the team in training

Tuesday was the third marlin practice session for team Xtreme Caribbean Real Estate and the excitement as we left port was fever pitched. Tony, Big John, Francis, Choppa were all on hand with me to set out in search of the target species for the 41st annual Antigua Sport Fishing Tournament. Registration is just a few days away and although we didn’t release any marlin in our previous two practice runs, this morning we were more confident than ever. On our first practice run last week we went out in search of some FADs and managed to only find one. A FAD or a fish aggregating device is essentially an anchored bit of debris both floating and submerged which attracts a massive variety of small fish. They are usually set way out off-shore in secret locations usually in depths of about 2000 feet. This means that the average length of rope is usually 6000 feet (2000 meters). Wherever there are many small fish there will always be larger ones and FADs can be places of great excitement and bounty. Most are set illegally in our waters by fishermen from our neighboring French island; Guadeloupe. My dad and his friends caught 18 mahi mahi at a FAD several weeks ago in just 3 hours. Mahi Mahi was the special on all the menus in Antigua that week. Anyway, not only do Mahi Mahi hang out there but tuna, wahoo and even marlin too. While looking for a FAD which we had marked with our GPS last year, we managed to hook up with a small Blue Marlin. The fish which we estimated to be about 150 lbs jumped and thrashed a bit before releasing itself. Within seconds the fight was over. We searched for more FADS that we had marked a year earlier and of the 6 we looked for we only managed to locate one which didn’t seem to have any fish about it. We caught several cudas and one mahi by the time the day was over, but no marlin. The day managed to be productive in many ways and the practice was good for us all. Marlin fishing isn’t easy at all. Anyway on our second run after the party on Saturday night, we managed to leave after lunch in search of the same blue marlin target. We hooked up with a good wahoo way out in the deep which is usually more suited towards blue marlin than wahoo. We thought for sure that it was a marlin until the fish stopped peeling line off the reel. Once it slowed we knew it wasn’t a huge fish, and were quite surprised to see it was a wahoo as it came to the boat. We had started fishing at about 2 pm and it had been very slow most of the day. We were looking for blue marlin and hadn’t seen a sign of one at all. Just before sunset we spotted some frigate birds doing their acrobatic displays of unique flying fish catching and knew that there were bigger fish below. We approached and managed to hook up immediately expecting to find a mahi at the end once we had retrieved the line. Instead it was a massive Black Fin Tuna. Once we had landed it and bled it we were off at 35 knots back towards Jolly Harbour which was about 25 miles from us. Watching the setting sun from the sea has always been one of the things I love most….especially when you have fish to share up back at the dock. No marlin though and as the sun sank below the dark waves a tiny bit of unease set in about our poor marlin catching luck. We had to get one before the tournament in order to get the Xtreme morale back to its deserved level. Tuesday was our third practice day and the entire Xtreme Caribbean Real Estate team was ready. The plan was slightly different and we fished the plan as we usually do.

Very quickly we ran into action and later I will tell you about it. Check back early tomorrow morning and i will have filled you in on the days events.

fishing party

Well I must apologize for not writing more often….I have been guilty of playing a bit too much over the past few days. On Thursday while sitting at the Caribbean Real Estate office, writing my last entry about the pre fishing from last year, I was invited to go to St. Martin for a quick trip. We flew over on the JHR (Caribbean real estate) plane on Friday morning and enjoyed 24 hours in St. Martin. Living in a small island like Antigua can be a bit claustrophobic sometimes and even getting off the rock for 24 hours makes a difference. I paid a deposit on my first bit of land to Caribbean Real Estate a year ago and have had a very good relationship with them since then. In my opinion, they are an excellent real estate company and have experienced significant growth over the past few years expanding into both St. Martin and Dominica. Anyway, while they took care of some business I managed to do a little shopping before jumping back onto the plane bound for Antigua. Whatever happened I had to be back in time for the famous Pre Fishing Tournament Party held once again at Club Havana in English Harbour. While speaking to JHR about the party and the tournament we got to talking about sponsorship of our team. After a little friendly negotiation Caribbean Real Estate decided to be our partner in the 41st Annual Sport Fishing Tournament. From now Adventure Antigua’s hard core dream fishing team for this weekend’s massive fishing tournament will be referred to as Xtreme Caribbean Real Estate. Crew still is the same with Tony, Francis, and Choppa as fighters and Big John as first mate and wire man with me as captain.
Anyway, the pre-tournament party was excellent as usual with a massive raffle to start it all off on the right foot.

The tickets seen above with francis were on sale for EC $5 (US $2) and there were so many prizes that most people ended up winning something. (Some like big john seen here....more than others)

Xtreme Caribbean Real Estate managed to take home dinner for two at the Inn in English Harbour, dinner for two at the Coast, dinner for 2 at Carlisle Bay and a complimentary Canopy tour. Our team is so hot that we are already ahead in the winnings and the tournament hasn’t properly started. Haha haha (wink)
The world famous Chicky Hifi was on hand to make sure everyone danced the night away in between consuming dangerous amounts of the sponsor’s products: Mount Gay Rum and Carib Beer.

Even though most of the dream team supported the tournament sponsors a bit too generously we managed to still pull enough of the group together in the late morning for an afternoon fishing session. Practice makes perfect and we went 22 miles south of Jolly Harbour in search of the Blue Marlin. More to come…..

pre-fishing tournament stories- part 2

After saying goodbye to the boaters we moved back towards the bank accompanied by more marlin enthusiasm than before. Birds swarmed in frenzied feeding flocks as we approached the hidden shallow spot and we knew we would encounter the Makaira nigricans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_blue_marlin at some time. The crew kept their eyes scanning the “spread” of marlin lures ranging in distance from about 15 feet to about 150 feet behind the boat and for about an hour nothing happened. Marlin fishing can be some of the most boring fishing in the world as strikes can be few and far between. Its something you have to prepare yourself for when you decide to go after marlin. After getting sick of trolling in and out of the birds I left the bank in search of something different out in the deep. There is a 1000 fathom (6000 feet) drop off a few miles from the bank and I headed out to it hoping for a beast. Still nothing…….
Shortly after turning back towards the bank without a sign of fish out at the drop off I heard a shout behind me. “MARLIN!!”, someone screamed and I saw the dorsal fin coming up behind the closest lure. It hit it with its bill and pulled a tiny bit of line before releasing the artificial bait. JEEEEEZ!!!! After all that waiting it was gone and the angler hadn’t done anything to tease the fish back. There are many tricks that can increase the chance that you hook a marlin when it is close to your lures. I had left the wheel and with the rod in my hand I was demonstrating some of these techniques to Tony. With the rod in my hand the marlin hit the lure in a surprise return attack and was on. The reel, our smallest, filled with 1000 yards of 30 lb test line roared as the line peeled off at alarming speed. The marlin jumped shaking its head violently trying to jettison the strange fish it had bitten. As luck would have it for the smallish marlin the strange fish (our lure) did get thrown off. We had just failed two opportunities at bringing a marlin to the boat. Of course we were gonna release the fish but if ya didn’t get it to the side of the boat it didn’t count. We were frustrated, but Big John and Tony are some of the most optimistic and positive guys you could ever have as crew, and they both quickly restored morale and refueled our enthusiasm. “Let’s find another one.” Lines were back out and we were hunting again. Within 20 minutes I spotted a flock of Birds way north of the bank in a place we hadn’t seen them before. We headed over and the closer we got the more we realized how big the flock actually was. The little black fin tuna were going ballistic tearing up the surface of the water turning it into a manic blanket of white chaotic splashing.

A massive school of tiny fish was being slaughtered, and under the fish doing the slaughter you could be sure that there were much larger members of this ancient food chain. These were the fish we were looking for. We made several passes through the thickest part of the activity without any strikes. We were getting increasingly anxious because Big John had to be at work later that afternoon and it was getting late. This looked so promising, but the clock was running out of space before we had to pull in our lines. Emotions while fishing can be a funny thing and our desperate feeling of anxiety vanished as one of our rods started screaming. We hadn’t seen the fish and by the time Big John got to the rod ½ of its line had been stripped by the beast we had been eagerly searching for. The rest of the crew did an excellent job of getting the other lines in and with Big John loudly saying he was gonna lose all his line I started reversing the boat quickly back to the fish. We had to prevent this marlin from “spooling” us. Finally we slowed the stripping of line and got John fixed up with a harness which would help him fight the marlin. It had taken an incredible amount of line in such a short time and poor John had a long battle ahead of him in order to get that fish to the boat. He also had to be at work and Bingo Mania may not appreciate the fact that he wasn’t gonna be at work on time due to the marlin that was on the end of his line. For about 45 minutes John huffed and puffed and the marlin did its best to break him, but together the crew of Arawak Odyssey pulled together and managed to accomplish what we had set off that morning to do. The marlin came to the side of the boat and Tony and I grabbed the heavy leader bringing the fish to the side of the boat. Seen here:

We took the hook out, put the boat in gear while holding the marlin so as to flush some water through its gills. John wasn’t the only thing exhausted after this fight and the moving water helped revive the fish.

I finally let its rough bill go and together we all watched as the beautiful 300+ pound blue marlin swam down into the deep to fight another day.
As you can see, we were all elated:

We set out to catch a blue marlin and we had done it. We learned a great deal that day and saw how we had to change tactics and methods. We felt like we could be contenders and knew that we would.

pre-fishing tournament stories

A fishing story to get us in the right mood…:

Last year on a practice run we went out form Jolly Harbour very early in the morning bound for the “east bank” in search of the blue marlin. We knew that the more we caught the better we would get at it, and we were very serious about making sure that we knew what to do when tournament time came a few weeks later. Some people thought it was funny that we were out on a practice run for a fishing tournament but I knew it was important. It ended up being a bit choppier that we had expected and it took us longer to get to the bank which was 20 miles from Jolly Harbour. The bank is one of the few shallow spots around these parts which isn’t on the marine charts and finding it was super difficult when I was younger. As kids my brother, other friends and I would go up there to fish for tuna and had to use three land marks in order to find the correct place.

We knew for sure we were in the right place because whenever we got there birds would cover the bank giving away both its position and the position of the tuna. Anyway, on this practice day I wasn’t on the old pirogue with my brother using land marks. I showed this pic of the small boat before and she used to catch fish, but i dont think we could catch a grander which is what we were after.

This time we were on the Arawak Odyssey, our 52 foot power catamaran which usually works doing the eco tour. Helping us find the bank and its edge were the electronic GPS chart plotter as well as the sonar depth recorder. The bank is a few miles form the continental shelf way out East of Green Island and the water around the bank is roughly between 900 and 6000 feet deep. The shallow bank itself is on average about 350 feet deep and the tuna and various other fish congregate on its edge. Wherever you find small tuna in these waters you will also find Marlin, and this is what we were hoping for. Finally we got to the bank and started trolling through the birds using massive lures which targeted big blue marlin. For about an hour we didn’t see any marlin or other big fish. Marlin fishing can be exceptionally boring, and many compare it to other forms of big game hunting. The hunt can be long and patience is of utmost importance. Suddenly we say something off in the distance that looked like a big floating object. Since floating objects in the Atlantic usually have loads of fish surrounding them we thought it would be worth going in for a closer look.

On the way there we saw some frigate birds and managed to pick up a few mahi mahi fish which gave us some of the excitement we were looking for. Their boisterous energy along with their beautiful green and blues always are things to excite fishermen. While fighting the fish we saw that the object off in the distance was getting closer, and we could see that it was actually an Atlantic row boat just coming in from The Canary Islands.

Some people say these guys racing across the Atlantic in tiny row boats are completely mad, but the thought of being in a row boat for a couple of months with all the excitement and mystique of being out there alone kinda excites me too. (not too serious mom, don’t worry)
Anyway, we managed to pick them up on the VHF radio and had a nice long chat with them. I guess we were the first people they had seen in about 70 days and seeing Antigua off in the distance filled them with excitement. We told them that we had just got some mahi mahi and that we were really looking for Marlin. To our astonishment they then gave us an interesting story. They said that half way along their trip, mahi mahi started hanging out with them feeding on other fish that would hide and feed under their row boat. Two days before a huge fin appeared behind them as they rowed into the sunset and it approached their boat rapidly before diving below them. They said they panicked for a moment not knowing what it was then saw it surface near them again immediately recognizing that it was a monster blue marlin. The marlin was trying to attack the mahi which were now trying to take refuge under the row boat. This photo by John Ashley shows a marlin hitting and killing a fish.

As soon as the marlin appeared next to the boat it vanished into the blue abyss and for nearly five minutes things returned to normal. All of a sudden there was a massive smash from under the boat’s hull and the two men knew that they had been rammed. What they didn’t know was why, but in my opinion the marlin hit the boat as it tried to kill one of the mahi mahi….crazy but true. The little boat actually took on water and they had to do a underwater repair job the next morning. Anyway, hearing this story the crew and I became even more determined to find a big blue. You will find out if our practice mission produced one tomorrow in part 2. hehehe

the new Canopy tour

Yesterday I had to take some photos of the Antigua Rainforest Canopy tour and was quite surprised by how nice it all looked. As you can see from my photos, it is mostly set up in between a huge valley in the middle of Antigua’s “rainforest”, Fig Tree Drive. I didn’t actually do the trip but there was a group of about 12 people who all seemed to be fit ranging in age from twenty somethings to fifty somethings. The setting is beautiful and I must say that I can’t imagine a better one in terms of set up and position. It really is worth a look if nothing else as its all soo pretty.

I must say that although I didn’t actually do it, it looked more difficult than I thought it would be. These types of tours are usually set up for a huge range of tourists who generally are not that young and fit. After all, Antigua’s tourism product is marketed more towards “mature” adults. Anyway, it’s my mother’s 60th birthday this weekend and I was thinking of sending her and some of her friends on the tour, but have changed my mind since then.

My mom will be an extremely fit 60 year old who teaches yoga every Thursday so I thought she would be able to do it no prob, but after seeing several of the guests pull out ½ way through yesterday I think I will select another gift for her. The tour is awesome in my opinion, but not for everyone just as my Xtreme Circumnav isn’t for everyone, but I better explain why I think so. The Canopy tour isn’t all about zipping along from tree to tree on suspended cables as many would imagine. If it were just that I think the tour would be boooring. Instead there are many other aspects to the interesting tour. The obstacles or “challenge elements” as they call them will challenge most people for the first time no matter how fit they may be. An example is the Elvis walk or something like that….:While connected to cables from safety lines you have to use ropes hanging from above to help yourself walk over steps that are attached at good distances between each other. This is all done at about 20 feet from the ground and made me kinda scared just watching. Of course all 100% safe, but suitably called a challenge. Safety is never an issue and the “rangers” do a great job of making sure everyone is all looked after properly. The gear, hardware and set up are all top notch and better than I think will exist anywhere else. No money has been spared in setting this up, and after you have done my tours (wink wink), I think you should definitely check this tour out. In fact, you don’t have to do the challenge elements and could even walk through most of the course too. I may take the Adventure Antigua team there on a staff outing next week one day. That would be cool!

41 years of fishing tournaments in Antigua

OK so I bashed the hell out of the 40th Antigua Sailing Week and now all kinds of people have taken it the wrong way and are upset with me. AS IF I AM THE ONLY ONE FEELING THIS WAY!!!!!!! Anyhows, I am gonna keep on a bloggin’

Today let’s talk about an event that has been going on even longer than Antigua Sailing Week which has never gotten as big but still manages to keep going and going. This year will be the 41st time The Antigua Sport Fishing Association is holding their annual big fishing tournament. 41 years!!!!

Not bad when u consider that unlike sailing week this even has always been a small association event. There are few comparisons to make but as many criticisms as there are for sailing week. The purpose of this blog isn’t to rant about it though as I don’t feel the same problems exist or even come close to those of ASW.

The pic above is of my boat coming in to the weigh in station after a days fishing many many years ago. I think I have competed in about 6 or 7 of them while skippering boats ranging from a 23 foot open pirogue style boat seen above to my 52 foot power catamaran where i am releasing a blue marlin below.

The fun seems always to be the same and I haven’t lost the excitement that the fishing tournament brings along with it. The first time registered a boat for the event the organizers thought that my boat was a little too small and after the winds picked up to 25 knots on the morning of the first day…I had to agree with them, and looking at the pic now i shake my head.

We were soaked from start to finish and beaten around quite a bit too. I think I was 18 years old and my crew including my brother Ali and former co-worker Adam felt quite a bit older after it was all finished up. We caught some good fish and ended up with several prizes. In fact, we have been quite lucky in almost all the tournaments that we have entered and the last few years we have done extremely well. Xtreme was the boat we were on last year and after catching the biggest marling seen in these waters in years the week before, we were being taken seriously. My crew including Big John and Tony had been out with me several weekends in a row before training for the tournament which sounded funny to many, but at the end of the weekend being prepared helped considerably. You see, we fish primarily for the massive Blue Marlin in this tournament hoping along with many other crews to be the first boat in Antigua to catch the elusive GRANDER. A grander is a Marlin over 1000 lbs and although they have been seen and hooked here, no boat has ever been able to bring one back to the scales. UNTIL NOW!!!!!
Xtreme is out to change those stats this year. Tony has been in the gym for 3 months preparing himself for a fight that could last 4 hours or longer. When he got his 590 lb one last year he didn’t skip a beat with that beast fighting him and trying to break him and his line for over two hours. As you can see here it was a pretty good size. I am 6'3'' to give you an idea of the length of the marlin.

I think I sweat more than any boat skipper had done before as the marlin made me fight to keep the boat up with it. We traveled over 2.5 miles according to our GPS and did many circles while we fought it. Anyway, I could go on and on about that fight, but at no time did we feel that we were going to be beaten by the fish. I am sure that with our gear and preparation that veterans Tony, Big John, Chopper, me and the other crew…we will be ready for that grander this year. We finished 2nd behind Derrick Biel’s Obsession last year as he managed to catch one small white marlin more than we did. In fact of all the marlin that we both brought to the side of the boat, none were killed. All we had to do was bring them to the side of the boat, take photos of the fish and then carefully release them to fight another day. You are only allowed to bring one back to the scales if you want to and if it’s over 300 lbs. There is quite a bit of controversy about this and I won’t go into it here, but thanks to the pull out of the Japanese fishing boats last year from the area, we have more marlin than we have had in years. This year’s tournament will prove to be a contest like none seen here before. The largest marlin brought to the scale in this tournament over the past 41 years was a 772 lb Blue that was caught by some years ago by a foreign boat. I think this is a pic of that marlin.

We want bigger this year!!!
Anyway to get people even more excited about this event they are having an opening party next Saturday night (the 19th) at Club Havana in English Harbour from 8pm. Things have gotten very quiet out there as is usually the case after sailing week and this party is usually the biggest thing going on. Come by if you are looking for something to do. There are prize giveaways and plenty of big fish stories and strategies. It’s always a good drinkup and party.
This year TEAM XTREME will be sponsored by Adventure Antigua as usual, but we are looking for another sponsor who can help us cover this costs. The thing about big game sport fishing is that it is extremely expensive. The entrance fees alone are about $500 us and then there is a hell of a lot more in fuel and gear. I will be blogging about our pre-fishing days as well as proper reports of the day by day action. This was a training day last year when we ended up releasing a fish of about 350 lbs.

If you can think of a possible sponsor that would like to get some mileage out of this then please let me know J My poor uncle Jim is also determined to catch a grander and has spent considerable time and money trying to train and prepare his boat and crew for that event, but last week they hit a stumbling block after fighting a small fish for over two hours. Three of his (geriatric) crew had to take turns fighting the Blue Marlin which eventually freed itself close to the boat after several futile hours of punishment. I even here that a doctor was involved later that night, but can not corroborate this story 100%. Lucky for him there is a Sport Division where you target smaller fish like Mahi Mahi, tuna and the like. Here you see the stronger man on his team having a hard time with a mahi mahi..:

Big Blue Marlin are for younger stronger crews like the Adventure Antigua Xtreme…hahahahahahah We fish this weekend and will report then.

Did Antigua Sailing Week "Suck" that bad?

Although this blog doesn’t usually criticize things in Antigua I feel that I need to RANT a bit about this year’s organization of something that has made me proud to be Antiguan for most of my life. Antigua sailing week was as big and as good as ever according to the organizers and “claimers”, but according to many it wasn’t nearly as good as it should have been. In fact so many people have said that “it sucked” that I felt as though I had to write something in the hope that some discussion could happen on the comments section below. I will post the comments if you make them. I mean if you have never been to one and are not a hard core sailor or party animal then I guess you will have though it was awesome.

The Antigua Sailing Week of years gone by was an international event that kept potential visitors excited all year long while they sat through the monotony of their daily lives. Sailing Week was organized by expats here on the island who had sailing and tourism based interests as a way to help enhance a different sector of the tourism product. I wanted to give you more history of the event and after digging through the website I finally found a bit of news that helped set the basis for my rant here on this blog. Read this statement: “It was just over 40 years ago that yacht broker Desmond Nicholson and Antiguan hotelier Howard Hulford came up with the idea of a spring regatta that would extend the tourist and sailing seasons for charterers and yachtsmen alike.” I think that the government of Antigua and Barbuda, the Stanford Financial Group, and the Antigua Hotels and Tourist Association and the rest of us need to read that carefully and remember why this event ever became an iconic one. I have to say that in my opinion Antigua Sailing Week has become marginalized and is now almost an embarrassment when you compare it to other nearby events or even the Antigua Sailing Week of the 80s and 90s.
The feeling I have about ASW is shared by many people who live here as well as many from abroad who knew what ASW was like in the old days.
In my opinion there are several areas of ASW’s organization that need to be corrected ASAP. The first is it needs to be run as if it were a massive corporation who’s success is essential or critical to all of it’s shareholders of which there are many…not only here in Antigua and Barbuda. Once we can come to grips with this then all the other aspects can seriously be taken into consideration, but as long as it is managed as a volunteer operated “fair” then it will keep cascading down the path towards mediocrity. Along with a great many Antiguans both sailors and “limers” (party lovers), I have attended the Heineken Regatta over the past few years. I remember the first time I went to the event as crew on First Run which was skippered by my Uncle Jimmy Fuller way back in the mid 80s. I think we won the regatta overall which was quite an achievement, but nothing like winning Antigua Sailing Week at the time. Back then Heineken was a small weekend regatta which went on while most of St. Martin carried on business as usual without actually knowing there was a sailing event going on. How the tables have turned. Most tourists here last week had no idea there was a regatta going on here until they saw all the yachts sailing past or pulling up into their bays. That’s another story though. After all Hulford and Nicholson started ASW to extend the tourist and sailing season for YACHTSMEN AND CHARTERERS alike. ASW has gone through a midlife crisis and doesn’t remember who the hell it actually is or what it stands for. Maybe the quote above should be a mission statement known by all who are paid to run sailing week. And paid they should be. You think Heineken regatta is where it is today because it's organizers are all volunteers? What is sailing week about now? I mean even I can’t properly describe it. Walking into Nelson’s Dockyard over the weekend some people told me they thought they were actually going through some kind of Jamaican “sound clash” with hard core Jamaican music being blared by massive skyward piles of speakers. Most of the “official parties” and events were soured by the need to “carnivalize” or “jamaicanize” them as well as the need by some of the interested parties within the “organization” of the event to control their interests.

Let’s specifically deal today with the liming or partying aspect of sailing week because I feel that it’s what the majority of the hard core complaints are about. I know that the Antigua Marine and Trades Association as well as some of the other core sailing companies and interests have more of a voice than I do when it comes to the actual racing, so I will leave them to try to make changes in that area. I know that changes need to be made there too because I have listened to experienced racers like my uncle as well as Carlo Falcone criticize the race management. After sailing in almost all previous sailing weeks, Jim actually completely stopped racing recently. Anyway let me move back to the party aspects of ASW because I feel this is where most of the correcting needs to take place.
Mount Gay Rum which by the way is not a sponsor of sailing week at all has been running the best run sailing week party for years and years. Of course they have an incredible wealth of experience in sponsoring and organizing parties and events within the international sailing community, and the only internationally recognized sailing event beacon is the Red Mount Gay sailing event hat. My dad has decades of Antigua Sailing Week hats from Mount Gay. Why are their parties so successful? Its this simple……they are organized for the yachting community and the yacht crews by paid professionals……all the rest of us join in because they are fun parties different from what we are used to in Antigua. Over at Galleon Beach or Calabash as its now called there are no crazy Jamaican hifi mountains, no speeches by politicians, or tourism/hotel officials, no other shows or carnival sidelines or distractions….just rum, happy sailors, some music, organized bars, and organized food…..Each person who is involved in ASW should go to this Mount Gay “unofficial” party and see how the entire event should be run. Hey guess what…? The entire Heineken regatta is run like the Mount Gay Rum party. Everything was flawlessly organized with specific events each day and night. The entertainment is always perfect….I mean how do you expect a party to be run properly when there is no clear epicenter….instead there are hifi systems and sub-parties all over the place. Anyway, in an incredibly intelligent effort to learn from the Mount Gay red hat party’s success, the Antigua Distillery and ASW decided to put on an official crew party to kind of open sailing week the day before the Red Hat party. They did this several years ago when they took on a more significant sponsorship and party management role within ASW. Their idea was very similar to Mount Gay’s with a free rum party on a beach. This time is was at Pigeon Beach and immediately it was a smashing success. Yachties and partiers from all over the place turned up in droves and for several years it was as good if not better than the Red Hat party. It was a true opening bash!!! Then something went wrong…..they felt as though they didn’t have enough control over the party with vendors and the like turning up. I am not 100% sure why but they did decide to move it over to Nelson’s Dockyard 2 years ago….this way it was within the national park and more easily controlled. Immediately the vibe changed and numbers dropped. This year the party was miniscule compared to years before and the vibe was totally lame. A party in the Caribbean on the beach can not be made better by putting it on the lawn of a hotel even if it’s within the national park of Nelson’s Dockyard. What was the problem with having an awesome opening party on Pigeon Beach? Anyone can see that this was a mistake. Ok here goes another mistake……. Lay day was as much a part of sailing week as the sailing was and as far as I remember it was organized at The Antigua Yacht Club with crazy games and fun for yacht crews as well as others. Fantastic photos and press reports described this event making it part of what made ASW unique. I am sure that someone will tell me that I am totally wrong, but it seems to me that Antigua Distillery took over the management of this party and felt that it would be better if it was moved over to Pigeon Beach. Now there were several things wrong with this decision. But first is the “if its not broke..don’t fix it” saying. Why change a good thing? Each year it was filled with excited and happy sailors and party lovers. None of the sailors had to get in cabs or take the long walk down to Pigeon Beach…..It was all right there in front of them. Many people who were not into sailing felt that this was the climax of ASW. Well it seems as though ASW needs a few blue pills because this year there was not much of a climax at all. OK so as I said they moved it to Pigeon Beach where as I have already said, hosted a great opening party in the past. Why couldn’t it do a good job on lay day? Well I guess because so many people loved lay day at the yacht club that they felt snubbed by the move to Pigeon. Ever since they moved it..the lay day party has been lame. It lacked any kind of energy and last years was sooooo bad that the Antigua Distillery and the ASW gang decided to not even have a lay day this year. It wasn’t until the week or two before that they sent out a frantic email saying that after all they would have it…but back at Pigeon. Ok so Pigeon wasn’t as good as the lay day at Antigua Yacht Club but at least it was a lay day right? Well they also decided to have an official birthday party over at Shirley Heights at the same time? Can you believe it? I don’t even have to say why this conflict of interest is crazy do I?
There are many other problems with the way the parties were organized or NOT organized but all in all I think that people who enjoyed the awesome party atmosphere of the 80s and 90s Antigua Sailing Weeks can only hope that something is done to change the way ASW has gone. This year I missed most of Sailing Week and went to the Tobago Jazz festival….I think I will book my flights earlier for next years festival because I know that I will not be the only Antiguan planning a trip there. If you like to party and are at all interested in seeing why people feel that ASW isn’t as good as it could be, then you should go to the Heineken regatta next March in St. Martin. They learned from us and now ASW needs to learn from them. All of the people involved with ASW should have to go!!! Face the fact that ASW isn’t as good as it used to be and many of us who know or knew better are not happy with the way it has fallen from grace.

I truly think that if people like Desmond Nicholson (RIP) and Howard Hulford could spend some time walking around during race week they would be incredibly disappointed.

new tour for the summer season

I think we are about to start a new tour using the Xtreme boat. The tour will be very similar to the regular Xtreme Circumnav but will not do the hour at Stingray City. Instead after picking up our guests and zooming along the West and North shores we will pull up to a nice reef for drinks and then a snorkeling lesson. After the lesson we will do a nice guided snorkeling session through the reef taking lots of time so that nobody feels rushed.

From there the tour will continue as the regular Xtreme tour: cruising up past Long Bay and the Pineapple Beach hotel and devils bridge towards Nonsuch Bay and Green Island.

Here we will do the usual hour long stop for the famous buffet lunch and beach chill time before thinking about cruising on.

past the famous but seldom seen Mill Reef Club, then past Half Moon Bay and Willoughby Bay with the Crossroads center, then past Mamora Bay and the St. James Club. We stop into the beautiful and secluded Indian Creek near the Sunken Rock dive site just long enough for you to shoot a few pics of the unique house on "Stanfast Point" and Lookout which is a little further downwind. We then will cruise along the massive volcanic cliffs of the Fort Shirley coast before passing The Pillars of Hercules on our way into Nelson's Dockyard where we will give you a proper historical commentary as we slowly cruise along the beautiful historical harbour. On our way back out the harbour we will get everyone set up with snorkeling gear for our exclusive snorkeling session at the Pillars.

Like much of what our company does, this snorkeling session is only done by Adventure Antigua. Another unique stop is the next and last official stop on this action packed tour.....Rendezvous Bay.

Unfortunately there are many rumors about a development planned for this beautiful beach. Up until now a busy day there is when we have to share the bay with a little dinghy.

You see no man made structures when you sit on the beach enjoying our traditional rum punch on this last stop. From there we cruise along the south coast passing the fantastic hotels of Carlisle Bay and Curtain Bluff, going down past Cades Reef and Cades Bay towards the South-West corner that is Johnson’s Point where we pass Turners Beach, Blue Heron, and OJs. Keep counting as we are passing some of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean along Antigua’s Leeward Caribbean side. The tour will be less expensive than the regular Xtreme Circumnav as we won’t have the additional expense of Stingray City, but it will be very similar and as good. If it works well this summer we may just keep it on for select days this winter too. We’ll see. Look for this tour on our website and in hotels next week.

its not just whales that are being killed

The topic yesterday raised quite a bit of interest, comments and emails, and I feel that more time needs to be spent on the issue of Antigua and Barbuda support for international whaling. More will come in the future, but there is another issue which is somewhat related. You see, Japan’s interest is not only for whaling and there are many who feel that whaling is just a tiny part of their own brand of “manifest destiny”. Japan is preparing for a much larger war I think which has to do with international protection of other species sometime in the future. Tuna which are increasingly being seen as a threatened species are an essential part of Japan’s culture. There are many other threatened or endangered species that Japan consumes and will fight to keep killing.
One such species is the Hawksbill Turtle. The photo above is of me holding a baby hawksbill that had been injured by predators. It was all healed up but missing most of its propulsion on one side. It is an incredibly endangered species which we speak about in great detail on our eco tour and which is protected by law in Antigua during the nesting season. In fact, that season begins now, and we are lucky enough to have one of the world’s best ongoing studies on them. Each year two scientist from the University of Georgia come to Antigua to study these amazing creatures over at Pasture Bay on Long Island just East of the airport. The study is co-sponsored by Jumby Bay which is a 5 star resort on Long Island. Click here for more info: http://www.jbhawksbillproject.org/ One of the most amazing statistics, and there are many, about these turtles is the fact that only 1 out of every 10,000 eggs that are buried by the momma turtles reaches maturity. A mature turtle is about 12 years old. Japan is the worlds largest consumer of Hawksbill turtle products and each year fights international protection of this species. How can our government align themselves with Japan when we use turtles in the marketing of our main economic product. We even have turtles on our passports!!!!! My sister Franny is doing her thesis on Turtle Conservation as i write this and is so incredibly upset and ashamed with the situation in our country.
Anyway, I will keep today’s blog short, but I hope that some of you can come up with interesting ideas on how to change our country’s position. On a closely related note….i am in tobago at the moment and am spending time with the Clovis family from the Kariwak resort. Tanya Clovis is part of the SOS group which helps to protect turtles here. Last night we had the unexpected pleasure of seeing a huge Leatherback turtle nesting on a beach here. She was probably about 500 lbs and it was just amazing seeing her do her thing. I didn’t get any good photos as taking flash photography can endanger the lives of these beautiful creatures in several ways.

Tanya is also looking after a Olive Ridley turtle which appears to have been hit by a boat. Two days ago I had to help change her water and the photo I took here is of her eating her favorite meal. Jumbo shrimp! She is putting on incredible weight and today we are going to try to take her for a swim in the ocean. Hopefully she will be able to swim properly and more importantly dive on her own soon. All of these animals are killed each year as by catch in commercial fishing which is another reason Japan is extremely concerned with people or nations who think that protection of these animals is a necessity.

Lets kill more whales....???

I took the photos above while out catching mahi mahi with my cousin David one afternoon. These lovely creatures pass through our waters each year.

Many people are quite shocked when they find out that several of the governments in these tiny Caribbean islands support countries like Japan, Norway, and Iceland in commercial whaling. I can just hear some of you saying: “WHAT!!”, but although unfortunate it is true. Japan decided to use manipulative democracy and outright bribes to persuade islands like Antigua to vote alongside them at International Whaling Conventions so that they may be able to protect and peruse their interests.
One of the biggest problems when it comes to marine environmentalism in Antigua and Barbuda is that our people do not swim. It’s that simple to me. I have been told by ministers in our government that because they don’t swim they are not interested in going boating at all. Because people don’t get a chance to see all the cool and interesting stuff out there they don’t understand or care as much. There is incredible ignorance within the government when it comes to marine related matters and so much so when it comes to whaling. Look at this government statement printed in today’s Daily Observer. Speaking about why they have chosen to side with Japan here is what they say:

“It is a matter of
food security and the preservation
of our right as a sovereign
nation to build international
alliances,” it said.

That almost sounds ok but then you read: “A government statement
said the island has
always been guided by its
“principled support for the
sustainable utilization of our
vast and rich marine
resources in a manner and at
a rate that will ensure that
these resources are available
for generations to come.”

Absolute crap!!! Read the rest of the article on OBSERVER ARTICLE
Our marine recourse has nothing to do with voting for increased whale kill quotas for Japan, and when Japan is offering financial “aid” in the form of useless fisheries plants the argument is even more ridiculous. Our fishing industry is not being helped by Japan of our government and I am the first to say that instead of making sure it is there for generations to come, it is being ignored in a way that there can be no doubt of its demise long before my generation passes the torch. Our fishery is being utilized alright but by Guadeloupe…something which our government cares not to regulate at all. At the end of the day, our government’s position on fisheries is just this simple: they are using it as an excuse to take specific “aid” (bribes) from Japan, and have chosen only to educate themselves on the Japan argument for international whaling. They know more about that than they do know about conch farming, Mahi Mahi catching, reef fishing protection and regulation, tuna fishing….or anything else that is directly related to our waters and fisheries. It’s a political argument which no opposing political party has chosen to ridicule yet. The only people trying to expose how crazy our island’s support for international whaling are individuals and NGOs like http://caribbeanwhalefriends.org/index.htm which is a site that was launched today. There is a heap of info on this topic and i will add links in the near future. You can write on message boards and send letters to our toursim offices to show them how horrified you are that they could side with japan. They need to know that this can not and will not go on. They will lose support from people like you and me.

rest in peace Timmy

Timmy seen above at the front of Xtreme on the way back from a staff trip to St. Martin worked with Adventure Antigua for a short time back in Feb and March last year. Mostly he worked on the Eco Tour with Captain Shamel who was running the show at the time. He came to work with my company when i had to go off for my third knee operation.

This weekend he was killed in Miami when the motorcycle he was riding was hit by another car. He was going pretty fast and wasn't wearing a helmet. The car sped off leaving him to pass away on the side of the road. There couldn't be a more horrible end for such a young person whatever you thought of him. I feel as though i have to say a few things here about him as many of my crew were very close to him as were many others in antigua.
Last night i spoke to a young friend who said that she couldn't stop crying and i know that this terrible accident has had the same impact on many...some of whom didn't even know him.
I knew him and don't want to say too much other than to say that he was a happy person who had the ability to liven up a situation. His smile was friendly and his manner calm. Some think that he made some very bad decisions over the past few years, but i think like many teens who have had a rough time along the way, Timmy had the integrity inside him to mature and come out a better person. It is just so sad that he couldnt achieve this. Many things in life are yet to be accomplished and we all should think for a second about how fragile and how short life really is. "Live ya life.....", is something that Timmy is known to have said very often and one of the saddest things about this is that he didn't get a chance to live a long healthy and fullfilling life. He will be missed by many.

All you need is love......

“Wan Lovv” is the exact way that people from Antigua would pronounce “one love” and it is a concept and belief that many religions and or philosophies hold as a core belief. In Antigua when I was a kid there was a unique tribe of Rastafarians called “The Wan Lovv” tribe and these particular Rastafarians believed extremely strongly in the one love principal and practiced a religion which held on to many of the hippie sort of beliefs. I did a wiki search on the Rastafarian faith and didn’t think that the One Love tribe came close to that. After I did a search for hippie on wiki and realized that the tribe here more closely resembled hippies than strict Rasta beliefs. Remember that old hippie band from England that sang “all you need is love”? Anyway, one of the tribe members changed his name to “wan Lovv” I guess in an effort to spread his faith. I guess it would be like a Christian preacher changing his name to “Love Jesus” or something like that. I dunno for sure but to this day I think that he is the most interesting Rastafarian I have ever met. Wan Lovv started working for the Ross family nearly 30 years ago first at their service station and eventually onto the first of the Wadadli Catamarans. He spent 18 years on Wadadli Cats and recently retired. I remember when Inigo and Xabier Ross first started Wadadli Cats how Wan Lovv would help them with the tour cleaning and cooking. One of the reasons I would love to windsurf up to Bird Island from Dutchmans Bay was to get a bit of his delicious chicken. Also, it was so interesting to me to be in the company of someone who really was a “wan Lovv” tribe member. He is full of compassion for people and is extremely gentle and goon natured and unfortunately you don’t come across many people like that in this world. I mean you know immediately when you meet him that his calm loving manner is strangely genuine. When I started my company Wan Lovv told me that he could come and help me out on his days off from Wadadli Cats, and he did work with me quite a few times during the early eco tour days until my tour got busier and I employed full time crew. After leaving Wadadli Cats he decided one day that he wanted to still be involved in the excursion business, and he thankfully made the decision to try something different. After making sure that Xabier was ok with me employing Wan Lovv I took him on last Monday. So far everyone at Adventure Antigua is delighted that he has chosen to be part of the family and I can only hope that he puts off full retirement for as long as possible. If you come out on the tour be sure to say hi if he’s on board.

Antigua Sailing Week turnes 40

First I would just like to thank people for the concern, suggestions and thoughtful comments about the situation spoken about in my last post. Let’s move on:

The 40th annual Antigua Sailing Week starts this weekend with all the excitement that one of the world’s biggest sailing events is expected to bring. So far there have been several massive pre race parties and I have been to two of them.
The racing action starts on Sunday and you can check the race and official party schedule on http://www.sailingweek.com

I have actually raced a few times and can tell you that being out there racing each day and then expecting to keep up with the hard core party schedule isn’t easy. Sailors will be sailors though and as you would expect the amount of alcohol consumed in Antigua this week will be staggering just like the sailors.
The first official party was the Antigua Distillery free rum party which was held inside the Nelsons Dockyard on Thursday evening. Cavalier Rum which is what I call the Antigua distillery has been a big sponsor of sailing week for some time and has been throwing a free rum party for years now. The free rum party has been going on for much longer though and was originally started by Mount Gay. When the Barbadian rum was dropped as a sponsor Cavalier took up the position and started having the “official” free rum party over at Pigeon Beach. From the start the party was massive and everyone was there each year early. If you want to see Antiguans on time just give them the hour when u will start serving free rum. I was there at the front of the line each year. The party on the beach was wonderful and the atmosphere set the tone and standard for the rest of Antigua Sailing Week. For some completely crazy reason Cavalier decided to move the party from the beach into the controlled environment that is Nelsons Dockyard. I think the problem as they saw it was the fact that it was more difficult to ultimately control the party down on the beach whereas is was totally controllable at Dockyard. Well not only was it controllable but it was also not as good. This year the numbers for the party were tiny compared to the old free rum beach parties and even the atmosphere was tamed down. That didn’t stop me from making sure that they off loaded their free rum. It was fun but I think that it needs to be sent back to pigeon beach next year. After the last drop of free rum was consumed people still stuck around for a few more hours until the massive Soul2Soul Back 2 Life party at Abras got started with the famous UK DJs.
The next day was an early tour so lifting my head off to shut up the alarm at 6:15 was not too cool. Yesterday was the second free rum party organized by the original free rum bad boy Mount Gay Rum from Barbados. As usual they put on a massive free rum and free hat party at Galleon Beach where almost all the racers as well as half the island turned up to get wasted. Woooo hoooo!!! What a party…the setting and mood was perfect as usual and I think everyone had a great time……The crazy thing is that even though this party is not an official one…it is always the best and most organized of all Antigua Sailing Week events. The organizers need to stop trying to change things and just use some common sense. Anyway, long before the party ended I got a water taxi back into Nelson’s Dockyard where my ride was. (I didn’t drive.)
The sailing action begins on Sunday where over 215 yachts race half way around the island to Dickenson Bay where a massive party will be set up.

My two boats are chartered by long time local customers who want to follow some of the racing and end up at Dickenson to party.

Everyone on the island who has a boat will be there and as is usual there will be way too much alcohol consumed once again.

I am off to the Tobago Jazz Festival and will be missing the action here. Will try to stay in touch as I will be taking my laptop too.

Unfortunate event.

Yesterday we had a very troubling thing happen on our eco tour that I want to mention. I would love to know what people think about it too. Of course you can leave anonymous comments if you like as well.
First of all I have to tell you that Trevor has gone off to England as planned to play county league cricket. He does this every year and although we are very sad to see him go, we are also happy that he is doing something that he loves so much. We will take him back on board next autumn when the cricket season is over there. We have hired a new staff member and I will introduce him properly on another post. He has been working non stop in this sort of business for 18 years and is generally recognized as being one of the best tour guides and “boat men” in Antigua. We are delighted to have Wan Lovv on board with us.
Anyway, back to the problems from yesterday. I had given Tony a day off and the tour was being run by Francis, Louis and Wan Lovv. As has always been our practice, we invited guests to come on and not worry about paying for the tour until the end…which I have always felt is a nicer way of doing things. Many people store their bags down in the cabin, some keep bags with them on deck, some keep only cameras, some keep waterproof money pouches. For the most part though, people keep their bags down in the cabin. As is usual, the first time the guests come off the boat is at Bird Island when one of the crew takes everyone on a small hike and nature walk. Two of the crew remain on board preparing lunch and getting stuff ready for a snorkeling lesson. The next time its possible for all the guests to be off the boat at the same time is when we are at hells gate. There are 5 choices of things to do and one of them is chilling on the boat. Yesterday all guests left the boat with Francis leaving Wan Lovv and Louie behind to clean up and get the snorkeling gear ready for the next stop off Welch Rock where our final snorkeling stop is. As Francis anchored up at this final stop a gentleman came up to him loudly shouting “I have been robbed…I have been robbed.” At first, Francis thought he was joking, but quickly realized that he wasn’t. All the other guests on board stopped what they were doing to see what was going on. He and his wife had been sitting in the front of the boat on the driver’s side (in front of Francis) the entire day and unlike most of the other passengers, had kept their bag with them. The guest said that his money had been stolen out of the front pocket of his bag which had been left on his seat. It had been folded inside a money clip together with his credit cards. The clip and the cards and all the other things from his bag were there. He said that the only people that could have stolen it were Wan Lovv and Louie. All of this wasn’t being done discreetly and Francis explained that he would call me to find out what I wanted to do. I was so shocked that I couldn’t think of what to do other that to ask how much money was missing. Francis relayed that only the money to pay for the tour $140 US was missing. They didn’t have any other money with them at all, so I told Francis to let them know that we were terribly sorry that this has happened and to let them know that he didn’t have to worry about finding more money to pay us. I told him that it would be the company’s loss and for this event not to take away from the enjoyment of his holiday. I told Francis to take the crew aside and question them and to also let all the guests know that they should check their things as well. He told me that he didn’t have to as everyone had heard him saying that he had been robbed. No other bags had been tampered with either below or above deck. I also told him to ask the guest what he felt should be done, and suggested that we could inform the police about the robbery. Unfortunately the guest was irate and upon getting back to port said that he wasn’t interested in seeing the police (who are always at the port) and told Francis that he needed to do a better job of watching his crew. This of course was again not discreetly said in private and made for an extremely bitter end to what had otherwise been a fantastic day. In fact the boys ended up with US $180 in tips after the tour yesterday.
Maybe they ended up with more………???????? I have never ever had reason to think that any of my staff with me now or any of those who have moved on have stolen anything from me or from my guests. One time over the past 8 years we had a camera stolen on board which ended up being taken by another guest….(long story but camera was returned), but this was the first time that one of my guests had cash taken in a situation where one or more of my staff was implicated.

I met the boat in Jolly Harbour and questioned each crew individually about the situation. From what i could tell Wan Lovv and Louie had always been together throughout the day especially when the guests were off the boat. As Wan Lovv is new on our boat i had asked the other crew to carefully guide him on how things run on our tour. They were never out of eachother's sight.
OK so what do I do? I guess I should now make the change to collect all moneys as people come on the boat like all the other tours do…..
This almost guarantees that I get the correct money at the end of the day, but it wouldn’t guarantee that other moneys or valuables in the guest’s bags were completely safe. It’s a tough one…there are many solutions which all have pros and cons. At the end of the day its something that I would like input from prospective guests and guests who have been with us before. What do you think about this situation and do you have any ideas about ways to make sure that it won’t happen again?