Cruise ship passengers missing our boat

Please be advised that we have left people behind at the cruise ship dock far too many times because they were on cruise ship time and arrived late, so make sure you check what is local time as that is the time we quote and run our operation on. Thanks much.

Community spirit shines during marine disaster

Antigua had a tragedy unfold on Sunday when a 24 foot fishing boat with two adults and two little children sank off shore. There was some confusion about where they went down and without an EPIRB the search party had to guess where they might have been. Darkness fell and they had not been found. Some boats searching out there refused to come in. Some of our friends and crew helped us get fueled up using jerry cans and we set off after 2 am. It was a long night for those of us out there searching but of course nothing like the night that the little boys and the adults were having out there cold and wet. By dawn when I took this photo east of Antigua, dozens of other boats joined the search along with Caribbean helicopters, and two fixed wing planes. We tried not to all look at the same place and after 7AM a cooler was found drifting by some friends on the north side of Antigua. They stayed with it to determine its drift direction. Then they gave directions to the plane and in no time the capsized boat with the four survivors were found. It was an amazing result which really showed the type of community spirit we have here in Antigua. The concern and care was overwhelming. So many volunteered to help and offer resources. This kind of positivity fueled optimism at a time when so many people were feeling despair. The kids and adults are recovering well, and so many others delighted with the result.
Www.AdventureAntigua.com

Our local electricity provider gets cut off for non payment.

This just was posted on the APUA (Antigua Public Utilities Authority) Facebook page:

The Antigua Power Company (APC), independent power producer, on October 12th advised the Authority that as a result of outstanding payments owed to them by APUA amounting to
$36,862,310.70 EC, it will be suspending power generation at its 50.9 mega watt power plant at the Crabbs Peninsula. This plant usually supplies 11 mega watts to the power grid.
To date however, APC has carried through with this threatened action and has gone beyond this in suspending generation at their Black Pine facility at the Crabbs Peninsula as well. They
have therefore reduced their usual supply of 34.5 mega watts to the grid to 16 mega watts as of 9:00 am this morning. They have informed the utility that they will further reduce this supply by 11 mega watts by 2:00 pm and the remaining 5 mega watts will be withdrawn by 4:00 pm unless the outstanding payment owed to them in its entirety is remitted. This has a severe impact on the provision of power to the Antiguan public as APC usually supplies 61% of the daily power demand. The Board of Commissioners and management have sought to bring this matter to the immediate attention of Antiguan and Barbudan consumers.
Currently the daily peak demand for power in Antigua is 51 mega watts. This action by APC has forced APUA to rely solely on its own generating capacity, which can currently supply 20 mega watts to the grid. This shortfall has forced load-shedding activities and consumers are asked to be prepared. The APUA Board of Commissioners and Management would like the public to know that this is being treated as the highest priority, and will provide updates as this situation develops.

Brother B (hilson baptiste), minister of fisheries has to be joking!

After years of complaining about the lack of action seen with regard to enacting new fisheries regulations, The Antigua Conservations Society started an online petition (seen here) to request help from the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer. The news of this petition spread like fire and within a few days the Minister of Fisheries said that he would sign the regulations after more consultations. This was met with mixed feelings by the ACS for two reasons. 1) The Fisheries Act which was passed years before after a monumental amount of consultations with fishers and stakeholders provided regulations which were sitting at the minister's desk for years. It seemed to be a time wasting effort to have the same process done once again ignoring all the data that had been collected already which resulted in the very same regulations still sitting on his desk. 2) It was also felt that these consultations were just another in a long series of games played by the Fisheries Minister in an effort to make sure that the new act wasn't past. How would these new consultations be designed to get a different outcome?

Well the new rounds of lengthy consultations earlier this summer were managed by the Chief Fisheries officer and her team both here in Antigua and in Barbuda. Hundreds of hours or work eventually culminated months later in a new set of regulations which finally were sent to the minister for him to sign late last week. Today, a reporter asked Minister Baptiste when the regulations which were given to him by his Chief Fisheries officer were going to be signed. His reply was astonishing! He said that before he signs, there needs to be more consultations. Once again the work and effort done by the fisher folk of Antigua and Barbuda together with the Fisheries Department isn't good enough? Who is he going to consult with now? The Japanese? There doesn't need to be any consultations at all just a signature which will see a slight change in the way our marine resources are managed so that they may be there for generations to come. Too bad for them!

There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Our marine resources are being rapidly depleted and our Minister continues to stall much needed protection measures. It's time for a change and not just in terms of regulations!!!

Online campaign on fisheries matters produces fantastic results.

As many readers of my blogs know, the 2006 Fisheries Act has been sitting languishing with the Minister of Fisheries, waiting for him to sign off on the accompanying regulations. While awaiting this evasive signature, unsustainable fishing methods continue to prevail in our marine environment. The total lack of marine management remains incredibly disappointing. Time and time again highly educated and knowledgeable fisheries officers have been quoted as saying "our hands are tied until we have signed regulations". The call to have these regulations signed has come from far and wide within the community mainly because of the situation we are seeing out on the water, but also because the document in questions and it's regulations were developed after consultations with fishers, their associations, environmental groups and other stakeholders. We were all just waiting for the Fisheries Minister's signature. The Antigua Conservations Society decided that all of these stakeholders had done enough complaining about the situation without getting a result. We had all read enough articles in Caribarena.com and in the Daily Observer about the situation and we had all heard stakeholders on the radio being interviewed. The island was fed up with wrongs not being made right with lobster fishing, with parrot fish netting, with conch fishing, and with all the other types of uncontrolled over fishing. We felt that there was no doubt that we needed to take it all to the next level. Our first step was starting a simple online campaign with change.org which attempted to collect signatures petitioning the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda to get involved. It "went viral" here in Antigua and the media seemed to love the concept and more and more "buzz" only helped the cause. Within a short time we reached 2000 signatures to Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer begging him to get involved in order to save our reefs and marine eco systems.
It wasn't long before we saw results. Minister Hilson Baptiste who is minister of Environment, Minister of Fisheries, Minister of Lands, Housing and Agriculture was interviewed saying that he was doing something about the situation and would in fact sign the Fisheries Act's Regulations, but first he was instructing his Chief Fisheries Officer to organize consultations on the regulations once again. Although there was some disappointment due to the fact that these consultations had happened before, it was action nonetheless. As it turned out, the consultations initiated by the Minister went very well. The Antigua Conservation Society was represented at the meetings by Fran Fuller, who had at one time represented the country and the Minister at climate change conferences around the world while working within the Ministry of Environment. Fran reported that the consultations went very well, and she felt that the Fisheries did a very good job of facilitating this fresh round of talks.
There were several sessions including sessions in Barbuda, and stakeholders from both across both islands offered input which as it turns out only made the regulations stronger. The new contributions from stakeholders only served to confirm that stronger protection measures are indeed needed and welcomed by a wide cross section of the community. Yesterday I spoke with Chief Fisheries officer, Cheryl Appleton, who confirmed what Fran has said about these consultations. She said it was fishermen who called for stronger regulations than the ones which had been sitting unsigned on the Minister's desk, and I got the feeling that she was very enthusiastic about the change that has happened. According to Mrs. Appleton, The Minister is eager to sign off on the new regulations just as he said he would in the recent interview. She says that he will have it all delivered to him by the end of this week. This is fantastic news and goes to show that we can make a difference here on this little island with just a little effort. The Antigua Conservation Society, our supporters, and all the 2300 people who signed the petition in the hope of getting the Fisheries Regulations have all made a difference, and we should be happy that the Minister is moving in the right direction. It looks like step one of our campaign may have been was all that was needed for now. It remains to be seen if the regulations will come into effect as promised and the ACS will remain vigilant, but for now the Minister seems to be doing the right thing and many of us feel good about the momentum that is pushing this important issue forward.

tracking lionfish in antigua

Several years ago I blogged that the lionfish were probably here already (read here) and there is now no doubt that they were. Within two years we are getting reports from around the island of Antigua of lionfish sightings. In order to protect our fishery and our important dive and snorkeling sites we need to be very proactive on how we track them and how we kill them. There was a great article in today's Daily Observer about the lionfish and more importantly about protecting our marine resources overall. Click here for that article. I have decided to try and keep track of sightings using Google Maps. What I plan to do is to invite any dive or snorekling operator as well as fishermen and other parties that would likely see lionfish regularly to sign up as users on a Map that i have created. They then can input lionfish sightings on the map with a date and a short explanation saying if they left the fish in the water or killed it. Anyone who isn't signed up with this map can still view it and can call me on +1 268 725 7263 if they have seen a lionfish. I will add the sighting and a date to the map. I think this is the first good step in getting a good idea on what's going on. Of course there is much more that can be done, but this is a good tool to keep track of the populations of lionfish. Remember these fish can be dangerous if not handled correctly. Make sure you do your research before you attempt to kill one. If you need more info please contact me on eliantigua@gmail.com Here is the map:
View Lionfish Tracking Antigua & Barbuda in a larger map

18 million US dollars of Government Dept in exchange for what coastal protection??

This photo below shows some of the legally designated Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that Antigua and Barbuda currently has. Some of them were set up in the early 70s and up to now I don't know of any area within these huge expanses of "prtotected" waters that is being actively managed in any way. We see so many types of invasive non sustainable fishing methods daily within these MPAs and whenever our politicians speak of environmental protection I just laugh. Recently tears came to my eyes when I heard that our government was boasting about wiping off 18 million dollars of debt in some sort of environmental trade with Brazil. The Minister responsible says that Brazil is forgiving the debt because he and his government have promised to protect the marine coastline. There are more questions than answers with this one to be honest.

Here is a excerpt taken from The Antigua Observer:

Baptiste told the CARDI consultation that he was able to further reduce the debt to $18 million after talks in Rio in June with that country’s finance minister, Guido Mantega.
“We were introduced to a climate change organisation (The Nature Conservancy) and we are getting involved in a debt for climate adaptation swap,” Minister Baptiste said.
“We will get the climate change people to pay off the $18 million for us while we get vigorously involved in coastal zone management in Antigua & Barbuda.”

Read more here. As you can see, it's not very specific to be honest. Caribarena.com wrote another piece today questioning what exactly this all meant:

However, when Caribarena.com contacted Senior Environment Officer Ruleta Camacho and her Chief Environment Officer Diann Black-Layne, neither could share any information on the $18 million initiative.

According to Wendy Tittle, Press Secretary for Minister Baptiste, too many details cannot be divulged about the proposed initiative at this time, as the ministry is “still waiting on some documents.”

Read more: http://www.caribarena.com/antigua/environment/environment/101065-firewall-surrounds-debt-for-climate-change-project.html#ixzz20npS74Ye

My problem with all of this talk is that as the photo above shows, we already have huge areas of coastline in our country which is protected under law and on paper but not actually in practice. I hope that the Brazilian tax payers and The Nature Conservancy are not as complacent as we are here in Antigua and Barbuda. I hope they actually are going to make sure that some sort of visible marine protection goes on here. We don't have any marine patrols at all here in Antigua for all of the area that sits in Marine Protected Areas and without the 2006 Fisheries Act having any signed regulations, the "fishing free for all" continues. The marine environment is under more strain than it has ever been under and while our government ministers slap themselves on the back our our marine resources dwindle and become extinct. Protect the Marine Protected Areas and stop talking!!!!!!!!!!

Eli Fuller's response to quotes made by Hilson Baptiste, Fisheries Minister of Antigua.

Today's Daily Observer newspaper had an article today which covered comments made by Fisheries Minister, Hilson Baptise, where he says a number of extremely confusing things relating to our petition to the Prime Minster.

Essentially, I am the spokesperson for the Antigua Conservation Society and have been interviewed by www.caribarena.com and also by The Daily Observer about a petition to Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer that we have started. The petition asks the PM to take action to get the draft Fisheries Regulations signed. They have been languishing on the desk of the Fisheries Minster's desk for five years. These regulations are attached to a Fisheries Act 2004 which was developed with input from fishers and the various stakeholders prior to it going before this government all those years ago. The reason we are petitioning the PM is that the Fisheries Minister can't seem to get the regulations signed for some reason which we can't quite understand.

There has been calls for these regulations to be signed from the various stakeholders here locally for years and there has also been pressure from international groups as well. Why? Well we are currently using the 1983 Fisheries Act to protect our marine resources and those resources have taken and are currently taking a serious beating. There is pressure on every aspect of our marine resources and there are many fishing methods being used out on the reef by commercial fishermen that are totally unsustainable. Many endangered species are being fished out right before our eyes and despite urgent calls from many stakeholders and the technical people within the Fisheries Ministry including the chief Fisheries Officer, nothing happens. The Act is sitting in limbo. For more on the rules and regulations we are using currently and the ones that are still sitting waiting to be signed click here.

Anyway, our petition to the PM has generated huge interest and has gotten many people speaking about it in the media and beyond. We have about 1800 signatures on our petition and we expect to get the remaining 200 to make up our goal of 2000 within a few days. We will keep it going though until we see some results. In the meantime, we expect to deliver the signatures to the PM after we get our 2000 goal.

In today's paper, the confusing statements that Baptiste made are as follows:

1) He says that the petition is a waste of time.

If this is the case, why is he falling over himself now to say that he is going to have it signed all of a sudden?

2) He says that it couldn't have happened before because he has been traveling for the past two weeks.

Two weeks??? What about the past five years? These regulations have been sitting on his desk for ages. This isn't anything new at all.

3) He says that the criticism over the past few months because not enough was done about the terrible state of the marine resources is "politically motivated" and that we have an agenda.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing I have written over the past month on the lack of action on signing off on the Fisheries Regulations has had any hint of politics. The Antigua Conservation's Facebook page and it's petition on change.org has no political undertones or language at all. We do have an agenda though and that is to get the fisheries regulations signed as they are now.

4) Another thing he says is that he is going to get a committee set up to discuss the regulations to make sure that only the best regulations are approved. He goes on to say that he will only approve the regulations which the committee of stakeholders all agree on and are regulations that they can agree to adhere to. “As I speak to you I am putting a committee together to go over the regulations to ensure that everybody agrees and are willing to comply with it,” he said.

How does any of that make sense? There are huge problems with this because as this document clearly demonstrates (click here) there have been consultations with the stakeholders. In fact, there have been many, and there is no need to step backward and revert to more consultations. It was consultations that ended up helping to get the Fisheries Act of 2004 drafted and then the Fisheries regulations drafted also. A committee filled with stakeholders will only cause the Fisheries Act to get buried if not scrapped. A talk shop is not what is needed at this point! What is needed is for the minister to sign on the dotted line. In addition, why would the Minister consider only the "best regulations" which "everyone agrees with and are willing to comply with.."? This would be like asking the bankers on Wall Street to sit on a committee to decide on what regulations should be imposed upon them and telling them that only laws that they agree with and are willing to comply with will be considered. See why this may be a problem?

An edited version of the newspaper story can be found by clicking here. You have to laugh at the comments. Anyway, as you can see, this issue isn't an easy one and there is good reason that we are petitioning the Prime Minister. Please sign the petition and join the ACS on facebook. If the petition doesn't work, we may have to go to plan B and then C. We will get some changes for sure because the future of our marine resources is sitting in the balance.

Dear Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, you must take simple action to save our reefs!

netted parrotfish by the thousands taken from the reefs

In the past five days 1400 people have signed a petition to the Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda. The petition has been organized by The Antigua Conservation Society and asks for the PM's help in getting the 2004 Fisheries Act signed by the Fisheries Minister who for one reason or another has not done so for years. While the Act sits languishing on his desk, the marine eco systems of Antigua and Barbuda have suffered tremendously. We are still working with legislation from the early 80s. This 2004 Fisheries Act was carefully drawn up after consultations and input with the major stakeholders including but not limited to The Fishermen's Cooperative, The Sports Fishing Association, and The Environmental Awareness Group.

Change.org|Free Online Petitions

There are way too many areas of our coastal environment that are being neglected simply because there are no laws that can help them. The Chief Fisheries Officer is quoted time and time again as saying that her hands are tied until the regulations are signed. The person who need to sign it told me and others who were meeting him one day when he was Junior Minister of Tourism that he can't swim and has no interest at all going out on the water on any boat. This doesn't mean he isn't capable of understanding the issues here, but I can't help feel that he doesn't. Article after article is published like this one today featured in The Daily Observer: St. John’s Antigua- Having almost ravaged the fishing stock off Antigua, Barbuda-based marine biologist John Mussington says fishermen are now looking to employ their harmful practices on the sister isle. Their primary target: the parrot fish, which Mussington revealed, fishers are going at great lengths to capture. “That particular category of fishermen they cleaned out all the reefs in Antigua.” “The guys, not Antiguans, come and they set their gill nets and camp out on the shores over here. They target the parrot fish alone and there have been reports that they are using bleach to hunt them,” the marine biologist said. According to Mussington, when the foreign fishermen catch fish that is not the parrot fish, they dispose of them on the beaches of Barbuda. The fishermen try their best to avoid local fishers, Mussington told OBSERVER Media, plying their harmful trade when local fishermen have retired for the day. He said several attempts including calling the Coast Guard for assistance have been employed to try to stop the fish invasion off Barbuda. “People in Barbuda have tried to confiscate the nets, but it’s a losing battle. They apparently have official blessings for what they are going.” The problem has persisted for about two years, but Mussington disclosed that efforts to use bad fishing practices off the island have intensified in recent months. “Just yesterday, I received a report from a fisherman who is frustrated over here,” Mussington said adding that several reports have been made to the police. The concerns by the marine biologist comes on the heels of a Fisheries Division study which found that urgent action is needed to save the parrot fish from the gill-netting and spare fishing practices. In response to the anxiety over the local fisheries stock, the Antigua Conservation Association commissioned an online petition to force government to sign off on fisheries regulations that would aid in the protection of the marine eco-systems. Despite articles like these being written, despite desperate calls from The Fishermens Cooperative, which is the biggest association of fishermen, despite calls from all the Environmental Groups, his own Chief Fisheries Officer, and many others, Hilson Babtiste still doesn't sign it. 8000 lbs of parrotfish, almost as many reef snappers and reef groupers are being exported through the Fisheries Department to the French islands. Remember that parrotfish are the key species keeping our reefs healthy by cleaning the coral damaging algae with each fish producing about 180 lbs of sand a year. Healthy parrotfish populations mean healthy reefs and plenty of sand production. Also with healthy reefs there is less wave action and currents getting to our shores and causing beach erosion. More on parrotfish by clicking this link. As you have just read the Daily Observer article, you can see that The Fisheries Ministry knows that the parrotfish are in trouble, but for some reason they still are permitting them to be decimated through the use of huge gill nets which fishermen put along the east coast of our shores just outside the reef. We are at a tipping point, a tipping point that the cod fishermen of the North Atlantic went beyond and destroyed their own industry and way of live. Many species here including parrotfish are in danger of being wiped out due to the lack of fisheries management and stronger regulations. The 2004 Fisheries Act needs to be signed. You can help. You have spent longer reading this blog than it takes to sign the petition. The Prime Minister of our nation will see your signature and will see your comment if you leave one. Please take a moment to sign it, and as important as signing it is sharing it with your email and facebook contacts. There are a few key points which come to mind that make the new fisheries act way better than the old outdated one. The new regulations will change quite a few things which include: Stricter measures for conservation of key species: Lobster – now introduces regulations against removing "tar spot" …something that is now practiced because of EU requirements that lobsters with tar shouldn’t be shipped but for which there is no regulation under the current Fisheries regs. Also introduces closed season for lobster Conch – introduces closed season and stronger penalties for fishermen who harvest undersized conch. Turtles – hawksbills and leatherbacks would be fully protected. Greens may be allowed for capture (if an open season is declared) but with a maximum size limit as opposed to minimum size limit (as per WIDECAST recommendation) Also specifically prohibits harassment of nesting females and take of hatchlings and allows for declaration of protected turtle nesting beaches. Permitting requirements for other species that are not currently managed. e.g. Whelks, cockle and urchins.. Fishers would also need to request permits to harvest certain species. So it is not automatic that once you are a fisher you can harvest anything. It's quite possible that there could be permits for parrotfish (chub fish). Now regulates fishing inland (in ponds and dams). Better controls over gear Nets – the old act only sets regulations on seines…nothing for gill nets. With the new regs there are size restrictions on mesh, prohibition of multi-panel nets and restriction on soak time. The use of any gear not specifically regulated under the Act would need the permission of the CFO. Sets controls for sport fishing The most significant change with the new regulations is that we move to license fishers…not just the boats. And it sets requirements that anyone who wishes to be licensed must undergo some sort of training (to include sessions on conservation). In doing this the regulations also allows for licenses of fishers who break the laws to be suspended from fishing (penalties get progressively higher for repeat offenses). It also allows the Chief Fisheries Officer to refuse a license if there are grounds. New entrants to the fishery would be subject to a probationary period. This will hopefully allow us to catch under the net the people who swim out or use jet skis etc. Other things are: -providing way stiffer penalties for people who break the law as right now the penalties are not worth pursuing in the legal system. -giving the fisheries department more control of fisheries issues instead of having most of the control sitting in the hands of the minister. We have to get this thing signed by the Fisheries Minister as it's the first step on a road to a better marine environment and a better shot at having our fishing industry managed in a sustainable way so that generations of fishers to come may find something to fish for. Please sign the petition to Hon. Baldwin Spencer:

Please sign this letter to Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and help save the reefs

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

"You will get your money's worth by booking this excursion!"

Pirateslifeforme00

1 review

“Extreme circumnavigation...”

Reviewed June 8, 2012 NEW

We visited Antigua as part of a cruise ship itinerary. We booked the Extreme Circumnavigation excursion through Expedia. The boat was just a 3 minute walk from the pier, easy to find based on the directions in the conformation email.

You will get your money's worth by booking this excursion! Our captain was Ross, with Jordain and Trevor our crew. Very nice guys, very knowledgeable, very laid back. The tour was thorough and a beautiful opportunity for pics. It made me want to fly to Antigua and spend my whole vacation there--skip the cruise itinerary!! What a gorgeous place. I expected sting ray city to be crowded with other tours but we were the only group there so everyone had plenty of time with the rays. I was skeptical about lunch but the beach we spent time on was gorgeous and the food was pretty good, and there was plenty of it! Nelson's dockyard was full of history and another great opportunity for pics. Pillars of Hercules were a beautiful site and the snorkeling was top notch.

My only warning is that this is a LONG day and there are no bathroom facilities ladies! We were dead tired by the time we got done so be prepared, they pack in every activity they promise. Bring plenty of sunblock for reapplying.

www.adventureantigua.com

Some fun photos of our sailing day trip off Antigua yesterday

These Instagram photos were taken yesterday on my phone while we were out on a Classic Yacht Day Tour. The winds were blowing hard and after snorkeling and lunch up in Carlisle Bay we flew downwind outside Cades Reef to Pinchin Bay for some lovely beach time. Enjoy the photos and come out with us one of these days.

www.adventureantigua.com

Will the Chinese wipe out Antigua and Barbuda's lobster?

Over the past month there has been considerable media attention on the subject of certain Chinese businessmen orchestrating a massive monthly purchase and export of spiny lobster. (Click here if you want to know more about spiny lobster)
In a nutshell, these businessmen are providing boats, scuba gear and fishing equipment to fishermen here in Antigua and Barbuda in exchange to the exclusive rights to purchase this lobster from them at an elevated price than the current market price. The cost of the equipment is slowly subtracted from the payments so essentially the whole agreement is a sort of financing agreement. The deal for fishermen is irresistible.

The first big complaint in the media came from the hotel sector which became enraged when they couldn't get their usual supply of lobster. The Chinese were paying more for lobster and taking any amount supplied, so there was none being offered to the hotels. They were upset.

The second complaint came from one of the oldest lobster wholesalers here who for decades has been the biggest buyer and seller of lobster. He complained that he couldn't afford to pay as much as the Chinese for the lobster. His supply dried up and he was upset. 

The third complaint came from supermarkets and other local sources of consumption who could no longer get lobster to buy. For the first time since it opened Epicurean Supermarket has an empty lobster tank.

Recently I have heard complains against the businesses that are selling to fishermen who are being financed by the Chinese lobster mafia. They feel that it's wrong for some reason for local business to accept money loaned to fishermen from these Chinese lobster men. 

Then with all the media outcry and the calls coming in to the radio stations I started to hear more and more people complaining about the "Chinese and dem tekking all d lobster and nar left none for ahwee". Passions have run high and have even bordered on being viewed as xenophobic in some of the arguments. I say that because the focus seems to be on the notion that the Chinese are doing something wrong. All the comments are focused on the Chinese and not at all on the fisheries policy that has permitted non national entrepreneurs to capitalize on the fishery. It's not just Chinese either. One of the biggest seafood merchants in Antigua is a Syrian and most of the commercial fishing for parrot fish and lobster is being done these days by fishermen from Dominica and the Dominican Republic. Lets not even talk about the tons of fish that is caught in our waters by the French from Guadeloupe. Sustainable fishing has never been visible on the ground or in the water.

This concern that our nation's lobster stock being decimated by Chinese interests could be dealt with fairly easily I think. Once again it boils down to passing of the Fisheries Act and it's regulations and then enforcing them. This is a problem that has again and again been blamed for most of the marine conservation issues. Antigua & Barbuda are some of the only islands in the Caribbean that do not have a carefully managed closed season. Also, there doesn't seem to be any limits on catch or on export quantity. Essentially with enough money and resources, the Chinese could legally wipe out all of Antigua and Barbuda's lobster while using licensed fishermen who they finance/contract. They could do the same thing for almost all of our seafood to be honest. Just today my sister came across a group of Chinese men fishing along the Shell Beach main road. They had buckets of tiny Queen Conch (an endangered species) as well as buckets of starfish. This large group of Chinese are here working on the airport expansion and knowing that there is no fisheries management they play off their ignorance of the law and do as they like. That could be another blog entry i guess.

The issue at hand is the decimation of our lobster stock by local fishermen for Chinese consumption, and as I mentioned to fix it, our Fisheries Minster and his Chief Fisheries Officer need to work together in the interest of all of the citizens of the nation and get those regulations off the desk and into law. The interesting thing is that we even with all the media attenton and public interest we have not heard anything officially from them. This is not a problem with the Chinese, but rather a problem with the management of our fishery and the way that our fishermen utilize it. Currently the way seafood is harvested here is not sustainable, and if nothing is done there is no doubt in my mind that the only lobster my son will ever see will be in photos of them that I took before he was born.

I think it's time for action because writing and speaking about this doesn't seem to make any difference to the people making the decisions. I think we need to somehow be a bit louder. Does anyone else think it's time for an actual protest demonstration?

Other similar blog posts by me:

http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2011/08/french-fishermen-threaten-us-while-we.html 

http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2011/03/most-important-and-threatened-fish-in.html

http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2009_06_19_archive.html

http://www.365antigua.com/cms/content/green-environment-gill-nets-threaten-antigua-barbudas-waters


http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/2011/07/chinese-lights-start-killing-turtles-in.html

Want to catch a blue marlin? Join us in the Antigua Sport Fishing Tournament.

Each year Adventure Antigua sends at least one of our boats to the Annual Sports Fishing Tournament here in Antigua. We have always done well and few boats have released as many marlin as our boat Xtreme has done. These days the price of fuel has limited our trips into the deep, and we have done far fewer international tournaments as well. However, there is one tournament that we try to do each year, and it's this annual one when many boats target Marlin. Last year was the first time that Adventure Antigua attempted to offset the costs associated with the tournament by taking on anglers who contributed financially. We didn't have a charter per say but each angler paid his fair share. Once again this year we are looking to do the same. Anyone who is interested in hooking up to a big marlin and fighting it to the boat so we can release it should give us a call or text. Contact me on my mobile +1 268 725 7263. For more info on the fishing and the tournament please check the link above. Here is a little compilation of video bits from the tournament last year.
www.adventureantigua.com

An Antiguan in "The Everest of sailing" once again. The Volvo Ocean Race

The Volvo Ocean Race is considered the Everest of sailing and fellow Antiguan and friend, Shannon Falcone, has done the race around the world once before. But that wasn't the highlight of his professional sailing career. After crewing on the winning America's Cup boat in the last cup challenge he has been training for the next cup and spending more time in Antigua than he has been able to in recent years. A few weeks ago he was asked to come back to the Volvo Ocean Race once again to replace an injured crew member. Their Puma sponsored boat is leading the Brazil to Miami leg and will pass close to Antigua in a few days. For more on the race click here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/the_race/1_Overview.html and for more on where the boats are in real time check here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/racetracker/rdc.html and for more on one of Antigua's top sportsmen ever check here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/5923_Falcone-gets-his-PUMA-boots-on.html

Hope you find it interesting. eli

Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta

After four days of racing in various conditions and courses, Adventure Antigua's team Zemi wins in the Traditional Class. We had a huge team which reached 14 people in two of the races.  

  

After our engine was installed by A1 Marine in Jolly Harbour we had to do some rigging changes before the regatta and they were completed just in time for the race. With only minutes to spare, Itano, Jason and I managed to get to the Antigua Yacht Club on Wednesday. On thursday a few of us got together and went out to test the rig and see how Zemi felt. It was the first time we had sailed properly since last year. We had won our class in the regatta then, but the winds had been exceptionally light. Our sail on Thursday was fine and the boat felt good with the extra lead ballast that i had just purchased from a local scrap metal business. I took a photo of my truck deep inside the scrap metal place when I was about to collect the lead the Tuesday before. My sister Fran was going to be joining us for the regatta so she came out on the practice sail with us: All of the wooden Caribbean vessels sailing in the Traditional class of the regatta bunched up together between the Turtle Surf Shop and the Skullduggery Bar on the Antigua Yacht Club Marina. Half of them seen here: The first race was on Friday and our start was actually just after 10 am. We had two crew coming in from Tortola in the British Virgin Islands at the very last minute and they were bringing uniforms. Andy Morrell and his son Josh run HIHO which is a high end clothing company (check it out) and our team was going to look sharp if they arrived with the loot. In fact, HIHO is one of the sponsors of Antigua Sailing Week which starts here at the end of this week. Anyway, they arrived, jumped on board Zemi and we cast off our lines. The race was starting shortly, and we needed to get everyone set up (and suited up).

The Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda provided air rifles for the race committee, so i can't say the races started with a bang. Needless to say, it was quite funny hearing about that mess up on the radio. Anyway, the race started and Zemi was off. Our boat has more sail area than the others and the light winds of the first race were in our favor. We slowly pulled ahead. On the broad reach we had our spinnaker up which gave us a slightly bigger lead. When it was time to drop this sail in preparation for our sail back upwind, something went wrong. The line holding the sail to the top of the mast was jammed. There was nothing we could do but sail upwind with about four of the crew trying to bunch the sail up around the mast. Spinnakers are sails that don't go upwind and that's where we were headed. Thankfully the winds were light and the sail didn't get ripped out of the hands of our crew and torn to shreds. We were going directly for the rocks at Winter Hill and had to tack with this sail which was another challenge. Then there were other yachts which had right or way coming toward us. We had to "duck" them, still with this sail dangling from the top of the mast. Finally a decision was made to send one of the crew up to the top of the mast. Out came the bosun's chair and up the mast Jason went with a knife! The sail was finally cut down, but we had to get it fixed, and in no time we were sending Nikolai back up to get it prepped for the next time we had to use it. Here is a pic of Nik way up at the top while we were racing: Here he is on his way back down:

With this kind of team work we were able to finish enough ahead to beat the second place boat by under a minute on corrected time after the handicap had been worked out. Here is some of the team celebrating our win back at the dock:

More on the rest of the Classic Yacht Regatta tomorrow.

Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta 2012

As you know we offer a classic yacht tour, and each year we try and compete in the Traditional Class of the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta. The first year we entered on the brand new Ocean Nomad with paint still drying on the deck we finished second. The next year we finished first. I didn't race again until last year and this time it was on our new Carriacou Sloop, Zemi with paint still drying once again. We finished first and were delighted. Since then Zemi has not been sailing once and has sat in Jolly Harbour slowly getting an engine installed. It's finally in there and operational. She is now able to get in and out of harbours without sailing. Ocean Nomad is the older of our two sailing vessels and has been out of commission for the past month while her mast was repaired. She may be ready to sail in the regatta which starts on Friday which means that Adventure Antigua will have two boats in the Classic Yacht Regatta.

I will be skippering Zemi again this year, and over the next few days I will be strengthening the rig and finding some more ballast. In last years race we knew she was under ballasted which means she didn't have enough lead below deck to keep her steady in the water during heavier winds. Luckily the winds were light last year and it worked to our advantage.

This year will be different if the forecast continues as it is right now with winds getting up to 22 mph. We have to have more ballast otherwise we will not be able to sail fast and will spent plenty of time over on our sides! Lead is what we need, but if we can't find it we will be looking for anything else. We have three days to get it below deck and register the boat. Among the team sailing with us this year we have Andy Morrell of HIHO with his son Josh. This means that Adventure Antigua's team Zemi will have some nice clothing to race with for a few days. We also have an old team mate from Scotland sailing with us. Harry Ingram didn't sail across the Atlantic this time but took the quick flight here for the regatta. He will be leaving his chair below deck and will be on the rail like the time when we won on Ocean Nomad. I understand he's bringing some good Scotch to "bless the deck". You know, it was the Scottish who first built these boats down in Carriacou for the Plantation owners of Grenada. Plenty of history which you can learn about if you end up watching Vanishing Sail which is a film about these amazing vessels. Click here to learn a bit about the project and see a preview. Of course we will have plenty of local knowledge, skill and rum drinking/sailing experience on board too with several of our long time team members playing key rolls. Guilli, Nikolai, and Big John will be there too. Once again this year Mount Gay Rum is providing us with shirts and hats or one of the day's racing. I am sure there will not be a shortage of rum either. I will blog more about the progress of Zemi before Wednesday and then after the first race on Friday. Stay Tuned.

Whales, Dolphins, and lets not forget Turtles too!

In my last blog I highlighted the whale and dolphin watching that is going on at the moment and mentioned that our boats have been seeing more than usual this year. Yesterday our two Xtreme boats doing the Circumnav (round the island) tour saw a pod of whales off Nelson's Dockyard. They approached them in between the tour stop at Green Island and their tour of Nelson's Dockyard. The whales didn't stick around for long and sounded showing their tails before the very deep dive. The water out there is several thousand feet deep. Anyway, the tours did their historical tour of Dockyard and then went to snorkel at Pillars of Hercules. After Xtreme's snorkeling session they returned to the area the whales were spotted and luckily they met them again on the surface. Captain JD shot the iphone image of one of them that is the featured image above. Once again we had delighted guests on board who got more than they expected on our round the island "Xtreme Circumnav Tour". Our Eco Tour on the other hand didn't see any whales for the week, but has been seeing dolphins fairly regularly. Both boats see turtles almost daily, and yesterday on the North side the weather was clearer and the Eco Tour saw quite a few hawksbill turtles between their tour stops. The nesting season for hawksbills is between May and November and generally people in Antigua regard nesting season as the summer months. However between the three species of marine sea turtles we have nesting on our shores (green, hawksbill, and leatherback), the entire year can have turtles coming up to lay eggs. The legislation protecting nesting turtles really only speaks of a few months in the summer, but Leatherback turtles nest from Feb to May. Leatherbacks are the most interesting turtles in my opinion and largest, and of the three nesting here, they are the rarest in our waters. The Antigua Sea Turtle Project, run by my wife and the EAG, has been getting reports of nesting leatherbacks for the past few weeks. Very early on Wednesday morning a massive momma leatherback came up to lay on Jabbawock Beach which is just down the road from me. If you follow my other older blog, then you will have read the huge problem that Jabbawock and many other beaches around Antigua face when it comes to street lights. The squished turtle shown in the image on the left is a member of the Hawksbill Turtle, an endangered species, taken on Jabbawock's main road the morning after the nest with about 150 little turtles hatched out. Using photos like this one and blogs like this one (click here) we have gotten the media involved (click here) and generally gotten the public to understand the situation. Still the lights are on and in about 60 days the endangered leatherback turtles will hatch out and will be drawn instinctively to the brightest thing. Usually the water lapping on the shore with the reflection of stars, but on Jabbawock the Chinese gift of street lights will lure them away from their natural environment and on to the main road. The Antigua Sea Turtle Project and the EAG has met with the public utility company several times and the lights remain on. It's a simple fix and solutions including different frequency bulbs, lower poles, using deflectors, and just plain switching them off. I hope I can blog here one day that our government has taken their head out of the sand to correct this problem. This image is of a leatherback turtle we found in the bottom of a hatched nest after doing an excavation. Usually one or two little ones get left behind in the bottom of a hatched nest and if you get there early enough the next day, you can help them get to the water. We have found that it's best to let them go at night though which is when the birds don't see them in the shallow bright waters. For more info on the amazing leartherback turtle check this link.

Best Whale and Dolphin Watching season ever

Our Humpback Whale season here is usually from Feb until May and this year we got off to a slow start mainly I think because of weather. Feb was pretty rough and with all the white caps out there it wasn't easy to spot whales spouting or breaching. People kept asking me when it was that they were going to see whales, and I kept on saying that March was the best month to see them. Anyway, march came and sure enough we started seeing whales. Nicola and I did a Observer Radio 91.1FM talk show interview with their Voice Of The People show to speak about whale watching and the best practices that should be used during whale watching. We also started a facebook group called The Antigua and Barbuda Whale and Dolphin Network. This facebook page had a goal of letting people know about whale and dolphin sightings as well as providing awareness about whales and dolphins. Check the page out this month if you can. Anyway, our tours have been seeing whales and dolphins each week for the entire month and while all of my crew and many of our guests have been lucky enough to see them recently, the office team has been getting quite jealous especially during whale sightings. Last week during a tandem Xtreme Circumnav tour both captans Ross and JD spotted a pod of whales just off The Grand Pineapple Resort up near Devil's Bridge. Forty of our guests were lucky enough to see these amazing creatures with their young ones swimming freely without fear in our waters. It was a great experience. Yesterday morning very early in the tour Ross called me and said that he and his tour were whale watching just outside Jabbawock beach. This was quite surprising to me as this is the area where I have spent most of my life and I have never seen one close into shore there. Anyway, I quickly called Nell and Mom in the office so that they could go have a look too from the shore. The mobile phone image which is featured at the title of the blog was taken by Natalie who was part of Team Xtreme with Ross and Nicola. Finally they got a glimpse of these amazing marine mammals and within less than 7 days this was the second time we have seen whales on our tours. We have been seeing dolphins more regularly though and overall these calmer sea conditions have been making all of the boaters happy. For more on whale watching in Antigua check this blog or visit the facebook page. You stand a good chance of seeing them up close if you come on one of our tours between now and the start of June.

Very Dry Weather for months here in Antigua means drought conditions

That's right, we have hardly had much rain at all since before the new year, and both Antigua and Barbuda are looking very dry indeed. Gone are the green landscapes and hills sides in the South of the island, and quite often bare soil is what you are seeing in people's yards. This makes me shake my head for two reasons. First, because I don't like to see the island suffering in times of drought. Animals and plants need rain water to thrive and all natural life on the mainland is using it's reserves slowly while hoping for a little rain. Today I watered my lawn which was very dusty indeed. Much of the grass is now gone and the plants were screaming for some sky juice.

As you can see from these photos, my yard is very dry.

Also you will see the ten day weather forecast from weather.com for antigua which for the past 11 years has been forecasting rain almost every day. That's the second reason that I shake my head. These simple animated weather forecasts always predict and show rain for Antigua even at times when we are experiencing terrible drought. So many potential tourists are turned off Antigua even before they reserve their flights and hotel rooms after seeing these incorrect forecasts, and the ones who see these stupid forecasts worry and fret all over the internet. Here is a typical post as seen on a regular basis on Tripadvisor:

bilxbet

no...

posts: 212

“ weather ”

Jan 18, 2010, 1:06 PM

hi we are going to antigua in 4 days. i keep looking at the 10 day forcast and it is rainy every day. does it only rain for 10mins or are we in for rainy weather. we are hoping for nice weather and the beach. be there friday the 22nd and can't wait, bill

Over the past decade I have spent so much of my time trying in many ways to tell people on the net that the forecasts constantly predicting rain for Antigua and Barbuda are not right. I am on most of the tourist forums telling people that it's not in fact raining. I blog about it regularly. Click here and here for examples of those blogs on two different sites which both have good info by the way, and the first one explains why weather.com and the other simple animated forecasts get forecasting for Antigua so wrong. Both blogs give you an alternative and more accurate forecast for Antigua weather. Another thing I do is use twitter to show normal sunny everyday photos. It's no Antigua live web cam, but it's an attempt to show what the weather is like from someone on the ground here in Antigua. My twitter log in is www.twitter.com/antigua so if you are interested you can "follow" me or just check it from time to time for images and a bit of banter. Anyway, Adventure Antigua, my snorkeling and sight seeing trips, charters and tours usually work better when it's nice and sunny, but some rainfall would be a blessing for the island overall. Hopefully when it comes, if it comes, the rain will fall at night!

A new website for Adventure Antigua

Thanks to Dwayne Tonge at JJDEZIGNS we have a new website finally. On my Google+ account I asked the general question "Where in Antigua can I get a good website built" and Dwayne Tonge immediately contacted me. We met, and I told him that I had been very happy with my old website but wanted something that was: 1) more easy to update, 2) manageable from anywhere without the need of a Dreamweaver type program, 3) phone and tablet ready, and most importantly 4) search engine friendly.
www.adventureantigua.com was purchased by me back in 1999 I think but was actually not in my name. The domain name was being hosted by one company. The website was being hosted by another company and then emails were being hosted by another company. It was all pretty messy like some of the West Indian beach restaurants that grow and grow by adding different rooms or levels onto their first little shack. We needed to sort things out.

From the moment we met, JJDEZIGNS was ready to offer ideas about how the new website could work to suit my needs. Many times Dwayne suggested ways of doing things that were way better than i had considered. It was refreshing working with someone from Antigua who really knew his stuff but more importantly, who bent over backwards to make me, the customer, happy. Dwayne, like me, is very very interested in SEO and in the way social media helps your product and website. This was important to me.

My website is one of the most important aspects of my business and I'm sure that I contacted Dwayne more than any client has done before. He never got frustrated with all my questions or suggestions. He was great, and did things the way I wanted them while using his knowledge and expertise to make sure it was done properly. 

Our site is up and is still going through some editing and changes as you, the users, give us feedback.
Please note however that some of our emails took some time getting to get to us, and could have been corrupted during the transition. If you didn't hear from us please use the booking form again to resend your info.
We are happy with it and hopefully the engines will be. In fact, we will be editing all the little hidden things that the search engines look for over the next few days.

If you are looking for someone to get you sorted with a new website or even kick start your facebook page, then check JJDEZIGNS out. This is their facebook page for more info.

www.adventureantigua.com

Another lovely tripadvisor review

Another lovely tripadvisor review from someone who took their kids on our Eco Tour. It was the highlight of their trip to Antigua which we have to be very proud of. Thanks so much for posting!

“Eco-tour: a fun day for the kids”

Reviewed March 16, 2012 

We took the eco-tour with two young children, four and seven. Our crew was Ross, Jourdain, and Nicola. All three were friendly and helpful, especially answering questions from our inquisitive seven-year-old, but Nicola was a real gem. She helped the kids with the easy climb on Great Bird Island and the trickier one at Hell's Gate, and both took a real shine to her. We had the only kids on the boat; there were I believe around twenty-six passengers in total, but it didn't feel crowded. My older daughter loved hearing about turtles, mangroves, and other wildlife. The younger one enjoyed the trip, but didn't get nearly as much out of it. The snorkelling was a little beyond the capabilities of the kids - it's too bad we couldn't have dropped the kids off at some shallow and calmer water. All-in-all, a great day trip and for my older daughter, the highlight of our week in Antigua.

Visited February 2012
www.adventureantigua.com  

A History of Adventure Antigua Published in December 2006

This was published under various posts back in late 2006, and I figured it was time to organize it into one blog post. Of course, it needs updating, but it gives you an idea how we got started and also provides some fun reading. Enjoy: 
 
Part 1 (Nov 11 2006)

If you have looked at the about us on the website, then you will know that I grew up in Antigua and spend most of my time windsurfing, fishing, camping, snorkeling and generally enjoying the sea around me. As soon as I started windsurfing at the age of 12, I became extremely interested in competition and in fact within about 8 months I windsurfed to Montserrat from Jolly Beach during the Windsurfing Antigua Week competition. That was in 1984 long before the volcano became active. Over the next 10 years I continued to compete internationally and did a fair amount of traveling. When I left Antigua for college in Florida in 1989, I went with the plan to study business and to windsurf and compete as much as possible. I didn't know what I wanted to do in my life other than becoming a "professional windsurfer". After college, I returned home with my business degree to look for a job. As mentioned in the Blog about Leslie, I worked for my Mom's retail business for a while at first. What I would do is work for a while saving enough money to go off to windsurfing events anywhere from Northern Germany to Maui. When the money ran out, I would come back and work for 6-12 months before going on a big adventure again. I had a bad accident out on the water one day while training at the famous Ho'okipa Beach in Maui. I ended up with a badly broken ankle which was terrible for me as it was just before I was to join The Professional Windsurfing Association's World Tour. I was fitter and faster than ever and excited and confident about going on the World Tour. Unfortunately, to make matters worse, the GP in Maui made a very bad judgment call and I ended up not walking for 6 months. The particular type of fracture required some metal work, and all I got was a cast! Anyway, my hard core windsurfing career was never the same. After I got better I did some competitions in Brazil, the Canary Islands, Germany, Greece, England and across the Caribbean, but I wasn't doing well enough consistently to make money. It’s an incredibly expensive sport and I was finding it hard to make it work. I was lucky enough to get a job working for the largest sail manufacture in the world as a "tester". My job was to work along with another tester and the main sail designers in Maui. Our work there tested prototypes that were adjusted by the designer according to our recommendations. Once they were better than the current production models that we were testing against, the prototypes were sent off to Hong Kong to put into mass production. It was a fun job and I was getting paid to windsurf in a pretty nice place. Maui is a pretty nice place, but not as nice as Antigua and certainly not home. I started dreading the thought of going back to Antigua to work for another hotel, restaurant, disco, shop, health club, or any of the other possible "managerial" jobs. I had done them and didn't want to be stuck inside again. During my lifetime in Antigua I had spent most of best times on the water. I started thinking about my friends and fellow windsurfers, Inigo and Xabier Ross. I kinda grew up with these two brothers who were about 10-12 years older than I was during my windsurfing years. When I was 12 Inigo was the most amazing windsurfer I had ever seen. He and his bro, Xabier, must have gone through the same kinda dilemma thing that I was now going through years earlier and had gotten into the watersports business. It hadn't been that profitable for them and they had ventured into the excursion business starting a company called Wadadli Catamarans. They started with one Cat and had done very well. They loved the sea and were smart. They were also one of the first excursion companies to do it "properly".
Sitting in the sail loft in Maui one night, I started thinking about the possibility of doing some sort of tour. I had some very tight constraints though....the main one was the fact that I had no money. I did have control of a small open boat back in Antigua though, and I though about how I could use that on some sort of excursion. The excursion had to be different and to make it easy for me; it had to be something that I already knew how to do. I grew up in the North Sound of Antigua and knew the 22 small islands and reefs up there like the back of my hand. It was mostly calm and beautiful and so many of the spots there were not seen on the "regular tours". I did some spread sheets and figured that I had to give it a try. When I returned to Antigua that November, Adventure Antigua was started. After painting and cleaning up the little boat, I got insurance and my license, took some photos and then started figuring out how to market the product. I will talk about what happened next in future "The history of AA" blogs. Here is a photo that I took during the first trip I ever did on Adventure Antigua's Eco Tour. It was just me and my ex-girlfriend who modeled for me, and we did a demo tour to see if the timeline would work out. This pic is of Chantal in the little open boat near the mangrove habitat off Guiana Island back in late 1999 I think. More of how it all started soon......

Part 2 (Nov 14, 2006)

After i had gotten all the official documentation sorted and the little boat ready for guests it was time to find these guests. It just so happens that Sunsail had just opened up their hotel at Club Colonna in Hodges Bay. It was two bays down from where I lived and kept my little boat. Perfect! I met up with the manager Roger and his assistant Robin, and organized a tour for them. I collected them and two of their friends and did “The North Sound Eco-Historical Tour” for them. They seemed to be having fun right off the bat and by the end of the day told me that they though I was onto a winner. These words of encouragement were exactly what I needed, but even more I needed guests. We decided to charge US $60 per person for the tour, and Roger and Robin helped out in that department by speaking about my business at their orientations. By the next week I had done two different trips for their hotel and things were starting to take shape. It wasn´t easy as I was on my own and the day for me usually ran about 12 hours. Let me just tell you that 12 hours out on the boat with the sea and sun to contend with are not the same as a 12 hour day in doors. By the end of a day I was exhausted. Anyway, I was trying to create something and was actually excited about the future. When you are trying to do something like this, it is never easy and I had loads of obstacles to overcome. I remember my mom getting cross with me one day telling me that it was time to get “serious” and stop messing about. I know it didn’t look like it to many but I was, and I could see the potential for me to be happy while making a living for myself.
Sunsail was just one hotel though and I because of the size of the boat, I could’t go further to collect guests. People were not interested in getting expensive cabs to come and join in on a new little boat tour. Not many people if any had heard about it on the island and the money was just barely paying the bills. It took 3 years before I wasn’t worried about the financial side of things every night.
Anyway, while I was trying to figure out how to get more business I was told to go and speak with Julie Patterson. Julie, had a much larger power boat and had been trying to do exclusive charters without much success. Her main problem was the price. My idea was to do a per person rate like Wadadli Catamarans and Kokomo Cats had been doing, but all the power boat companies were doing Exclusive Charter rates charging on average US $900 for the day back then. Anyway, her boat was on dry dock and it appeared as though she had given up. I approached her and she seemed immediately interested in working is some sort of partnership. Since she had paid for the insurance and was paying for storage she offered me the boat at cost as long as I maintained it and split the profits after operating expenses with her. This seemed a great opportunity for me and I took her boat right away. I then could start aggressively trying to get guests out of the hotels on the west coast. My Dad had a small property in Jolly Harbour where I could keep the boat and start tours from in the morning. The boat was perfect too with loads of space to sit 10 guests comfortably. It had a cabin, loads of storage space and plenty of shade too. After a few months I was still relying on Sunsail. The hotels wouldn’t sell my tour. I think they felt that I (being the widsurf bum) was not serious, but they didn’t know that the tour was something I had been doing all my life. When I was a little kid I would have to take guests from my grandparents hotel up to the islands, and I spent most of my time up there exploring anyway. I was serious and the tour was a great one. Still, I couldn’t get hotel guests though their sales reps. The Website that we had set up on day one was proving to be valuable and I was getting bookings that way. Many more people who didn’t book had seen in on the web and would go to their tour desks and hotel reps saying “we want to do eli’s eco tour”. After about 2 years of doing a few trips a week without their help, they started to understand that they were losing out on valuable commission. The reps and tour desks finally started to take notice. To this day however it is just crazy how many people work at the front desks of these hotels and just have no idea about what I do. I guess staff changes quickly and knowing about tours is just not part of the training. We have to constantly provide info to hotels about what we do. The funny thing is that the more “exclusive” the hotel the more lost the front desk staff seem to be. They know about what’s in the hotel but not much about what is out. Thank god for our website though because usually the guests know what’s going on and just need the hotel to make a booking (which we gladly pay 20% for by the way).
Anyway, after a year of using Julie’s boat, she decided that she needed to sell it. I went to every bank in Antigua and all wanted to know how much land I was putting up. I had a business plan….a working business with financials and they couldn’t care less. They wanted to only talk after I had shown them the collateral. Julie started to get impatient and I finally had to get my Dad to co-sign the loan with me. US $50,000 was a huge chunk of cash but it gave me enough o pay Julie off and to get a few other crucial things for the business. Now more than ever, I had to make it all work. TBC……….

Part 3 (written November 17, 2006)


After I finally got the loan, things were more stressful because business was still not as good as I knew it could be, and I had the bank to think about now. I couldn’t just scrape by like before…..now I had to find an extra US $1500 a month. It was at about this time that my internet bookings started to take off, and you can read all about that in the blog about “The power of the Internet”. Like I said before the reps in the hotels were even now taking notice of me. It was a great time for my business and I was enjoying being paid for doing what I loved doing. It was all working out, or so I thought. After a super busy year when all the maintenance and other big bills had been paid, I still didn’t have much to show for it. I took a few days trying to figure out where the money had gone. The books didn’t lie…..even after a busy year I wasn’t really making any money. I had worked sooo hard and had made Adventure Antigua a working company. The business was getting loads of recognition in the media and on the net and I felt like the business was here to stay. The tour operators and the hotels were booking my tour, and I was turning people away, but still after all that I hadn’t much of a profit. What the books showed was something that Xabier had told me when I first started out. Xabier is the owner of Wadadli Cats, by the way. Anyway, he said that it’s all about numbers as in numbers of people you take out. If you want to make a profit in this business you need to take large numbers of people. However I looked at it, doing tours with a 10 person maximum was never going to get me anywhere. Either the boat or my body would wear out before I could make enough money to get a mortgage and buy a home for myself. I started to notice several other problems at this point too which could threaten the newly acquired stability that I felt. One of them which was a total shocker had to do with the reps and hotel tour desks. Since I was getting so many bookings from the internet in the season, many times I would turn down bookings from hotel reps because I was full. After a while I noticed that their calls slowed down. I had many of them tell me that they didn’t want to call me anymore because every time they promoted my tour and got guests excited, I was full when they called me. They were tired of getting turned down by my company. I had worked so hard to get them to call me and as soon as I had them calling me it looked like I was going to lose them. Crazy but true!!! Another problem I was facing was the “piggy backers”. After I started my Eco Historical Tour and people in Antigua saw it doing well copycat tours started popping up. This is totally expected I guess but I knew that some of them would be able to gain market share immediately without doing any work. All of a sudden there were several tours with names like ECO TOUR modeling their tours after mine. I was more concerned with being flattened than being flattered. I had no choice to take the next step…..which was obviously to just get bigger.
All my internet people from both hotels and cruise ships had been telling me for 2 years that the main reason that they picked my tour was because it was small and “intimate”. “Personal” is what they called it. The big dilemma was how much to grow and how. Should I have several boats of similar size to the one I had now or just get one bigger boat? How much bigger should I get? What kind of boats/boat? What was most important when it came to design of a new boat? It took me about six months, but I finally found a power catamaran built by a company called Cooper Marine in St. Petersburg Florida. It was just by chance actually, because I was looking at a boat company from Belize up until then. Cooper Marine made boats specifically for excursions, and the one I ended up getting was built for a company in The Bahamas who backed out on it after it was almost finished. They had been trying to sell it for a year without success and had dropped the price several times. I got it for a great price I thought because the design was perfect for me and the numbers I thought I could carry was precisely what I was looking for. It had so much shade which is exactly what I was after too. It even had two cabins with a head (toilet) and a shower at the back. All I had to add were the seats and the huge ladders and it was ready to go. Finding financing for the boat was a bit easier than it was for the first loan, and along with three friends I went to collect the boat on Florida’s west coast in November of 2003. We had an awful trip from the Florida Keys to the Bahamas where we were all shocked by how rough it was in the Gulf Stream. It was soo windy and the waves were massive and short with currents making them truly unsafe for our trip across the channel. I figured that we would have calm seas while we passed through the Bahamas but it never eased up. We kept on going and finally got to The Turks and Caicos Islands a few days later. We were all tired and sore because the seas had been soo rough. The forecast didn’t look like it was going to ease up either. We had too keep going though because I had bookings in late November that I had to have the boat ready for. Also, my crew all had jobs that they had to be back for. We left Provo on a rough but sunny morning for Samana, Dominican Republic. This was the biggest crossing we had during the 1500 mile trip from Florida to Antigua. The boat kept crashing though the waves as all of us looked at each other with stress imprinted on our faces. I knew the boat wasn’t handling the short and steep waves well. About 90 miles out of Provo, I started hearing a knocking which immediately gave me the shivers. I stopped the boat in the rolling swell and did a search below deck. I found some major structural problems where it looked like the two “shells” that made up the boat were coming apart. After speaking about it, we decided that we had better turn back to Provo where we were sure to get repairs done or at least get flights back from. We slowly limped back to Provo and ended up getting in after the sky had tuned dark. I worried that the boat was in some major problems. I had just spent more money than I could imagine on a boat that I now couldn’t use. What was I going to do? …….To be continued on “part four”……….

Part Four (published first in Nov 21st 2006)

 

(i am at an internet cafe off island at the moment. the connection is slow and the computer is a crasher......i will spell check and edit this later. please excuse the mistakes)

We arrived in Provo, cold, tired, and stressed. We were not speaking much because the reality didn't sound too good. We were at the very least stuck up the creek without a paddle. I made some calls to Cooper Marine as soon as i got in and they agreed to put someone on a plane the next day. Two of my crew who had businesses to run back in Antigua flew out the next day as the guy from Cooper came in. This guy came off the plane without saying hi to me and carrying loads of attitude along with two boxes of repair materials. Before we even got to the car i stopped him and gave him a bit of my mind. It was a good thing i didn't tear him apart considering my mental state at the time. I was the victim here and he's giving me attitude!!!! Anyway, he said his main problem was that he had never left the country (USA) and didn't think that flying out to repair a boat he built was his idea of fun. I told him i was having way less fun and that i would have him back in Florida as soon as he made the simple repairs we needed to get us back home. Fortunately there was a good boat yard in Provo and the next morning we started the job with the help of a good Jamaican Fiberglass repair guy. The Cooper guy and the Jamaican cut away lifted laminations and prepared areas where i suggested we added more strcture. I have had quite a bit of experience over the years working in fiberglass and on boats and could easily see the problems. Of course, the Cooper Marine guy wanted to do as little as possible and didn~t see the need to add structure. He did a rushed job which was soo poor that i was worried it wouldnt last back to antigua. I knew we needed much more repairs which would be time consuming and costly. Cooper Marine never helped a bit. Please speak with me if you are ever thinking about getting one of their boats!!!!!!!!!!
Finally about 5 days later Chael and I set off from Provo again on our way to Samana, Rominican Republic. It was slow going as the seas hadñ't eased up and we ended up getting stuck in the middle of a storm which lasted most of the night. We took turns driving and trying to look out for other vessels. At one stage in i saw a light appear behind us appearing in and out of the torrential rain. At one stage i had to increase the speed to keep clear of it. Never saw what it was out there in the middle of the dangerous and famous "Mona Passage". Anyway, at sunrise we arrived like wet rats in Samana after a horrible night at sea. All we needed to do in Samana DR was get fuel and get outta there. We had to bribe 5 government officials because they told us that we had to clear customs and immigration first. We had to bribe them because they said it was a public holiday, and we were not going to get far in that noisy, dirty corrupt town without "playing ball". Anyway, we were happy to get out of that manic town and be on our way to San Juan. Once again we arrived at night and were met by US Coast Guard who were doing an operation off Puerto Rico. They told us to go into the port where they would do a search. They were very nice and after searching us and the boat released us into San Juan Harbour to get some needed rest. We slept like the dead and the next morning got fuel and left for the British Virgin Islands. As we arrived, the weather got so bad that i was worried about our trip from the BVI to St. Martin. Inside the BVI where it is normally calm there were huge waves and torrential rain. I heard later that several people died in flooding there. We arrived into Virgin Gorda's Spanish Town which was the last stop before our St. Martin journey, and it's where we were given the most hard core and disrespectful search by the customs officials yet. They wanted to "confiscate" a drill set and some other tools we had onboard simply because they liked them!!! After they left, i went to the BVI tourist board and made a formal complaint. It was that bad! Served us right i guess for being so honest. Most boats in transit dont bother clearing customs! Anyway, we moved around in the harbour to get a "birth". It was raining hard as hell and the boat next to us filled with a group of self proclaimed "red necks" invited us to have steaks with them on their yacht. We must have looked miserable or something, but the kind and warm hospitality was exactly what we needed. IT was some of the best steak i have ever had and the company was great too. I think they had been drinking all day in the rain by the time we got there and were very merry. At 5 am the next morning we set off for the 100 mile trip to St. Martin straight into some of the nastiest seas i have experienced. It was 8 hours of scary pounding into the sea with waves crashing over the bow and washing right across the deck and out the back. Chael and i kept on listening out for noises below deck and we kept checking the repairs that we could easly see. Having no life raft out there with a boat that already had problems in huge stormy seas was a stressful experience. St. Martin never looked so good. We arrived to flooded streets and mud everywhere but we were happy to be there. The next day we made our last 100 mile journey to Antigua. We had to laugh really because as we closed in on the final 10 miles the winds calmed down. In fact, for the next three weeks the weather was flat calm........1500 miles of rough dangerous seas where we nearly lost the boat, and we get home to another 3 weeks of perfectly calm weather.
Within a week we were taking full boats out on The new Eco Tour though and very quickly the news of the new boat spread. IT was as good as i thought it would be for the tour. We didn't have to change a thing and the tour was better now in my opinion. It really is a great design. We added one crew to make it easier to handle a larger group, and this worked great as well. I figured i could make it through the season with the repairs we had done in Provo since it had made it through all that rough ocean. Winter 03/04 was a busy season and spring stayed busy too. In fact summer 04 was almost as busy for the company as the winter season had been. We were turning away bookings again, and i started thinking about another boat and another tour. Why not? On the trip down from Florida, i had seen some boats by a company called Performance 40. Powerboat Adventures in Nassau were using these boats and swore by them. They were built stronger than normal and looked like fun. I enjoyed the Cooper boat but it was a bit big to take out on the weekend days off. These boats would be perfect for a new tour as well as a great boat to have fun with. Soooo...............................I went to Miami to see Bob the boat builder..........T.B.C.

Part 5 (published November 25, 2006)



.....continued from "part 4".......
After arriving in Miami, i went straight to see Bob the boat builder who was kinda short and to the point on the phone. He didn't try to sell me anything which i kinda found strange. When i got to his factory or warehouse he met me and took me to see several boats which were in varied stages of construction. He pretty much lets his boats do the pushing of the product. They are built tough like things were build in the USA in the "good old days". Of course, after my disaster with Cooper Marine, my main concern was strength, and you could see strength at every point with Bob's construction. He had been building boats for over 30 years and had seen it all. He told me storied about building boats with his best friend in the early 80s when most of the people who wanted "go-fast" boats were shady characters. His best friend went on to start one of the most famous "go-fast" boat companies...."Midnight Express", and Bob told me stories about how his friend building boats for people who would pay with cash in full. To me it sounded like something out of a movie like the Al Pacino film "Scarface". Later he mentioned that his friend did get arrested by the DEA for knowingly building boats for a big time drug runner. The joke was that part of his sentence was building several boats for the government. Funny......
Anyway, Bob was a no BS kinda guy. He said "what you see is what you get" and i believed him. When i asked him why he wasn't with his friend building the original Midnight Express boats he laughed and said that he had been hired by another friend, Ted Arison, to turn an old ship into a cruise liner. It took him several years but that ship ended up becoming the first of Carnival Cruise Lines' ships. He (re-)built that and put what is now the worlds largest cruise line on the water!!!
I was happy with what i saw for two reasons. Firstly, I could tell that Bob was an honest hard worker who didn't BS his way through life. The second thing that made me feel cool was seeing the boats being built. This was a very limited-production boat builder where each one is custom built to your needs. They are not finished like some of the big names out there like Contender, Intrepid, or Boston Whaler but there was no question that bob's boats were built to last a lot longer carrying much more weight through much worse seas. Bob said he could have one finished for me in just over three months, so I sent him a deposit the next day. I think that was in August of 2004, so i was thinking about having it ready for the busy winter tourist season.
The next month we did extensive work on the Eco boat built by cooper marine. It cost me a good chunk of change and poor Tony worked like a daemon in the worst possible conditions. When we stopped, i felt much better about the boat and was sure it would be fine through the next few seasons. We had beefed up and created more structure in the front of the boat using the best possible materials and workmanship. I had hired a professional Marine Surveyor and boat builder to oversea the job with Tony and together they had done an awesome job. I still would like to do more in the middle and aft of the boat but it was the front that was where my main concern was. The surveyor agreed and was happy with the outcome.
In October, i went to have a look at Bob's progress and was pleased to see that he had done some good work getting the boat prepared. I could see that it wouldn’t be finished for November like he had said, but I was fine with that considering I didn’t have all the money sorted out. Since my sister Nell was working with me, I decided to offer her some ownership in the business. She and my bro, Ali, were interested in finding some money to help pay for the new boat and come on board with my growing company. They quickly found out the same thing that I already knew. Banks in Antigua don’t care about your business! All they want to know is how much land you are gonna put up. Anyway, in the end (some time in May 2005) they managed to come up with $90,000 to help me pay for the Performance 40.
Yes May 2005!!!! What happened over the winter was quite simple. In December just before Christmas I had a disaster. We had just picked up some cruise passengers from the cruise terminal, and were on our way out when I heard a strange sound coming from the port engine on the Eco Boat. Immediately I knew it wasn’t good, and after taking them to a beach nearby for a swim and some lunch, we went in and dropped off the guests. We didn’t charge them a dime of course. Anyway, mechanics meet us in Jolly Harbour and tell us that we have big problems which require the engine to be taken apart. Looks like it may be a total wreck, but I am told that it is still under warranty. I think for a minute what the implications are……..Warranty………so what? In the Caribbean a warranty isn’t what it is in the USA. Here they take the engine to pieces in order to find what is wrong with it, then ship the broken parts which show the cause of the failure back to the manufacturer, then they decide if they are gonna replace or rebuild. I spoke with the good people at Marine Power Services who estimated that it could take 6 weeks or longer considering the holidays and holiday shipping delays. This was December 20th I think. MPS tell me what I am already thinking: “You could always buy a new motor, and end up with a spare when the other if fixed or replaced”. I asked them to immediately find out the cost and approximate shipping time. We had full tours for the next 2 weeks in between the holidays. It’s always the busiest time of the year for us. Perfect!!!!
I got a call an hour later saying that the engine was US $23,000 and could be shipped and landed here within a week only if we air freighted it. Wow! On the one hand, I could be up and running within 10 days, but on the other, I couldn’t afford the expense. So what do I do? If I don’t buy the engine I may have to close down because of not being able to operate for 6 weeks or longer, and if I do buy the engine I won’t be able to pay my regular bills at the end of the month……
I went to the bank and wired the money to Yanmar USA, and the engine was shipped later that day. The stress was pretty hard core, and my Christmas wasn’t as relaxing as everyone else’s. Over the next week we pulled the boat out of the water to do other maintenance and found major eminent problems with the propulsion systems as well. My girlfriend at the time, Chantal, who I had been with before I started the company, was about to go off to college too. I couldn’t spend time with her as I had to be at the boat. It was all too much for me, and I came down with the flu! It was the worst I had in years and when she left, I felt lower than I had done in years. The business was about to fail, I was sick as a dog, customers, their reps, and hotels were all pissed off with me, my girlfriend had gone, it terrible weather………..it all just sucked!
Anyway, Tony, who works for me told me to chill at home, and he would make sure the boat was sorted out. He worked like an ox again down in Jolly Harbour getting the steering and propulsion system all fixed and ready for the new engine to be put in. When the engine finally arrived I was better enough to help them put it in. The next day we were ready to put “Arawak Odyssey” back in the water. Two days later we were back in business and totally broke with all kinds of bills, employees, Harriette and banks to pay. Not to mention Bob. Tony knew what was going on and told me that he had money put away….he told me to pay him when things got better. He is the best! Harriette said the same thing…..always looking after me.
I called a friend in Miami and told him to go and take some photos of my boat being built to see what stage of construction it was in. This was the start of Jan and Bob had originally said it would be done in November. When I saw the pics I knew it still had some months to go, so I told bob that he had to wait for more money as well. By the middle of January it all looked as though things were gonna work out. We were exceptionally busy and the rest of the season looked good too. Bob didn’t finish the boat until May! I knew I would miss the season and I was also pretty tight on cash, so I didn’t get too mad with him. He had been building his house and had do deal with several hurricanes after the boat started being built.
After my terrible trip from Florida in the Eco Tour boat, I knew I didn’t want to bring the boat down again under its own steam, so we hunted for good shipping rates. They didn’t exist! Because the boat’s length overall was 45 feet long it was too long to fit on the 40 foot container “flat rack”. Also, at 10 feet wide it was too wide as well. The shipping companied wanted me to pay for the same shipping rates as four 40 foot containers. The rates were astronomical and we couldn’t afford it.
In late may, my brother Alexander and I set off to pick up the boat. Everyone was worried about our safety (not only because we were going to be out in the ocean, but they were more afraid we would kill each other).
Let’s save the next part of the story for another blog entry…….
The photo above is of the inside of one of bob's boats. You don't normally see that much structure in boats these days.

Part 6 (published November 28, 2006)
 

Alexander Fuller a.k.a "Ali" has been working for one of the gaming companies here on island for longer than my company has been around, and doesn't get to go out boating as much as he did when we were kids. Back then we were out almost every day either boating or windsurfing. Anyway, the late nights at the office keep him off the water way too much. He was due a holiday in May and decided to come along with me to collect the boat from North Miami Beach. All we had to do was outfit it with all the life jackets and anchors and general safety stuff. Getting bits for the boat in Antigua isn't always easy so we made sure we had everything we needed. The trip was 1350 nautical miles to Antigua and I knew how much open ocean there was going to be too. We got some nice rain jackets too just in case and a few other things. We Antiguans always shop too much when we go to the USA.
I thought about the problems i had in the Dominican Republic on my last trip down from Florida and decided that i would try to make the 350 mile trip from Grand Turk to Puerto Rico skipping the DomRep altogether. I needed more fuel than our tank held so we got 12 5 gallon tanks from Wal-Mart too. Don't u just love Wal-Mart? When buying our GPS (global positioning system) i made sure it was a very good chart plotter and got the chip containing the charts for Florida and the Caribbean. When i go to big boat supply stores i just want one of everything. My mother had urged me to buy a life raft, but i knew that my money was tight and had to decide between the latest EPIRB and the expensive life raft. An EPIRB or Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon sends out a distress signal that allows the beacon to be located by the satellite system and search and rescue aircraft to locate the people, boats and aircraft needing rescue. The one i was looking at was registerable which meant that you send in your info along with your closest family’s contact numbers. When the coast guard first receives the signal they get in touch with your contacts to make sure it’s not a false signal. This also alerts your family of a problem. I had heard too many stories where the end of those stories was "if they had an EPIRB they would be alive today", so i went with the US $1300 EPIRB. After all, if we sank and had the life raft instead of an EPIRB it could be days before anyone knew there was a problem and then where the hell would they start looking. The best option would be to have both, and next time i will.
Ali warned me that this was a holiday for him, and he wanted to 1) Eat well 2) do some fishing and 3) sleep in hotels each night. I knew where all the good fuel ports were from Miami to Antigua and knew that all had hotels and restaurants. I also knew that this boat was way way way faster than the Eco Boat (arawak odyssey), so went over the planned course with Ali who agreed that it looked good. We paid and thanked bob, loaded all the gear into the boat, got 360 gallons of fuel and set off for Chub Key which was gonna be the fist place that we could clear customs and immigration. Just as we were leaving the fuel station, a boat came in and said that they had tried to go out but it was too rough....!!!!! Great! Just GREAT!!!!!!!!
Ali and i had to get back in a week so that he could get back to work, so we were not gonna stay in port unless it truly was bad. Also, if anything was gonna go wrong with the boat, i wanted it to go wrong close to Miami. We left north Miami beach like a bat out of hell going directly into the grey waves. We left much later than we wanted to because the fuel station was having trouble processing my credit card for all that fuel. We were late and I was pushing it pretty hard and the boat was crashing as hard through the Gulf Stream’s nasty waves. Bam Bam Bam Bam CRASH CRASH....after an hour ali said we had to stop for a pee (and cigarette break) and to stretch the sore legs. Bob had told me when i first spoke with him about the boats "you will break your body before you break my boat". I smiled, shook my head and put the three engines back into gear. It got very rough at one stage and we did have to slow down, but we finally arrived into Chub Cay at about 4:50 pm. It had taken us four hours, and as we pulled in the fuel attendant told us that the customs and immigration people had already gone home. The thought of sitting and wasting time in tiny Chub Cay until the next morning when they returned to "clear" us into The Bahamas didn’t sound good to me, so i looked at the charts and decided to make a run for Nassau, New Providence which was another few hours away. We arrived at dark and pulled into a tiny marina on the main stretch on the Nassau side opposite Paradise Island and Atlantis Hotel. Technically we were not allowed to leave the boat until we had cleared customs (as with all countries), but we were tired and Ali had made me promise hotels. Don't tell anyone, but we did check into a nice hotel next door only to return the next morning to clear in and get fuel.
When we were collecting the boat from Bob we met up with Nigel, the owner of Powerboat Adventures on Nassau, who was checking out another boat that was being built. He knew that my engines were brand new and offered me the use of his boat life to do my 10 hour service. He also called his mechanic in Nassau who agreed to do the job for us if we brought the oils and filters. These high tech engines are the most expensive "four stroke" variety which are way more fuel efficient and have way lower emissions than the older models. They need careful maintenance, so we took the boat over to Powerboat Adventures and left it there to get the very important 10 hour break in service done.
Time for a "full english breakfast" which is one of my bro's favorite things in the world.
We got back as the service finished and off we went into the high winds and choppy waters off Nassau. We were on a long run to Long Island passing the beautiful Exumas. It was a long day covering well over 200 miles i think. We were about 20 miles away from the marina and hotel on Long Island when a gear cable came undone. When we stopped for a break out there one of the engines got stuck in neutral. After spending about 45 minutes inside the cramped consol, i figured how to temporarily fix it by jamming it into forward gear and over-riding an electrical control which stopped you from starting it in forward gear. We were on our way again and rushing one more time. Rushing....It is the thing i tell all new boaters to never do. You never should rush when you are out on a boat unless you are in a race. It is dangerous! Anyway, i didn't know the place well and wanted to get in before dark. We finally got in just after sunset and immediately started getting attacked by the most aggressive mosquitoes we had ever seen. Luckily we were met by the hotel mini van who rushed us off to the hotel. We had a lovely shower to wash off 8 hours of salt spray and sunscreen, and headed for the restaurant. We had seen two of the Powerboat Adventures boats in the Marina as well as another fancy powerboat, and remembered hearing Nigel say that his boats were helping a film shoot. At the bar downstairs we saw what it was about......There were actors and crew from the new Disney Pirates Of the Caribbean movie. If you saw the second one then you will remember the scene when they are sword fighting on a beach...., well that was 30 miles from Long Island in the Bahamas. Each day the boats had to transport the crew and actors out to that deserted spot to film. If you see it again check how windy it was!!!!! Windy = Rough!
So the next morning bright and early we set off on a long trip to The Turks and Caicos Islands. We studied the charts that we had and saw that there were several routes. One was shorter and took us outside Long Island into the rough seas which were super rough at that point....too rough. The other zig zagged along Long Island (which didn't get its name by chance) around a few other Bahamian islands and shallow spots. Ahhh yes......shallow spots..hahahahahaha
So we say that the chart said a 6 feet deep sand bank for like 30 miles along our route. We figured we would take this route because it was just too rough outside the island. Anyway, we needed just over 3 feet to be safe and figured that we would not go around the sand bank adding another 15 miles onto our trip. We would go over it.......BIG MISTAKE!!!! DONT RUSH!!!!!
We could see it getting shallower and shallower as the tide dropped, until we finally slowed down and decided to trim up the motors and fish slowly. We only had 2 more miles to go and we would be in deep water on our way to The Turks and Caicos in no time. We started fishing trying to see where it was deepest zig zagging through the very shallow spots on the sand bank. The tide kept dropping and I told Ali to reel the line in as we had more to worry about. I could see nice deep blue water up ahead but there was not a deep enough channel to it. So close and yet so far. We were starting to churn up sand behind the boat too. All of a sudden we were aground. we were only doing about 2 miles per hour so we revved her in reverse and got off, but now where?. We turned off the motors so not to suck up any sand into the intakes and stood up on the front of the boat to see if we could figure out how to get out of this sandy maze. We had to laugh at our situation......the most beautiful colours in the world, great fishing, calm seas clear skies.....but we were in danger. We possibly were stuck for 5 hours until the tides came up. In Antigua we don't have to worry about it because our tided are about 18 inches at a max and even that is in extreme cases. Here it seemed to be 4 feet. Ali jumped over and pushed the front of the boat around to face the 90 degrees off to our right pointing us toward the detour we had opted not to take. If we made it there it could be 12 miles just to get to the blue that was right in front of us on the other side of the sandy shallow spot. The water reached just above his knees. What a joke! We had some nasty white bread, mustard and packed tuna fish. Lunch first, and then we would try for the original detour. Anyway, after lunch we set off in the 3 feet of clear water just above the sand bank and carefully made our way out to what we knew would be a much longer but deeper water trip. After about 10 minutes when it got a little deeper, Ali saw something and told me to look off to our left. There was a 12 inch line on the bottom cutting through the sand and grass going in the direction we wanted to go. Some bigger boat had experienced the same thing but didn't have the luxury of trimming up their motors. They had kept on going cutting a tiny path through the sand bank. We looked at each other and knew that if they had done it then we could too. All we had to do was follow their "dredged" channel very carefully and very slowly. We did and in an hour we were in the deep waters at the bottom (south-east) side of Long Island. Yeee ha! We had a problem now......we were very late and not even half way to Provodinciales. Anyway, we zoomed down past Crooked Island, and then past Acklins Island each time staying on the leeward sides. It was about 5 pm when we got to the end of Acklins Island and i knew we wouldn't make it into The Turks and Caicos until way way after dark. It looked like with the winds and seas that we were now seeing it would be an all night session. Screw that i thought. Let’s get into a safe harbour as close as possible to the Caicos Islands and then set off first thing for "Provo".
Gosh it was rough! Pounding straight into oncoming waves that shook the boat and our bodies, i didn't like it one bit. The sun had now set and we were over 50 miles from Mayaguana Island which would be our last (unscheduled) stop in the Bahamas. The funny thing is that on my first trip down with the Eco Boat, we had also slept in Mayaguana. Both times we arrived at night in the dark into what the charts said was a small harbour protected by a barrier reef. Thank god for the GPS chart plotter. If we didn't have that we would have been just another of the thousands of wrecks across the West Indies. We could hear the waves breaking when we arrived but couldn't see them. We slowly powered into the harbour until it was calm enough and shallow enough to anchor. Xtreme as we were calling her for the trip, has a nice cabin and we had no choice but to try using it for the first time. There would be no proper hotel for Ali tonight, but we slept like babies with the gentle rocking and nice moonlight that reminded us of camping trips we did as kids. Before going to bed, we had more tuna and white bread with mustard sandwiches. YUM!
This journal entry is getting out of hand huh? A bit long.....so i will end it here for the time being. The pic above was taken by ali when we were beating through the waves on our way to Mayaguana. As you can see....it was rough!

Part 7 (Published Nov 29, 2006)

 

Just like the last time I was in Mayaguana, i powered out of the harbour before the sun came up bound for the island of Provodinciales. Since we had gone a bit North the night before it was a slightly better angle going across to Provo. We could get some good speed up since we were going across the waves instead of pounding into them. Since we had been eating pure crap for the past two days and hadn't had any breakfast we were like wolves. Don't ever mess with my bro when he hasn't eaten.....I could see the wildness in his eyes and i was worried. Worried that the lunch menu in the marina would not be ready at 11 am after we had cleared in with Customs and Immigration.
While we were filling in the forms he kept looking at the restaurant 150 feet away, so when we burst in there at 11, he was ready for action!!!!
We started with conch fritters which are better in the Turks and Caicos than anywhere on the planet. They even have a conch farm there. Then it was the mandatory chicken wings which we always seem to sample when we are at a new place. I don't remember what I had for a main but remember looking in amazement at the Kobe beef burger that Ali had delivered. It was massive and just what he wanted. The look of pure satisfaction was amuzing. I wonder if he even remembers. We were very tired still and decided to take a day off....after all....it was the NBA finals that night. We got a hotel room in the marina, and as Ali settled in for an afternoon of relaxation and sleep, i went back to see if i could properly fix the gear cable. Since it came undone just before Long Island, i hadn't had time to properly fix it, and had been starting the right engine in forward gear. It was permanently stuck in forward. After 2 hours in the tiny cramped space of the consol I managed to fix it properly with the help of some waterproof tape which held a pin in place locking the cable to the shift lever. You know, i didn’t have to mess with it for 6 months. Nothing in the world like waterproof duct tape. I don't even remember who won the basket ball that night, but know that the next day i was well relaxed and ready for the biggest and most dangerous of our entire journey. Turks and Caicos to San Juan. I knew how much fuel we had been burning up until now and calculated that if we topped up one last time on the outer most island, Grand Turk, we would have enough fuel to get us comfortably to San Juan, Puerto Rico. As usual things never work as you expect them to. We cleared out early that morning and made the fairly long run to Grand Turk where we were immediately told that we had to clear in again to get fuel, and customs was a few miles down the road!!! What!!! They got to be kiddin. Anyway after doing all of that we were once again behind schedule and rushing. Don’t rush!!!
We had to do 300 miles and it was 2pm when we left. This meant we would be at sea at night again. It appeared to be calm though which was cool with me. As the sun set we were passing the famous "Silver Banks" and saw many big fishing boats anchored there. They deployed smaller boats to go and do some sort of fishing and they were scattered over the place. All of the big boats had people on them waving us over. They looked like they were in trouble and were waving and waving, but Ali and i knew better. Here we are out in the middle of nowhere with some of the poorest people in the Caribbean calling us over to their boats. Hmm....we knew they were fine, and we were not as safe as they were. We still had 150 miles to do in the dark.....
Just before it got dark we noticed quite a bit of junk floating in the sea. Bits of branches, coconuts, a big piece of wood, plastic crates. It was as if we had come into some kind of current which passes through the Mona Passage (the channel out of the Caribbean Sean between The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. I became very concerned upon seeing all this crap in the water because it was another way for boats to sink. I remember reading the awesome book "Adrift" about a guy who drifted for 76 days in a life raft after hitting something while sailing. He never saw what he hit and only had time to deploy the life raft and jump in before his boat sank of the Cape Verde islands near Africa's West Coast. Hmm LIFE RAFT..... We didn't have one, and as it got darker so did our mood. I can just hear my mom urging me to get the life raft. Moms always know best!
I have been told that the other blogs were too long soo i will leave this one here. The photo was taken by me as Ali drove the boat during our trip. Enjoy.

Part 8 (November 30, 2006)


......To make matters worse, the wind had been picking up very slowly as the sun went down, and by the time it went dark i had to slow her down quite a bit. We were slamming down off the waves, and the worst part was that i couldn't see them. When it’s rough during the day i can speed up in between waves and maintain a good average speed. I just keep my hands on the throttles and "work" them, but at night this didn't work. In the end i had to slow her down to 15 knots and even then it was scary. My brother loves to describe that night. He does a better job than i do because most of the time i was driving i was concentrating so hard i didn't have time to absorb the experience. I will try to describe it like he does....here goes:
"It was so rough that we were doing between 12 and 15 knots going directly into the waves. We couldn't see them but they were obviously huge as we would climb up them and then free fall crashing back down into the dark sea".
It was scary....very scary. When it’s dark at sea on a calm night your mind can run all over the place, but when it’s as rough as it was that night you think terrible things. After an hour or two i started to think about how much more fuel we must be burning since at 12-15 knots we were surely not being efficient. We burned less fuel per mile going 25-30 mph, so i began to worry about our range. At this rate of probable fuel burn we may not make it to San Juan. I told ali to take the helm and to slow down while i looked at the chart to see if there was another port closer to us. We were out in the middle of nowhere 1/2 way between Grand Turk and San Juan in a terrible unfriendly angry ocean. Of course cell phones don't work out there and neither would a VHF radio at that range. Nobody to ask for advice, and if anything were to happen to us.....it would just be the EPIRB that would save us. I had packed a "grab bag" which contained a waterproof VHF handheld radio, the EPIRB, four life jackets, a gallon of water, a flare kit, and a hand held GPS. It wasn't much but i kept looking back at it during the night to make sure it hadn't moved from where i left it.
I saw that Mayaguez on the West coast was a bit closer to us than San Juan was. It was also a better angle against the waves for us. Going there would put us back as much as a 1/2 a day possibly but i knew we would get there. Getting safely to San Juan was not looking great. Doubting yourself out there is a terrible feeling, but i am glad i did. We made the wise choice and started heading towards Mayaguez. Just at that moment we started seeing the lightning just off our right side. GREAT! Windy, rough, incredibly wet and cold, and now thunderstorms were coming. It got rougher...........and waves crashed occasionally into the boat.
It was about midnight and i had been driving since early that morning with only a short break in Grand Turk. I was totally exhausted, cold, and stressed out. Ali was not much different, but he had to drive as i was falling asleep standing up. He was cold and miserable but took over without complaining. I lay down behind him with half my body on the cooler and the other half on one of the two person seats. I was shaking with cold and clenching my teeth with stress and the cold. I think i actually may have slept for 30 minutes during the hour or two that i lay there which was plenty. Ali later told me that he would look back every few minutes to make sure i was still there. He said he was terrified he would look back and not see me, and he even said that if that happened he would just have jumped over too. Weird huh, but when you sit there in the darkness cold, wet, scared, tired, and stressed you think about all kinds of things. When a wave broke into the boat practically landing on me.....it was time to get up. Ali was happy to sit back down and hug his knees to try to warm up. We were not in the rain but the lightning was getting closer, and i was worried about how bad it could get. We were now in hurricane season and the weather can change pretty quickly. My mind started to wander. I though about my life up until that point, the places i had been, the things i had seen, the experiences i have had.........I though about my family, girlfriend, and friends. I thought about the young people in my life who died too young. I thought about the things they missed out on. I thought about my high school classmates: Kieth Scotland, Brian Dailey, and Mervin Barns who all died in a terrible car accident during our final semester at school. I thought about my two young aunts who were claimed by cancer. I thought about Inigo Ross who co-founded Wadadli Catamarans. He was lost at sea on a rough day between St. Vincent and St. Lucia. I think about these people often and that night out there I though about them again. What should i do if i make it back alive? What do i need to change in my life? I don't think i prayed, but i did lots of reflection. It was not a good night.....or maybe it was. It made me think about my life and that can be good sometimes i guess.
Anyway, the GPS said we had 40 miles to go and i could see the glow coming from the city of Mayaguez. At night in the Caribbean you can usually see the glow coming from the next island's lights, and finally this was a slight comfort. At this point i started hearing the US Coast Guard speaking to a boat somewhere that was in distress. Fifteen minutes later they made a report about another boat off the North Coast of PR that had made a single distress call. They advised boats too look out for any sign of that boat. Anyway, i kept on going and when we got closer the seas started to drop down. When we were about 8 miles away it started getting calm. At about 3 miles away it got glass calm as we were now in the behind the protection of West coastline. Ali moved to the front of the boat to lay flat on one of the bench seats, and immediately fell asleep. The sky had colour in it now and slowed for a second to take a photo. It was 4:38 am on June 8th according to the digital image i have on my computer and you can see the sunlight and ali sleeping in his wet clothes in the front of the boat. I will put that up at the top when i am done. Finally i cruised into what the GPS said was the harbour. It was still not light enough to see where i was, but i knew it was calm enough and shallow enough to anchor. We would rest a bit and then go look for customs and immigration, and then fuel. My fuel light was flashing and we had less than 60 gallons left in the extra plastic tanks. We may have made it to San Juan, but i am not so sure. It was a good thing we changed course. My dad and Steve Mendes had done this same trip before in similar conditions and had run out of fuel off san Juan. they were towed in luckily.
Anyway, after dropping anchor, i woke up ali to move him into the cabin and fell asleep in my wet and salty clothes.....thank God we were safe!

Part 9 (published December 1st 2006)

We woke up to the sounds of a city with all the car horns and sirens that make up that reality. It was about 8 am and we pulled up the anchor to move over to the main dock. I had found it strange that we hadn't been stopped by the coast guard yet. After all, this was a 45 foot off-shore boat with triple outboards. This was the stereotype for drug boats and I was sure that we would set off all kinds of alarms coming in from out to sea at night. Towards the end in the calm I was doing about 40 knots too!
We got to the dock and still saw nobody. I saw someone official looking speaking with the crew of a ship behind us and went to ask him where I could clear in. He looked at me in amazement and asked me to repeat myself. You see the dock was very high and you couldn't see our boat below the concrete edge. He immediately got on his VHF radio calling several people. He told me to go back to the boat and wait for customs. First came customs in a jeep with three officers and a dog. They may have been called homeland security.....I can't remember. There was another car that pulled up with local police, then another group who came from the ship terminal. We had officers all around the boat wanting to know what we were up to. Ali and I had our passports and boat papers ready but they were not happy with us. Why I don't know because we hadn't done anything wrong. I think they were ashamed that we had come in without anyone knowing. Anyway, they jumped on the boat with their dog and big black boots and started searching. They turned the boat inside out looking for drugs I guess. It was very hot and we were very tired. All we needed was some fuel and a meal. At about 10 am they told me I could now go and clear in with immigration which was in the town 35 minutes walk away. Nice huh? The fuel truck starting filling our tank and when he was done took me to pick up burgers, and even took me to immigration. It’s so nice to meet cool people every now and then when you have been surrounded by mean people. Anyway, at about 12 we pulled out of Mayaguez (FINALLY) ready for a quick trip to San Juan and then on to the BVI. It was pretty calm in the lee of Western Puerto Rico, but then we hit the North-West coast. Oh my God!!!! It was rougher than anything we had seen up until that point. There were waves about 10 to 12 feet high but the thing that made them super bad was the steepness. They were what you describe as short waves with one steep wave followed by another and another and so on. As had been the case most of the way down we had to go straight into them along the Northern Puerto Rican coast trying to get to San Juan. It was awful even though it was sunny and clear. The boat was taking a terrible beating and we got several big waves over the bow. What would happen is that I would get the timing wrong every now and then and the front of the boat would just go right through a steep wave instead of riding over the top. When this happened we would usually get about 300 gallons of water into the boat in an instant. This was never fun and after about 45 minutes of this I decided that the angle was just too bad. If we slowed down we seemed to get more water over the bow and if we went fast enough to avoid this, we ended up pounding the boat too hard after falling off these monsters. I decided to do something that I had never done in all the years of power-boating….I decided to “tack” like a yacht going into the wind at angles towards San Juan. I would go out to sea for 3 or 4 miles and then turn the bow through the waves and head back at a comfortable angle into shore a few miles up the coast. We were probably doing about 15 miles per hour but actually doing about 8 miles per hour towards San Juan. It was very very rough and windy. I think the currents coming out between Puerto Rico and The Dominican Republic were going along the North-East coast of Puerto Rico in a North-Easterly direction, but the wind and waves were going the opposite direction making a dangerous mess of the ocean around us. We slowly got closer to San Juan where I expected the Coast guard, homeland security or some other authority to come out and stop us, but thankfully it never happened. We arrived outside San Juan Harbor sometime around 5 PM and stopped for a pee break and for ali to have a cigarette. We also stopped to try to decide what to do. We had two choices which comprised of chilling in San Juan for the night in a nice hotel or to keep going on to Tortolla where we would surely get in sometime after dark. Ali had to be at work in a few days and after all the stress in Mayaguez, we decided to push on to the beautiful BVI. We knew it well too which made us feel as though we were getting into our own neighborhood. After San Juan, the Puerto Rican Coast seemed to calm down significantly and we were able to point the boat right towards the North-West end of St. Thomas, USVI and cruise at about 25 knots. Before we left behind Puerto Rico we saw massive schools of small tuna thrashing about on the surface. We couldn’t see what they were eating but all the birds in the area had heard about the bounty too and it was a carnival of a feeding frenzy. We wished we had enough time to fish for a bit but we were in that RUSH which had plagued us since the start. After Puerto Rico and before the USVI the waves started getting confused again and we had to slow down a bit after getting some awful crashes off the tops of some steep ones.
It was very dark by the time we got to the USVI and we kept going and faster than most of our trip so far. The USVI and BVI has mostly protected waters and we were able to do about 35 knots going up in between these dark islands on out way to Nanny Cay, Tortolla.
I hoped nothing was floating out there in the channel that would end out trip for us. At that speed hitting a log wouldn’t be cool. Anyway, we pulled into Nanny Cay at about 9 PM and went to get a room straight away. We didn’t need fuel and we only wanted a place to sleep for the night. Like real naughty brothers we didn’t clear customs or immigration before or after our sleep in Tortolla. If you remember what happened the last time I cleared into the BVI you will know why. Before going to sleep we had dinner at Peg Legs and I think we were sleeping on the way back to the room finding it just by luck. As I said, we were outta there before the fuel dock or anyone was open to see a big go fast boat tearing out of Tortolla. We felt like real bandits as we pulled out but I don’t think anyone missed us.
Nobody should go to the British Virgin Islands without making a stop at The Baths in Virgin Gorda, and Ali stressed that we had to stop. It was out last stop before we went on to St. Martin and we took a mooring to have an early morning swim and snorkel. As usual the Baths were beautiful, and we relaxed there for an hour before thinking about moving on. The Baths consists of several beautiful coconut fringed beaches divided by massive smooth grey rocks and the clearest waters you have seen. You can walk/hike through and under the rocks between the beaches and/or swim around them. We did some lovely snorkeling……. swimming down deep alongside the rocks, then we swam through caves in the rocks, checking out all the colourful fish both big and small. We saw a huge barracuda and a pretty big ray as well as large schools of tiny pilchards. It was a lovely peaceful break and we had our fill before going back to the boat. It was the first time we could enjoy a bit of relaxation in days. When we dropped the mooring we had another 100 miles to go directly into the waves towards St. Martin, but something strange had happened. The winds had dropped! Was it possible? Were we going to get lucky with calm seas on the way to St. Martin? It sure looked like it, and we kept the speed at around 28 knots all the way to St. Martin going through what were probably 4 foot waves. Lovely! We had to stop about 10 miles off to add fuel from the plastic containers, but we still managed to pull into St. Martin in time for a late lunch. I wanted to stay there for a day and to clear in properly. We knew the immigration was near the cruise terminal so approached the area slowly to see where we could dock up. As we got closer we saw a guy in a golf cart on the main cruise dock waving us down. We went closer and he said he was from the port authority and that we couldn’t be so close in a boat like ours to the Cruise Ship that was in port. We told him that we were just there to pick up some bits and pieces for the boat and would be leaving later that day or early the next morning. The guy said not to bother clearing in and to just go to Bobby’s Marina and tie up. Crazy I know, but that is St. Martin for you. The Dutch side of St. Martin has no real customs as it’s a free port, and boats usually don’t bother clearing in. It’s not legal but seems to be ignored most of the time, and in this case encouraged by an official. I have friends in St. Martin and we met up for dinner later that night after some shopping on the famous “Front Street” and securing a nice hotel as well. It ended up being a very very late night of intense partying as ali and I celebrated making it this far. Our friend Ricardi was our guide to all the late night spots and as usual was the best host in St. Martin. The next morning was a hard one, and the pounding I had experienced in the boat all the way from Florida was now taking place in my head. “I am never drinking again” I heard myself say to Ali, and with that I heard a crash of lightning outside just to add to the pain. I took a look from the hotel window to see sheets of rain falling. Oh well….we were not in a rush because we had less than 100 miles to get back to home and we could be there anytime before 8 am tomorrow morning. We didn’t feel like powering 100 miles in the rain and lightning either. My Dad who loves to know what we are up to when we are having adventures, and he was extra happy now to be able to reach us on our cell phones. He kept calling with weather updates and assured us that it was gonna clear up. He is an addicted weather junkie. With a break in the weather sometime after lunch we set off on our last ride. It was pretty bumpy but the angle was good and within 4 hours we were closing in on Jolly Harbour…..Ali shouted out “let her run” and I cranked it up to max RPM @ 6100. The Yamaha F225 four strokes seemed to enjoy the last few miles at wide open throttle and just before we slowed at the harbour mouth we were doing 53 mph on the speed-o. Mom and Dad were there to welcome us and gave us extra hugs. I think they knew how bad it had been for us after speaking to us a few days earlier. Although Ali and I were glad to be home in one piece with the boat, we were silently sad that another big adventure was over. As brothers we don't get to do them like we did in the old days. The drizzle that started as we left the boat seemed to make the reality of being back a little more sobering. Ali had a 5-midnigh shift the next day and I had a hell of a lot of Red Tape to sort out. Back to Reality!
The top photo of the Moon Jelly was taken at the baths as well as the one below of Ali in the middle of the pilchards. Enjoy!

 
Part 10 (published Dec 4, 2006)

After we got back to Antigua, I had to do a dummy run of the Xtreme Circumnavigation Tour that I had envisioned to make sure that it was fun and flowed properly. I also had to get photos and a brochure done quickly. The pic above was done by Roddy while doing a job on Caribbean Helicopters. I didn’t want to use this new boat for the same old Eco Tour type thing and thought that something very very different than was already out there was needed. I had contacted Andrew who is one of the main owners of Stingray City and convinced him that an alliance would be a great idea. He mentioned that several companies had spoken with him about doing combined tours before but none had come through. I think he thought originally that I would be the same, but when I picked he and his wife up that first day he realized I wasn’t just a talker. The first demo tour was great, and everything seemed to be timed perfectly. To this day we haven’t changed a thing, and I still think it’s an excellent tour. We make 5 activity stops during the tour around Antigua. There is no other tour in Antigua that does that. The speed and comfort of the boat allows us to make this many stops without ever feeling rushed. I keep thinking about doing another tour, but I still haven’t come up with something nearly as good. Maybe in the spring we will do something new. I dunno…
Nothing dramatically different has happened for Adventure Antigua since we got Xtreme and we are now in our second busy season. I guess I could say that one of the interesting changes that happened last February was that I started taking more time off from driving the boats. I broke my knee very badly three years ago and since then I have had three operations. The last one I had at the end of Feb was just “damage control” according to my doc. My Doc, Mr. Justin Cobb, is one of the world’s leading orthopedic surgeons and happens to be a family friend. After smashing up the bones in my knee joint, I then tore up the cartilage. He says the knee “is not good” and finally advised me to lay off driving the boat. There is quite a bit of bone on bone “rubbing” in the knee which is made worse by driving the boat while standing up. I find it very difficult to drive without standing. My life has changed dramatically since all these knee problems…..I was a very active windsurfer and then kitesurfer, and now I can’t even ride a bike. It has given me more time to spend on my business which on one hand has been good, but I sometimes feel trapped in this “broken body”. Not having the active physical release is hard and it has taken its toll. I did take a month totally off the boat back in March and since then have worked on and off. There is no doubt that my knee is much less painful when I am not on the boat, but life without boating too wouldn’t be worth it. Its hard enough not being able to windsurf/kitesurf. Who knows maybe I will get the total knee replacement sooner and you will see me out windsurfing again. For now, I will keep working on the Xtreme boat most days.
The History of AA saga is now up to date (december 2006) and I will just give you the history as it happens. I am not sure where this blog is going to go, or what I am gonna ramble on about, but I will try to make it interesting in some way. If not I will still have some cool Antigua photos for ya. I hope you Enjoy.