uploaded with my phone yesterday as Earl was approaching:
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Huge party this Friday night August 27th 2010
WHAT? The Green Fete is a "Conscious" event and party where Reggae will be the music that makes you dance until the morning. This Roots Reggae dance party will have an eco theme to it with interesting info about Antigua's environment being carefully placed at areas around the club. In one section (not the dance floor) there will be a revolving slide show giving people who want to check it out, an interesting vision into the fascinating ecology of Antigua and Barbuda. ALL PROCEEDS FROM TICKET SALES go towards the Environmental Awareness Group so that they can continue to spread environmental awareness and manage their ecological projects. Buy your ticket before the 27th and you may win a weekend for two at Verandah Resort and Spa. Other prizes for best "Eco Outfit" and best "Green (colour) Outfit" will be awarded during the party. Sugar Ridge is donating one of those prizes and The Al Porto Restaurant is donating the other!
WHEN? This unique Reggae party is the perfect end to a fun filled summer. The Green Fete will kick off after dinner sometime around 10:30 PM on Friday August 27th. For those of you who possibly had your fill of this year's Carnival music, this party's reggae theme will get you dancing once again. You can buy your ticket at the door, but if you buy before you may with a weekend at Verandah Resort and Spa. The Winning ticket # will be announced on the EAG website and in the media on Friday 27th.
WHERE? Abracadabra Bar and Restaurant has been rocking Antigua's late night scene since I went to university back in the Early 1990s. It is located just before the main parking lot for Nelsons Dockyard and the English Harbour Police Station. The food there is amazing, and the nightlife there is just as good. Usually they are the place to go every weekend during the yachting season between November and May, but over the past few years they have been opening up in August too. Check out their Antiguanice website here. Tell everyone that The Green Fete is gonna be at "Abras" in English Harbour!
WHY? Why are we having this party? The main reason is that Antigua and Barbuda only has one proper environmental group which despite running some excellent environmental projects has difficulty getting funding for management of these projects and the general administration of the organization. A small team of us mainly made up of the EAG's board came up with a plan to throw a huge reggae party to help raise some very much needed funds. "The Abra-Posse" heard about it and being long supporters of the EAG, wanted to help straight away. If you buy a EC $20 or US $8 ticket for this party you will be helping the environment of Antigua and Barbuda and your money goes a long way! Please buy a ticket even if you don't plan on coming. The EAG needs your help!
HOW? It's very easy to be part of this event. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call +1 268 462 6236 to find out where you can come and get your ticket. So far we have tickets being sold upstairs of the museum in St. Johns at the EAG office. They are being sold at the JHR Caribbean office in Jolly Harbour. They are also being sold by me +1 268 725 7263 when i am not out on the boat. Later today we will start selling them at North Coast Hardware right next to Cafe Bella in the new Village Walk Commercial Center just past the Woods Mall going North. If you have no intention of coming but want to help the EAG and also want to have a chance at that weekend for two at the lovely Verandah Resort and Spa then you can call or email the EAG through their site to find out how to buy your tickets using a credit card. Remember each ticket is just US $8 or EC $20. Buy ten!! As a matter of fact, any company that buys more than ten tickets will have their logo and info included in our slide show which will be show somewhere inside the club all night long.
In a further effort to try to be eco friendly we are not printing thousands of flyers and posters for this one. This party is mostly using the web. Websites like my blog here, 365Antigua, Antiguanice, twitter and our facebook event page are what we are putting most of our energy in. You play a big part in this promotion by sharing the links with your contacts and generally telling people about it. Click on either of the images here to get larger versions of them if you want, and please pass them around or send the link of today's blog. Click here for it.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Antigua's 366th beach is an ignored government toxic waste dump.
I loved when the barges would pull in to the Texaco jetty back in the early 80s. Antigua was going through a huge tourism boom and when the droughts arrived every other year, our traditional water source came under huge strain as did our electrical source. As kids we would go to these huge water barges that had just arrived from Dominica and would dive off from them into the sparkling blue waters. At the time we couldn't dream what it all meant and it was all just fun. My mom was a tour rep at some of the new hotels. Jolly Beach would frequently run out of water with hundreds of tourists in house trying to figure out how to brush their teeth and rinse off that salty water.
Finally the government at the time managed to get hold of what had been described as a reconditioned desalination plant. This solved the water shortage problem as well as also another problem we had been having with power generation. The plant produced water and electricity at the same time. It was as if we had been taken into a new stage in our island's development. Clean water was now there for everyone.
However, with as many problems that this new plant solved there were as many new problems created. As you would expect, the desalination plant was on the coast and it was going to be the start of a generation of hidden environmental problems. The purpose of this blog post today is to highlight one of these problems which is simply the contamination of our marine environment from the plant's used engine oil and to also show that the old desalination plant isn't the lone contributor Antigua's generational oil spills into the ocean.
Getting rid of toxic waste has never been easy for any country, but Antigua and Barbuda seems to be unique in their approach to toxic waste. I won't speak about all the other dangerous forms of toxic waste that ultimately get into the ocean because i don't have the space or time today on my birthday. Suffice to say, that we are as bad if not worse than most other third world island nations.
OIL - Antigua surprisingly has a Ministry of Environment but seems to have no official environmental policy. The Environment Division has no legislative powers at all and can only ever offer their advice and suggestions to the Minister and other Government offices. They are by design less effective than someone standing on a soap box on market street. Baldwin Spencer and his UPP government have plenty to answer for environmentally. Like many others, I voted them into power originally because of their huge chapter on all the nice environmental things they promised in their winning manifesto. These promises were summed up in their campaign slogan of "What was wrong would be made right", and to this day nearly 8 years later i am still waiting for one single shimmer of a sign that the UPP may be interested in making a single environmental problem change from being wrong to right. Oil is one of the biggest problems in Antigua environmentally. There are no rules or regulations that I know of that deal with waste oil, and as a result most of the islands waste oil ends up in the ocean eventually. Ewart Harny of Harney Motors is the main man behind a fairly new company that processes waste oil into usable fuel which is similar to diesel. This fantastic company is the only recycling program on the island for used engine oil and I am delighted that it exists here. All of the waste oil from my boats goes to that plant and together with the rest of the oil that they collect, it is eventually put back to use in trucks, buses, vans, SUVs, boats and many other diesel using vehicles. All we need now is a series of hard core laws with real punishment for people who discard used oil, incentives for other plants like Mr. Harney's to be set up (read here), an increase in the tax on the imported diesel, a good price control mechanism on fuel oil derived from wast oil, and a very good collection system for waste engine oil. If these things would be encouraged, the island would be so much better off and photos like this would be a thing of the disgusting past.
Since the ALP government purchased the desalination plant, the hazardous waste oil together with all the harmful chemicals has been getting into the ground up at Crabbs Peninsula and slowly making it's way into the ocean and I think ultimately into our food. I have also found out that even before the desalination plant was set up at Crabbs there was a power generation plant there for over ten years. As with all fuel burning engines in Antigua, regular maintenance requires oil changes. I assume that the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) does similar service on their engines even if it's not a consistent as it should be judging from all the break downs, but historically their used waste engine oil is buried in the ground or just dumped into an open pit. In have heard that in some cases a "reservoir" is dug and plastic sheets are put down before the oil is dumped into these ponds.
In 2005 the infamous R. Alan Stanford purchased some land up at Crabbs to build a marina. These photos show some small test holes that were dug by the architects and contractors.
Shortly after each hole was dug, it slowly started to be filled with oil oozing out of the ground adjacent to it. According to a representative of the architectural firm OBM, "Stanford spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to remove the oil permanently from his site". Stanford didn't want any oil to be sitting below his property and an expert consultant was brought in to study the problem and to make recommendations. OBM says they have the report and have given me several photos from the report. One of the things they did was to dig a huge trench along the property line where it meets the APUA property and put in an impermeable membrane along it to stop further oil from leeching across from the government site. Then the large trenches and holes that now had oil filling them were pumped dry each day until they finally stopped being filled from the surrounding land.
Of course the oil doesn't just seep from the area it has been dumped to lands nearby, but it also seeps or leeches into the water table which is only a few feet below the surface and gets directly into the sea as seen in the top two coastline photos shown above. That oily beach has oil slowly coming out of the ground constantly and will do until the government makes a barrier to the ocean similar to the one Stanford put between his property and theirs. That's the very least the government has to do. Of course they need to stop getting rid of waste oil by dumping it into the ground, and they have to think about getting all of the oil up at Crabbs cleaned up. Stanford did it to his property and there are very good studies available on how to do it again up there. Sadly Crabbs isn't the only place that has waste oil dumping on a large scale. Andrew Hadeed, one of the people involved in the APC company up at Crabbs, told me once that his company sends all of it's waste oil to Harney's processing plant, but that before Harney started processing waste oil, APC used to deliver their waste oil to The West Indies Oil Company. He tells me that the WIOC buries waste oil at their property just outside St. Johns. This answers the question as to why there is always so much oil getting into McKinnons Pond and why huge amounts of oil gets into the surrounding gutters near the WIOC during times of heavy rain and flooding. Oil floats on water and in a flood the oil escapes the WIOC oil ponds and gets into the McKinnons swamp and eventually into the ocean.
I think the time has come for the Environment Division and the Government to address the waste oil situation island wide and come up with a real policy.
First they have to start with Crabs. As you can see from this old Google Earth image, the oil slick coming off Crabbs is always there and has been there for years and years.
Here is another photo taken in 2008 which shows the constant oil slick:
Next time you take off in a plane and happen to bank to the south look out and you will see it. You can also see it when you are driving up Airport Road approaching "Sealy Bend". Of course you can always see it when you pass Crabbs in a boat. Here is another one I took on the weekend showing the same thin reflective, oil slick coming off of Crabbs right next to the APUA plant.
These days there are two different large scale producers of electricity up at the Crabbs Industrial area using huge heavy machines. APUA which runs both desalination and power production is one and the private APC is the other. As i mentioned earlier, Ewart Harney has a waste oil processing plant situated also up at Crabbs. Last week photos were taken of another type of oil spill coming from the area.
I was told my someone from APC that they had a major problem up at their plant recently which lead to "a quantity of oil" escaping into the cooling waters which flow down a canal into the mangroves there and ultimately into the sea seen here in an image taken from the 365Antigua article
On saturday a few of us went down in a small boat to the area where the oil ended up. Samples were collected and a video was shot together with an array of images. These have not been published, but it proves there was a recent oil spill despite the Coast Guard not being able to find it and various people and media questioning the leak.
I understand now after reading a piece in this Caribarena article that APC is saying that the leak wasn't from them which seems to be quite strange considering the photos which were posted on 365Antigua allegedly showing the spill and then people covering up the trail of oil coming from their plant. Here are some more of these telling photos:
As you can see, it is probably not unlikely that APC had something to do with this recent spill considering how much effort they went to to cover up their oily drain only hours after the helicopter photos were published and calls from the local media started coming in. I think this may have been a mistake made by one of the managers. That being said, APC did have some sort of malfunction and during normal periods of maintenance they do supply Haney's oil processing plant with their waste oil as i mentioned earlier and don't have a policy of dumping their oil. According to the Daily Observer article that mentioned this specific oil spill, the local Fisheries department was quoted as saying oil spills have nothing to do with them. This is strange since the entire area has been a marine protected area (NEMMA) under the Fisheries Act. Imagine what would have happened if their had been an oil spill within a marina park in the USA. I think we need some changes in our Fisheries department, but everyone knows this about as much as they know that Antigua needs some Environmental legislation changes. Something as simple as an "environmental inspector" up in the Crabbs Industrial area would be a step in the right direction. It's obvious that you can do whatever you want environmentally in this country and get away with it. (I can only think of one company that has ever gotten into minor trouble for an environmental issue.)
Although the oil spill from APC or whoever you want to blame for last weeks spill is terrible and would mean massive fines in a civilized country, the main problem as i see it is the constant, slow, spill or seepage of oil into the sea from Crabbs. Too many people know about this hazardous and long lasting spill and nobody is doing anything about it.
I am not a scientist and didn't do any more chemistry than i had do to in high school, but I am fairly sure that waste oil is extremely toxic especially when it is derived from a heavy fuel burning old desalination plant and or other large scale commercial applications. Without getting extremely technical you can get the general idea about why waste oil is hazardous by reading this link.
This link describes how chemicals which "include PCBs, VOCs, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) and lead" ended up in the water table and even in the drinking water because of a similar situation. Check this link.
This one speaks about a chemical that is often found in waste oil especially until the late 80s. In some parts of the Great Lakes: "Locally caught fresh water fish and shellfish are contaminated with PCBs and their consumption is restricted." Click here for more.
I hope that people who read this blog will share it with others and that one day someone who can actually take something that is "wrong" and make it "right" will be inspired to do more than just talk or write.
PS If you want more info on how to purchase recycled or processed oil in the form of diesel oil please call Ewart Harney at Harney Motors. Of course he will tell you how to get rid of your waste oil too.
Finally the government at the time managed to get hold of what had been described as a reconditioned desalination plant. This solved the water shortage problem as well as also another problem we had been having with power generation. The plant produced water and electricity at the same time. It was as if we had been taken into a new stage in our island's development. Clean water was now there for everyone.
However, with as many problems that this new plant solved there were as many new problems created. As you would expect, the desalination plant was on the coast and it was going to be the start of a generation of hidden environmental problems. The purpose of this blog post today is to highlight one of these problems which is simply the contamination of our marine environment from the plant's used engine oil and to also show that the old desalination plant isn't the lone contributor Antigua's generational oil spills into the ocean.
Getting rid of toxic waste has never been easy for any country, but Antigua and Barbuda seems to be unique in their approach to toxic waste. I won't speak about all the other dangerous forms of toxic waste that ultimately get into the ocean because i don't have the space or time today on my birthday. Suffice to say, that we are as bad if not worse than most other third world island nations.
OIL - Antigua surprisingly has a Ministry of Environment but seems to have no official environmental policy. The Environment Division has no legislative powers at all and can only ever offer their advice and suggestions to the Minister and other Government offices. They are by design less effective than someone standing on a soap box on market street. Baldwin Spencer and his UPP government have plenty to answer for environmentally. Like many others, I voted them into power originally because of their huge chapter on all the nice environmental things they promised in their winning manifesto. These promises were summed up in their campaign slogan of "What was wrong would be made right", and to this day nearly 8 years later i am still waiting for one single shimmer of a sign that the UPP may be interested in making a single environmental problem change from being wrong to right. Oil is one of the biggest problems in Antigua environmentally. There are no rules or regulations that I know of that deal with waste oil, and as a result most of the islands waste oil ends up in the ocean eventually. Ewart Harny of Harney Motors is the main man behind a fairly new company that processes waste oil into usable fuel which is similar to diesel. This fantastic company is the only recycling program on the island for used engine oil and I am delighted that it exists here. All of the waste oil from my boats goes to that plant and together with the rest of the oil that they collect, it is eventually put back to use in trucks, buses, vans, SUVs, boats and many other diesel using vehicles. All we need now is a series of hard core laws with real punishment for people who discard used oil, incentives for other plants like Mr. Harney's to be set up (read here), an increase in the tax on the imported diesel, a good price control mechanism on fuel oil derived from wast oil, and a very good collection system for waste engine oil. If these things would be encouraged, the island would be so much better off and photos like this would be a thing of the disgusting past.
This kind of slimy black beach isn't what Antigua is famous for at all is it? Yet, this isn't the only one. Within a few miles of Antigua's most prestigious island resort, Jumby Bay, there are several beaches where you can be lubricated not by sunscreen and rum punch, but by cancer causing toxic sludge like you see also here:
Since the ALP government purchased the desalination plant, the hazardous waste oil together with all the harmful chemicals has been getting into the ground up at Crabbs Peninsula and slowly making it's way into the ocean and I think ultimately into our food. I have also found out that even before the desalination plant was set up at Crabbs there was a power generation plant there for over ten years. As with all fuel burning engines in Antigua, regular maintenance requires oil changes. I assume that the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) does similar service on their engines even if it's not a consistent as it should be judging from all the break downs, but historically their used waste engine oil is buried in the ground or just dumped into an open pit. In have heard that in some cases a "reservoir" is dug and plastic sheets are put down before the oil is dumped into these ponds.
In 2005 the infamous R. Alan Stanford purchased some land up at Crabbs to build a marina. These photos show some small test holes that were dug by the architects and contractors.
Shortly after each hole was dug, it slowly started to be filled with oil oozing out of the ground adjacent to it. According to a representative of the architectural firm OBM, "Stanford spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to remove the oil permanently from his site". Stanford didn't want any oil to be sitting below his property and an expert consultant was brought in to study the problem and to make recommendations. OBM says they have the report and have given me several photos from the report. One of the things they did was to dig a huge trench along the property line where it meets the APUA property and put in an impermeable membrane along it to stop further oil from leeching across from the government site. Then the large trenches and holes that now had oil filling them were pumped dry each day until they finally stopped being filled from the surrounding land.
I think the time has come for the Environment Division and the Government to address the waste oil situation island wide and come up with a real policy.
First they have to start with Crabs. As you can see from this old Google Earth image, the oil slick coming off Crabbs is always there and has been there for years and years.
Next time you take off in a plane and happen to bank to the south look out and you will see it. You can also see it when you are driving up Airport Road approaching "Sealy Bend". Of course you can always see it when you pass Crabbs in a boat. Here is another one I took on the weekend showing the same thin reflective, oil slick coming off of Crabbs right next to the APUA plant.
These days there are two different large scale producers of electricity up at the Crabbs Industrial area using huge heavy machines. APUA which runs both desalination and power production is one and the private APC is the other. As i mentioned earlier, Ewart Harney has a waste oil processing plant situated also up at Crabbs. Last week photos were taken of another type of oil spill coming from the area.
I was told my someone from APC that they had a major problem up at their plant recently which lead to "a quantity of oil" escaping into the cooling waters which flow down a canal into the mangroves there and ultimately into the sea seen here in an image taken from the 365Antigua article
On saturday a few of us went down in a small boat to the area where the oil ended up. Samples were collected and a video was shot together with an array of images. These have not been published, but it proves there was a recent oil spill despite the Coast Guard not being able to find it and various people and media questioning the leak.
I understand now after reading a piece in this Caribarena article that APC is saying that the leak wasn't from them which seems to be quite strange considering the photos which were posted on 365Antigua allegedly showing the spill and then people covering up the trail of oil coming from their plant. Here are some more of these telling photos:
As you can see, it is probably not unlikely that APC had something to do with this recent spill considering how much effort they went to to cover up their oily drain only hours after the helicopter photos were published and calls from the local media started coming in. I think this may have been a mistake made by one of the managers. That being said, APC did have some sort of malfunction and during normal periods of maintenance they do supply Haney's oil processing plant with their waste oil as i mentioned earlier and don't have a policy of dumping their oil. According to the Daily Observer article that mentioned this specific oil spill, the local Fisheries department was quoted as saying oil spills have nothing to do with them. This is strange since the entire area has been a marine protected area (NEMMA) under the Fisheries Act. Imagine what would have happened if their had been an oil spill within a marina park in the USA. I think we need some changes in our Fisheries department, but everyone knows this about as much as they know that Antigua needs some Environmental legislation changes. Something as simple as an "environmental inspector" up in the Crabbs Industrial area would be a step in the right direction. It's obvious that you can do whatever you want environmentally in this country and get away with it. (I can only think of one company that has ever gotten into minor trouble for an environmental issue.)
Although the oil spill from APC or whoever you want to blame for last weeks spill is terrible and would mean massive fines in a civilized country, the main problem as i see it is the constant, slow, spill or seepage of oil into the sea from Crabbs. Too many people know about this hazardous and long lasting spill and nobody is doing anything about it.
I am not a scientist and didn't do any more chemistry than i had do to in high school, but I am fairly sure that waste oil is extremely toxic especially when it is derived from a heavy fuel burning old desalination plant and or other large scale commercial applications. Without getting extremely technical you can get the general idea about why waste oil is hazardous by reading this link.
This link describes how chemicals which "include PCBs, VOCs, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) and lead" ended up in the water table and even in the drinking water because of a similar situation. Check this link.
This one speaks about a chemical that is often found in waste oil especially until the late 80s. In some parts of the Great Lakes: "Locally caught fresh water fish and shellfish are contaminated with PCBs and their consumption is restricted." Click here for more.
I hope that people who read this blog will share it with others and that one day someone who can actually take something that is "wrong" and make it "right" will be inspired to do more than just talk or write.
PS If you want more info on how to purchase recycled or processed oil in the form of diesel oil please call Ewart Harney at Harney Motors. Of course he will tell you how to get rid of your waste oil too.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
A cool video taken by some friends on a recent trip to Barbuda.
Recently we did a private tour right around Barbuda and met up with some friends half way. You can see our boat Xtreme out front at one point. Anyway, it was a very cool trip and I will post a few images and a little story next week. Here is Adam Anton and friends' video:
Barbuda August 2010 from Kite Scoop on Vimeo.
Barbuda August 2010 from Kite Scoop on Vimeo.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
More info about the Green Fete: A Roots Reggae Party 27/8/10
WHAT? The Green Fete is a "Conscious" event and party where Reggae will be the music that makes you dance until the morning. This Roots Reggae dance party will have an eco theme to it with interesting info about Antigua's environment being carefully placed at areas around the club. In one section (not the dance floor) there will be a revolving slide show giving people who want to check it out, an interesting vision into the fascinating ecology of Antigua and Barbuda. ALL PROCEEDS FROM TICKET SALES go towards the Environmental Awareness Group so that they can continue to spread environmental awareness and manage their ecological projects. Buy your ticket before the 27th and you may win a weekend for two at Verandah Resort and Spa. Other prizes for best "Eco Outfit" and best "Green (colour) Outfit" will be awarded during the party. Sugar Ridge is donating one of those prizes and The Al Porto Restaurant is donating the other!
WHEN? This unique Reggae party is the perfect end to a fun filled summer. The Green Fete will kick off after dinner sometime around 10:30 PM on Friday August 27th. For those of you who possibly had your fill of this year's Carnival music, this party's reggae theme will get you dancing once again. You can buy your ticket at the door, but if you buy before you may with a weekend at Verandah Resort and Spa. The Winning ticket # will be announced on the EAG website and in the media on Friday 27th.
WHERE? Abracadabra Bar and Restaurant has been rocking Antigua's late night scene since I went to university back in the Early 1990s. It is located just before the main parking lot for Nelsons Dockyard and the English Harbour Police Station. The food there is amazing, and the nightlife there is just as good. Usually they are the place to go every weekend during the yachting season between November and May, but over the past few years they have been opening up in August too. Check out their Antiguanice website here. Tell everyone that The Green Fete is gonna be at "Abras" in English Harbour!
WHY? Why are we having this party? The main reason is that Antigua and Barbuda only has one proper environmental group which despite running some excellent environmental projects has difficulty getting funding for management of these projects and the general administration of the organization. A small team of us mainly made up of the EAG's board came up with a plan to throw a huge reggae party to help raise some very much needed funds. "The Abra-Posse" heard about it and being long supporters of the EAG, wanted to help straight away. If you buy a EC $20 or US $8 ticket for this party you will be helping the environment of Antigua and Barbuda and your money goes a long way! Please buy a ticket even if you don't plan on coming. The EAG needs your help!
HOW? It's very easy to be part of this event. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call +1 268 462 6236 to find out where you can come and get your ticket. So far we have tickets being sold upstairs of the museum in St. Johns at the EAG office. They are being sold at the JHR Caribbean office in Jolly Harbour. They are also being sold by me +1 268 725 7263 when i am not out on the boat. Later today we will start selling them at North Coast Hardware right next to Cafe Bella in the new Village Walk Commercial Center just past the Woods Mall going North. If you have no intention of coming but want to help the EAG and also want to have a chance at that weekend for two at the lovely Verandah Resort and Spa then you can call or email the EAG through their site to find out how to buy your tickets using a credit card. Remember each ticket is just US $8 or EC $20. Buy ten!! As a matter of fact, any company that buys more than ten tickets will have their logo and info included in our slide show which will be show somewhere inside the club all night long.
In a further effort to try to be eco friendly we are not printing thousands of flyers and posters for this one. This party is mostly using the web. Websites like my blog here, 365Antigua, Antiguanice, twitter and our facebook event page are what we are putting most of our energy in. You play a big part in this promotion by sharing the links with your contacts and generally telling people about it. Click on either of the images here to get larger versions of them if you want, and please pass them around or send the link of today's blog. Click here for it.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Big party tonight and A very special Reggae party in Antigua to finish off August
On Friday the 27th of August I am helping to organize a very very exciting reggae party. It's officially called "The Green Fete: a Roots Reggae Party".
As a board member on the islands main environmental group, the Environmental Awareness Group (EAG), I was put in charge of trying to raise some very needed funds. The organization, as you can see from looking at their webiste: EAG , is well run as far as their projects and outreach programs go, but they needed some help with their finances. Anyway, my company did a special catamaran cruise for them a few months ago
As you will see if you click on his link, he has a huge birthday party tonight also at Abras. Here is his poster again from that:
As a board member on the islands main environmental group, the Environmental Awareness Group (EAG), I was put in charge of trying to raise some very needed funds. The organization, as you can see from looking at their webiste: EAG , is well run as far as their projects and outreach programs go, but they needed some help with their finances. Anyway, my company did a special catamaran cruise for them a few months ago
That was good fun, but we didn't raise a huge amount of money. We needed more, so we decided to team up with the oldest and best night spot on the island to throw a special party. Abracadabra Bar in English Harbour has always been interested in environmental concerns and wanted to help as soon as i brought the concept to them. It's an all reggae eco party. I will have more info on it to come soon. It's still a few weeks away, but for now check out the amazing poster done for us by Jus Bus:
As you will see if you click on his link, he has a huge birthday party tonight also at Abras. Here is his poster again from that:
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Another lovely review of our Eco Tour
From: Grainne HollbornBy the way, the image above is my twitter background.
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 9:45 PM
To: Adventure Antigua
Subject: Re: July 22nd excursion
Hi Nell-
Just wanted to let you and Eli know how our July 22nd Eco tour went. It was a great-fantastic experience!!!!! WE are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Glad we did this trip!!!!
The crew was so nice and knowledgeable. Cpt. Cool, Chris and Nicolette very welcoming-friendly, professional in every aspect!! (we live on Long Island and grew up on the Great South Bay-grew up on boats and on the water). The boat is very comfortable-in great shape. Very clean. Easy to move around in(even the head). Cpt. Cool was great-very smooth docking. He handled the boat so well-effortless!! Always a smooth ride!! Chris and Nicolette were very interesting, friendly, and very funny!! They were also funny-even Cpt. Cool was funny (in a quiet way).
Your lunch was very good(Yes Nell-the best BBQ chicken we have tasted). The crew was always concerned with everyone's well being. The boat was very easy to get in and out of. The equipment was first rate. Relaxing and informative was the rule of the day.
I highly recommend this trip!!!
We were disappointed not to have been able to go sailing with you this year. Hopefully this tour will get more popular and we can go next July!
Once again thank you for a great trip!!!
Best Warm Regards;
Grainne Hollborn and Family
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Special Dinner to raise money for Youth Sailing in Antigua
So many people in Antigua complain about the youth of our nation and how so many are going down wrong paths. Some people just don't talk. Some people try to do something about the common problem. One of these people is Pippa who runs the Jolly Harbour Youth Sailing Program. Youth from around Antigua can come and take part in this amazing program and be taught how to sail by some very qualified instructors.
To do this properly the program needs plenty of help and not just in terms of man/woman hours, the program also needs money. Personally, I don't think there are many programs in Antigua that can open up opportunities for young kids like the island's two sailing programs.
The one in Jolly Harbour needs your help and Angie at Al Porto has offered to give them a huge boost by putting on a special dinner for them. The food is very good with one of Antigua's best Italian chefs now running the show there, and if you come and enjoy the lovely dinner there on the 28th of August, you will be helping the sailing program and Antigua's youth. For more info you can contact the Jolly Harbour Youth Sailing Program by clicking this link. Here are the yummy details of the dinner:
Youth Sailing Programme Fund Raising Dinner – Al Porto August 28th 2010
Antipasti:
Insalata ceasar
Romaine hearts, garlic & parmesan dressing
Bruschette miste
Toasted baguette with olive oil, diced tomato, basil, onion, topped with goat cheese
Caprese
Tomato, mozzarella, basil, extra virgin olive oil
Pasta &Pizza
Penne fumo
Pasta with smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes in a light cream sauce
Pappardelle ai funghi
Homemade pasta ribbons, mushrooms and chicken in a light cream sauce
Margherita
Pizza with fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil
Ravioli
Homemade pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and mushrooms with a light cream sauce
Mains
Melanzana alla parmigiana
Grilled eggplant, tomato & basil baked with a parmesan crust with a side salad
Pollo Al Porto
Wood oven baked chicken breast with homemade fries & tomato mozzarella salad
Grilled catch of the day
Fresh fillet in a pesto cream sauce with homemade fries & tomato mozzarella salad
Vitello limone
Veal scallops in a light lemon cream sauce with homemade fries & tomato mozzarella salad
Dessert
Tiramisu
Layers of sponge and mascarpone cream, coffee and amaretto essence
Mousse al cioccolate
Rich chocolate mousse topped with whipping cream
To do this properly the program needs plenty of help and not just in terms of man/woman hours, the program also needs money. Personally, I don't think there are many programs in Antigua that can open up opportunities for young kids like the island's two sailing programs.
The one in Jolly Harbour needs your help and Angie at Al Porto has offered to give them a huge boost by putting on a special dinner for them. The food is very good with one of Antigua's best Italian chefs now running the show there, and if you come and enjoy the lovely dinner there on the 28th of August, you will be helping the sailing program and Antigua's youth. For more info you can contact the Jolly Harbour Youth Sailing Program by clicking this link. Here are the yummy details of the dinner:
Youth Sailing Programme Fund Raising Dinner – Al Porto August 28th 2010
Antipasti:
Insalata ceasar
Romaine hearts, garlic & parmesan dressing
Bruschette miste
Toasted baguette with olive oil, diced tomato, basil, onion, topped with goat cheese
Caprese
Tomato, mozzarella, basil, extra virgin olive oil
Pasta &Pizza
Penne fumo
Pasta with smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes in a light cream sauce
Pappardelle ai funghi
Homemade pasta ribbons, mushrooms and chicken in a light cream sauce
Margherita
Pizza with fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil
Ravioli
Homemade pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and mushrooms with a light cream sauce
Mains
Melanzana alla parmigiana
Grilled eggplant, tomato & basil baked with a parmesan crust with a side salad
Pollo Al Porto
Wood oven baked chicken breast with homemade fries & tomato mozzarella salad
Grilled catch of the day
Fresh fillet in a pesto cream sauce with homemade fries & tomato mozzarella salad
Vitello limone
Veal scallops in a light lemon cream sauce with homemade fries & tomato mozzarella salad
Dessert
Tiramisu
Layers of sponge and mascarpone cream, coffee and amaretto essence
Mousse al cioccolate
Rich chocolate mousse topped with whipping cream
Monday, August 09, 2010
Three big parties coming up to finish off the summer in style. The First:
My long time friend Justin Nation is teaming up with Abracadabra Bar here in English Harbour to put on a big party on Saturday 14th August.
Justin grew up essentially on the streets of Antigua and had a pretty tough time throughout his childhood. Somehow he managed to find out that he was magically gifted artistically and taught himself how to create art on his computer. He never limited himself to any one art form and is as good at visual arts and graphic design as he is at his music endeavors. That being said, it's his music that has become his main passion. Working with many other great artists across the Caribbean and in the USA where he was based for a few years recently, he has produced many remarkable songs. Some have ended up being very successful. Recently he has been teaming up with other singers and producers to not only produce but also to perform in his music.
An album is in the works at the moment in collaboration with several of Antigua's top musicians as well as my friend Torsten Stenzel, himself an internationally recognized producer originally from Germany. I am sure I will have more info about this album soon as it is going to be marketed internationally and will be very good without a doubt.
A few days ago http://www.365antigua.com/ ran a story on Justin JUS BUS Nation and specifically about the party. Here is a little of it:
Later this week I will speak about the other big party the following weekend. Save your energy, the end of the summer is going to be active in more ways than one.
A few days ago http://www.365antigua.com/ ran a story on Justin JUS BUS Nation and specifically about the party. Here is a little of it:
Well, it's a joint celebration for Abras and birthday boy Jus Bus. The diverse artist was born in America but raised in the islands of the Caribbean. He's spent the last 26 years of his life perfecting a natural talent for music and graphic arts. To promote his struggling brand and musical abilities, he unofficially remixed artist including Jay Z, Drake, Rihanna, Marcy Playground, John Legend and Nina Simone until 2009 when he landed his first official placement with Sony USA on the John Legend "Evolver" album for the remix of No Other Love featuring Estelle.The article goes on to say that this party on the 14th will be:
A well-rounded journey through sound will feature the best of todayʼs hottest exotic DJ's along with guest appearances by F.R.E.E. Entertainment and Team Ultra to create the ultimate party experience. Musical performances on the night by Wardadli Souljahs, Deejay Charlie, T-Dawg, with special appearances by Shamobe, Kenne Blessin, Team Ultra, Trilla, Lee Pee Ching, Logiq Pryce & Jus Bus and more!Justin and I both use new media quite a bit to promote our brand and you can find him on his twitter account here and on his website here.
Later this week I will speak about the other big party the following weekend. Save your energy, the end of the summer is going to be active in more ways than one.
Friday, August 06, 2010
i've been missing in action
For the past week i have been once again down on the tiny island of Carriacou. We are told that "Carriacou" means island surrounded by reefs in the now extinct Arawak language. The Arawaks were one of two tribes of Indian people found in the Caribbean when the first Europeans arrived in the late fifteenth century.
Another Arawak name is Zemi which is a unique sculpture that housed the spirit(s). It was a very special piece in the Arawak village and I have found many of them here in Antigua with my dad who is the local expert on Zemis. Anyway, our new sailing vessel seen out at anchor above, which sailed for the first time recently was named Zemi by my wife. I was thinking of naming it Calalloo after the popular Caribbean dish and also the name of the hotel my grandfather built over next to Curtain Bluff. Anyway, Zemi sounded better and that was the name that she was launched under. Since her launch in the new year, she has had a mast put in, rigging set up, and sails built.
Last weekend was the Carriacou Regatta and Zemi's builders had said that they wanted to race her then.
This forty two foot sloop with a massive genoa and main was going to be sailed for the first time the day before the race if all went well. Of course, as is usually the case down there, things didn't get done on a tight schedule and the first race ended up starting with us still on anchor scrubbing moss off the bottom and putting spinnaker blocks on the top of the mast.
Somehow we managed to set sail and cross the line 20 minutes late. This boat is ready to sail..... sort of, because without any winches at all, it wasn't easy. We had to add extra sand bags to ballast the boat enough to race and we found out that in winds over 15 knots we simply didn't have enough down below.
Anyway, we did fairly well an managed to improve in every race as we changed bits and pieces on the boat.
