The famous Eli (Manning)

Ok the real famous Eli (super bowl winner, Eli Manning) has been here this week chilling out at the 5 star Jumby Bay i guess before going to Disney Land. I had heard about it when a close friend at http://www.wsex.com/ called me up all excited telling me I should offer a free charter. I thought that was funny. I also thought that like most Celebes coming to Antigua, he was doing it on the "low pro" until I saw him being interviewed on TV during the Stanford 2020 cricket last night. "Uncle Stan" (R. Allen Stanford) was next to him watching Trinidad murder St. Vincent. I had a hard time eating my sweet and sour Chinese chicken at Delightful Restaurant as the flat screen kept on interrupting me with smashing fours, sixes and wickets like crazy. Anyway, Eli seemed to be enjoying himself at the cricket game thanks to the Texan / Antiguan hospitality. They say that there are a billion viewers seeing this tournament live all the way from the USA to India. Cricket is a major passion all over the world and is even being played these days in China. According to Wiki, "Cricket has been an established team sport for hundreds of years and is thought to be the second most popular sport in the world.[2] More than 100 countries are affiliated to the International Cricket Council, cricket's international governing body. The sport's modern form originated in England, and is most popular in the present and former members of the Commonwealth. In many countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Australia, cricket is the most popular sport. It is also a major sport in England, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean, which are collectively known in cricketing parlance as the West Indies. Many countries also have well-established amateur club competitions, including the Netherlands, Kenya, Nepal and Argentina." I know that the live TV coverage in the little USA city of Ft. Collins http://www.yougottaseethis2020.com/ will have spiked a bit last night after word got around that Eli was on TV there.
The Stanford 20 20 is being marketed heavily there. I can't imagine US sports bars full of people having to watch cricket. Funny, but money can buy anything some of the time.
The other Eli, a lanky one from Antigua, has been at several of the matches to date (without being noticed by the cameras he he). The last two I went to were pretty amazing events. Antigua vs. the USVI was quite a match and sitting in the Sticky Wicket we were able to have a lovely meal and sit comfortably. Antigua didn't convincingly beat the USVI though which was a shame, but the "lime" was loads of fun anyway. Two of my blog readers gave me a hard time for not writing enough these days. If I am not writing much it generally means I am having too much fun.... (Good for me... not so good for the blog and its readers). Thank you for reading though and I will try to be a better blogger ;)
The last match I saw live was with some of the Adventure Antigua crew on the grounds. The current Stanford 2020 champs Guyana played the ICC world cup team Bermuda. Experience in the world cup wasn't enough and the well oiled machine that is Guyana Cricket demolished the Bermuda side. With at the very least ten thousand Guyana nationals living full time in Antigua, their support at 2020 is staggering. Antiguans can almost end up feeling like tourists at a Guyana match and there were some not so friendly young GT supporters set up in front of us when we first got into the grounds. I knew that Guantiguan's are usually friendly people so I got up and looked around for somewhere else to watch the game which was about to start. Sure enough I met up with some of Tony's friends and fellow Guantiguans in another spot. This is Tony with a few of the same guys from the last 20 20 in 2006 just after Guyana won the championship. I said that I was looking for a place to sit and watch the game. All together they said bring your people and sit where ever you want around us. Trevor, Mykl, Olly and I quickly set up next to them with our cooler, chicken, and seats. We offered them some of our Rum but they had their own stash of something I think was called Extra Mature Rum from the mother land. Tony finally got there and we watched the match enthusiastically as a group. The Extra Mature GT rum finished first but they had another ration of Demarara rum tucked away. Unfortunately for us all Team Guyana opted to bowl first after winning the toss. I say unfortunately because, we never got to see Guyana's awesome batting. They outed all of the Bermuda side fairly quickly and before the Antigua rum could be finished they had chased down and passed their runs too. It was all over too soon. A win is a win, and that was enough for the GT fans who outnumbered Bermuda fans by about 500 to 1. Just before the action was over, our friendly Gauntiguans started handing out small rotis. That was very nice of them and the food was lovely. Anyway, after a quick weekend adventure at North Beach Barbuda this weekend we will be back to see Antigua vs. Guyana from the grounds again. I still think that even in Antigua there will be more GT flags there than Antiguan. It will be very difficult for Antigua to defeat the champs but cricket is a funny game and anything can happen. Either way, it will be massive and tickets have been sold out for ages. All of the Adventure Antigua crew will be there with this Eli. Don’t know about the other Eli...... doesn't he have to go to Disney World?

Weekend cruises

At our last Stanford 2020 cricket match, the SUP Falmouth crew, Nikolai Bohachevsky, Robert "Rabbs" Hill said that we should have our first big downwinder.
OK for those of you who don't know what SUP stands for, it means Stand Up Paddle and it the latest watersport to have reached Antigua. So far there are four of us on island and we are all hooked on the fun of both cruising on these boards as well as paddling into and surfing waves. Nik and I have done every imaginable water sport there is here in Antigua and knew that SUP would be the sport for us when we started hearing about it. Nik was much more into following it on the net and was first to get one of these massive boards sent here all the way from Hawaii. At over ten feet long they are not easy to move around until they hit the water, and then it’s all different. Using a carbon fiber paddle you propel yourself over the water in search of adventure and that was exactly what we were planning to do on Saturday. Of course we had to do it early because Antigua was playing the United States Virgin Islands and we had to be at the Stanford Cricket Grounds early that afternoon. The plan was to leave Turtle Bay which is just at the entrance of Falmouth Harbour and cruise downwind riding the large Atlantic swell all the way to the start of the island's Caribbean side. According to Nik, it was a 6.5 nautical mile run and in the very windy conditions that we were experiencing on Saturday morning, I knew it was adventure!
We left from a friend's house just barely making it over his electric fence designed to make sure the garden isn't eaten by goats and make sure the goats are not eaten by his dogs. Man it would probably suck to forget that was there after a good surfing session. Anyway, on the beach I noticed a lovely large cowry shell and picked it up. I was balancing my 10 foot 10 inch board on my head and just slipped the shell into my back pocket. Immediately I could smell the stink. OMG the smell was bad and I had fallen for a trick that I had seen many of my guests fall for over the years. Shells on beaches are not always washed clean of the dead animals inside. This one needed quite a bit more time on the shore before it was ready to be handled. Once I put the board into the water I fished that stinking sucker out and hurled it back to the beach. Someone else will make the same mistake later. Anyway, it was rough and the shore break was pushing me close to some rocks. I didn't feel like having an adventure so early so I carefully made it past the reefy rocks out into the deeper waters. Rabbs and Nik came in after me and we were immediately part of the Atlantic ocean. The waves were big coming from east to west, but there was also some reverb coming off the land on our right making it extra choppy and difficult. Rabbs fell behind me and I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I found it less difficult when I was paddling hard and keeping my speed up, so I kept on going out away from the disturbed waters closer in to shore. From all my time spent fishing I knew that very close to us the waters dropped down past the continental shelf into depths of over one thousand feet deep and deeper still. There were big fish out here and with the waves and winds it was all very exciting. We had over six nautical miles to go and the thing that worried me most was the prospect of being too tired for Antigua's first 2020 battle later that evening. Our plan was to go down past Rendezvous Bay staying well off shore but coming back in to surf a few of the wave spots further down the coast. Our first one was near what we used to call "Farley Bay". In the "old days" we would windsurf the waves there which broke just over razor sharp coral reef. Although the reef wasn't in the same condition these days it still was pretty sharp. I had been sliced up pretty good several weeks ago while surfing some other reefy waves, but you can't think about that too much when you are out there. Nik was only thinking about doing it again when he was on this wave several weeks ago. (Please dont aske me where it was taken either). Shhh....If that's all that's on your mind, then you won't catch the good waves. Anyway, the waves were "blown" a term which means they were getting attacked by the winds and were not that smooth. Nevertheless, Nik and I surfed three or four good waves while Rabbs continued past them. On his last surfing session, his board had come unleashed and had ended up on the rocks only to be followed by him. His scratched up board and urchin needle filled feet didn't like that experience too much and with the pain still being felt under his feet, he kept well clear of the reef on this morning. The wave was longer than Nik and I had expected but it was so windy that getting back to the peak after surfing one was difficult. After getting totally breathless a few times we continued on. Nik went outside the barrier reef but I squeezed though a few coral heads and managed to cruise along the rocky shore for a few hundred meters before going out another channel into the Atlantic. This channel had some huge swells coming in and for a moment I thought I was way too close to the reef and had to paddle like a mad man to make it past the impact zone. Up ahead Nik and Rabbs were taking a break and were sitting on their boards. As large ocean swells rolled between them and me, they would disappear from view. The ever changing blue canvas that is the ocean is such an awesome sight and pleasure to behold up close. I looked for whales but knew it would be difficult in these winds to see much. There were "white horses" everywhere.
We paddled past another nice reef break and knew that we would have to come back and give those a try another day. Winter Hill, the part of Antigua in my mind, closest to the "drop off" was coming up ahead. That point was also particularly choppy and was often a place where you could find calm seas once you got behind the bluff. We were doing what is called a "downwinder" and on downwinders you have to try to use the winds and waves to your advantage. When you feel or see a nice swell about to overtake you, a few hard paddle bursts sometimes make it possible to surf ahead on the wave even in the open ocean. We had been doing this the whole time and at Winter Hill the swells were especially steep. I managed to surf down a big one for what seemed like ages. I was super tired though and tucked into the lee side of Carlisle Bay to relax for a moment while the other guys caught up. I think all those years of having to read swells in windsurfing regattas was making me a little faster on this downwinder, but I am sure I didn't feel any less tired. This spot is excellent for spotting turtles and within seconds I was seeing them pop up for breaths. We continued on toward our destination. Johnson's Point was a few miles down the coast and despite Rabbs moaning (hahaha) we pushed on. As I said earlier Nik and I have spent our lives doing one watersport or another when we were not sailing or powerboating. The ocean is where we both feel most comfortable. This is the not the case with Rabbs who just recently left London. Riding a big motorbike across Europe is more what he is comfortable doing, so being out there in the big Atlantic swells on what sometimes feels like a tiny surf board was a bit threatening.
IT was calmer now and as we cruised past Curtain Bluff Hotel, Rabbs looked way more confident. I took a little wider angle going down the channel in between Cades Reef and Cades Bay while the other two were closer in. I was approaching an area where I occasionally see huge green turtles and sure enough up ahead I could see a monster. It must have been as big as greens get and by far the largest I had ever seen. As I watched in awe waving my paddle at the others trying to get them to come over, another came up just further ahead. Two massive green turtles lay on the surface getting some sun and taking a few deep breaths before going back down to the sea floor to feed. Nik and Rabbs missed them unfortunately and we paddled on. Only one hundred meters ahead I spotted two more slightly smaller greens on the surface. All three of us approached in them in awe unnoticed until the closest took a big breath. It almost did a double take upon seeing us and with a splash it zoomed off below. Another thirty meters ahead were three more green turtles and it was almost as if we had found a secret spot for the big endangered animals. Later I told JD to be careful when he was skippering Xtreme past this section of coastline. We only had a little more to go and came closer in to shore as we approached Pelican Island and Johnson's Point. Here we spotted several smaller hawksbill turtles which we speak about at length on the eco tour. These small turtles probably were around 5-10 years old and have another 10-15 before they would reach sexual maturity. Many people and fishermen make the mistake of saying "there are so many turtles out there...how can they be endangered". The problem is that there are indeed many turtles, but most never make it to sexual maturity therefore not getting a chance to propagate the species. Hawksbills are critically endangered and still occasionally hunted illegally here in Antigua and Barbuda.
Up ahead I could see my pickup truck on the shelly shore just behind and overturned local fishing boat. I was thinking about the three bottles of water I had inside as I made my last paddle to the beach. My bad knee pained as I took my first steps on solid ground since we left Turtle Bay some two hours before. It had been a great adventure and surely many more would follow. As Nik and Rabbs loaded their boards into the back of my Ford, we joked about paddling to Nevis this time next year. It’s only seven times further than we had just done.......:)

Yesterday it was the fourth SUP rider's turn.

Mykl did a paddle session by herself several miles from Darkwood Beach to CocoBay Hotel. Although the conditions were not as rough, the winds were not always behind her and while i took a few photos from the shore, i could see her having to work pretty hard against some pretty strong winds. She said it wasn't that difficult! Pretty good looking though. Anyway, there are four SUP riders now hooked on this new sport and we hope to have some more stories coming up on this journal.

Humpback Whales are passing thru again.

A week ago I had a stressful day and decided to take the invite from my Dad to go fishing instead of staying back to play mechanic. He doesn't always look so miserable. SMILE NEXT TIME DAD!
Thank goodness Tony can manage the engine work these days. Anyway, the seas were glassy and it was ideal fishing weather. We started very late as is usual with my Dad, and although Uncle Jim had caught a bunch of wahoo before we arrived the action seemed to stop as we pulled up to the North side of Guava Deep. We trolled and trolled and came up with only three barracuda which I had the displeasure of throwing back. Man do they smell bad. Whwew!

Anyway, Vance who had to be at work back at American Airlines for 6 pm needed to be back in Jolly Harbour for 5 pm, so we had to leave the area long before the late afternoon bite. We came up short with no wahoo for dinner, but you know the saying: "A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work". Of course my work is fun, but just being out on the water when it’s calm is pleasurable enough even when you are not catching anything. On the way back in I glanced behind and to the port side for a split second and saw a spout. WHALE I shouted, and dad slowed down. If it were not for Vance, we would have gone back up to have a look at the whales, but we had to get in. The whales were about 4 miles due North of Sunsail Hotel and I saw them spout a few more times as we accelerated back towards Diamond Channel. About a minute further on I saw another spout, but this time it was much closer to the boat and I could see some of the dark colours of the whale break the surface.
The humpbacks were back, and this time they were earlier than normal. They pass through every year at about this time on their way North usually with young newborn calves playing alongside. Here is Captain Tony on the eco boat looking for whales with some guests on our way back from a private tour in Barbuda. There are no whale watching tours in Antigua for several reasons, but whenever our boats see them we immediately go over to them unless it’s too rough outside the reef. This shot was taken one day in the same area as the ones we have just seen. We had a group of Italians who snapped a few photos and then asked "Spiaggia?". It always amazes me how some people can avoid being totally fascinated by these huge rare animals. I find it hard to steer away and leave them even when I know I have to continue a tour. Of course what amazes me even more is that our government support Japanese slaughter of these fine creatures. When my dad represented our government at international whaling conventions Antigua and Barbuda were anti Japan. Then the money came pouring into Antigua from Japan and my Dad was replaced by people who see no problem with Japan's stance. This will pass too. For now we have to educate people about whales I guess. I hope to get some new fresh images this year. These ones are old and I have used here on this blog before. Captain JD above on Xtreme after we spotted some whales up ahead. Whales will be here until the end of April. If you will be here during that time then keep your eyes on the water. If not, then keep them here.




eli

Kids Birthday Party in Antigua

My old school friend from back when I was 10 years old called me a few weeks ago asking if I could help her with a party. Laila Hadeed, now has three children some 20 years later and her lovely daughter "Rax" had a birthday on Thursday. Yesterday we organized a party for her family and little friends. IT was quite an event. Tony and Chris collected the kids and a few parents from Dickenson Bay and cruises up the coast towards The North Sound where JD and I were waiting in his Boston Whaler with food and the Jumbo Dog. I think JD was more excited about the Jumbo Dog than the kids were. We had rented it from a watersports operator as it was one of the main things Rax wanted for her and her friends. Captain "J-Dog" dropped me off onto the Eco Tour boat, "Arawak Odyssey" in Great Bird Island channel and I was able to show the kids Magnificent Frigate Birds and Red Billed Tropic birds as they flew around the bluff of the island. I told the kids that the Tropic Birds needed caves to nest inside and that Bird Island was ideal for that. I also told them that caves were also used by pirates long ago to hide their loot. Tony steered us closer to a large cave at the base of Bird Island. As we approached, one of the kids screamed "there's a bottle in the water". Another quickly yelled "there's a message in it". I told Captain Tony to maneuver the boat closer so that I could grab it. Sure enough it was a message in a bottle. I told them we would anchor on the shore and then open it up. Rax read it and the rhyming message explained that there was a clue under a coconut tree on the North beach of Great Bird Island which would tell us where treasure would be found. The kids all began scrambling over the sides to make way for the beach on the other side. I had to yell at them to stop pretty quickly for two reasons. One was that none had shoes and another was that they had North and South mixed up. I asked Tony to check the compass and to tell the kids where North was. Chris brought down the shoes to the eager kids and was nearly swamped by them. We all rushed over to the nearest coconut tree on the North beach. No luck! We then moved on to the next one and sure enough another message was enclosed inside a palm frond at the base of the tree. The rhyme inside explained that we had to go to the top of Bird and look South for a rock with a bridge. As Chris, Tony, JD and I guided the group slowly to the top we explained about the wild life and plants we were passing. Once on top we spotted the island off to the South. We found some fossils and explained a little about the unique geography we had all around us. It was now time for a quick swim before heading off to the "isle with a bridge" where hopefully we would find our treasure. One child asked how we would share up the treasure. I explained that the way it usually works was that Captain keeps a third, crew keeps a third and owner keeps the last third. The kids told me that Captain Tony didn't need a third and that we could share the treasure between us. I explained that what they were suggesting was close to mutiny and that keel hauling was the punishment. They didn't like the sound of keel hauling and said that Tony could keep his share. We were then off to Hell's Gate.
Once Tony, Chris, and I had gotten almost all the group to the shore safely, it was time to find the "treasure that lay inside".
I led with "#2", Rax (the birthday girl) right behind me. Once we were all in the cave, I let Rax go ahead. A few steps and she blurted out "treasure!!!!". We had found treasure and despite much doubt earlier, there was enough for everyone. It was now time to eat and we cruised down to a nice protected area between Rabbit and Read Head islands. This is where the Jumbo Dog had been anchored up slightly out of sight from the kids. Man were they excited. I don't think I have ever seen food consumed so quickly and only kids could have done that kind of speed eating without heartburn. Once the other crew had eaten, we got belts ready for the kids and J-Dog got the Jumbo Dog loaded up for the first ride. For the next hour or so, J-Dog and his small crew pulled happy kids (and a few adults) back and forth in the nice calm waters to the lee of the "Arawak Odyssey". I just realized that the only person who didn't join in the fun was me!! Wait a second.

It was now time for the trip home where the cake would be waiting at a dock in Hodges Bay near the kid's home. Unfortunately the dock was a bit small so the cake was transported to Dickenson Bay where Tony and Chris said goodbye to the group. JD and I had left the group when the last of the kids took their last ride. Actually, a very pirate like little woman called Marissa had to be removed from the Jumbo Dog before we could leave. She had had too much fun and didn't want to get off. She told me I was an "evil evil evil man". I told her thank you....it’s what all of us pirates want to hear and strive to become. Ahhhrrrrrrrrhh!
All in all it was a fun day and I hope to do something like this again.

more on Antigua and Barbuda Shipwrecks

From my web tracker I can see that I am getting quite a few hits from people searching for wrecks around Antigua and Barbuda. My last shipwreck blog attempted to explain how a particular wreck at Cades has ended up. I said that I would speak more about wrecks so here goes.
For me the history of the Caribbean has always been a very interesting topic especially as it relates to maritime issues. Back in the early parts of the fifteenth century, sailing vessels couldn't sail close to the wind. In fact, most sailing was done by going with the winds (reaching or running) rather than sailing into it (beating). What made the European "discovery" of the West Indies possible was what we now call the "trade winds" which essentially make it possible for mariners to leave Europe and pass through the West Indies and the East Coast of the USA before returning back to Europe without ever having to beat into the winds. Had the circular Atlantic trade trades been different History would have been shaped defiantly as well. The Caribbean would still probably be populated by the indigenous people who have mostly long been forgotten. It’s an interesting thing to ponder, but not quite the way this blog is supposed to be going. SHIPWRECKS! Oh ya....
Ok so we know that from the start of Trans Atlantic crossings people have been sailing, from West to East in the lower half of the Northern Atlantic and from East to West in the Northern Atlantic. What’s my point...? Ok well I am trying to explain what type of ships would end up wrecking here and what type of cargo generally would have been lost in wrecks here in the Eastern Caribbean. People are always so excited when they imagine ship wrecks. I know that as a kid I saw that great film, The Deep, and never lost that excitement when it came to wrecks. The lure of treasure, history and the unknown is what shipwrecks were all about to me. Many people just think and imagine the treasure. Remember the story of all that Inca gold. This fantastic website gives you some fascinating history of how Spain managed to steal huge quantities of gold and sail it back to Europe. Those poor Inca. I remember having to study all about this back in high school. It made me so mad back then. Pizarro plundered all the gold and took it back to Spain leaving disease and colonization behind to wreck an entire advanced civilization all just in a blink of an eye. The gold would never have passed through the eastern Caribbean. In fact of all the gold found in "The New World", none would have passed anywhere near Antigua or Barbuda as we are right upwind and up current of where they would have loaded all these treasures. One of the reasons that the Spanish didn't colonize these islands was that there was no gold or silver here. There are no metals precious or other at any of the Amerindian archaeological sites here in the Eastern Caribbean. Sailing ships would have sailed with their treasures, reaching through the Gulf of Mexico, passing the Florida Keys, going along the Gulf Stream north before sailing east back to Spain. The most famous treasure ship of all time was the Nuestra Señora de Atocha which sank along with a few other ships during a hurricane back on September 5th 1622. It was full to the gills with gold, silver and stones all taken from Peru. It had just left Havana and was on its way back to Spain using the Gulf Stream to get as far north as she needed to before sailing due east back home. That was the plan anyway. Instead 260 of the 265 passengers and crew perished never to be seen again. The wreck was quickly found sitting in 55 feet of water and salvage crews tried to get the treasure without any luck until another massive hurricane disrupted efforts. The ship was lost until 1985 when the infamous Mel Fisher and his crew found her after a deadly 16 year search. A fantastic History of the Atocha is here. Anyway, there were countless treasure wrecks which went to the bottom during the Spanish conquests and many were found and salvaged. Many are still out there to be found some day in the future. Mel and his gang were lucky to find it in such shallow water. Not too far away it could have been several thousand feet deep and the search would have been much harder. Anyway, the point of this story is to show the passage that would have been taken by ships leaving the New World filled with treasures. The only chance we have of finding treasures in our waters here in the Eastern Caribbean I think is if a ship carrying currency back from Europe to the New World sank. This would have been a possibility. I have snorkeled on many wrecks from the Colonial period where we have found cargo destined for these islands. None that precious, but interesting all the same. Will write more another day on what those wrecks contained and looked like and more on why ships would have sunk here in the area. Barbuda has more wrecks than most places in the Caribbean.

The 2008 Stanford 20 20

Stanford 20 20 cricket matches start today and i have my tickets ready. "Who will rise" is the slogan and i am sure that there are many teams from all over the Caribbean basin ready to win the tournament and some big $$. I am gonna try to take some high res photos of the cricket down here and will show some here and on my flickr page. Today is one of four Stanford Pro teams, St. Lucia, up against the Cayman Islands.

Click here for a slide show of some photos from the 2006 Stanford 20 20.

For more info on the worlds most exciting cricket tournament being held here in Antigua over the next month or so you can goto http://www.stanford2020.com/.

I think cricket is generally very boring, but i think that stanford 20 20 is the most exciting thing to see off the water while you are in the caribbean.

This photo shows Tony, the eco tour skipper, as excited as you will ever see him just after Guyana won the final match. Guyana is where Tony originally came from years and years ago. They are the current champs.

"Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone."

A song that i like to listen to every now and then is Baz Luhrmann's "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)". So many things he says in the song like the title of this blog are true and things we should all think about. One of the things i didn't think about as a kid was the silly sunscreen. As you know from reading my blog on sunscreen, i think covering up as much is possible is better than putting it all over you. Anyway, one of the other things i didn't do was be good to my knees. In fact i wrecked one totally in kitesurfing fall. I used to love the extreme air we would get out there and after windsurfing all over the world, kitesurfing was such a cool new angle to the water sport addiction i had. I knew it was dangerous and i had actually met two people who later were killed in kitesurfing accidents, but i thought i would be fine. I was wrong and as i landed badly from a big jump down at jabbawock, i immediately knew i had done something bad to my knee. I had fractured my tibia in the middle of the knee joint and crushed a section of tibia plateau. My life changed that day back in 2002 and has never been the same since then. I have had three major operations on my left knee and my doc has tried to help me get back on the water. The last time he opened me up the bones were all fine but the cartilage was in terrible shape. This shows the knees back in 2006.

There was quite a bit of bone on bone rubbing and he urged me to not drive the boat as much as i had been doing. He told me that i would damage the cartilage in my knee even if i rode a bike. I already knew that driving the boat and just being on the boat was one of the most painful things that i did regularly, so it wasn't a big shock to me. It sucked though all the same, but i started taking some time off the regular driving. Since my accident in 2002 i have slowly stopped doing sporting activity more and more until this time last year i was doing no exercise at all. It was killing me. My mind was suffering more than anything else and i knew i had to get into some fun physical activity again. Several doctors in the USA and in the UK had looked at my scans and told me that if i was 50 then they would to a total knee replacement, but since i was so young i better just wait a while. This bugged me so much because it meant i had to be inactive until i was old enough to get my knee fixed (to be active again at 50)! Last may, after experiencing plenty of pain for a week or so during the fishing tournament, i decided to saw "what the heck", and go to a windsurfing event. HIHO held in the BVI had always been one of my favorite events and i had stayed away from competing in it because of my knee. WHY? Its just a little pain right? My knee wasn't going to get better anyway and the worst thing that could happen was that it would have to be fixed earlier than planned. I went and had a ball. I finished 1st overall and did have plenty of knee pain, but it wasn't so bad that i couldn't walk. It also didn't last more than a week or so which was cool. That all being said, i think over the next few months i noticed that knee pain was more quick to come and little things would sometimes give me plenty of trouble. Hurricane Dean came along and i couldn't resist the temptation to windsurf a little. It was extreme and extremely enjoyable, but as you can imagine the pain lasted another week. 3 hours of windsurfing and one week of bad pain. I had to find some other sport to keep my mind and body in shape. I am the kind of person that needs physical activity for my mind as much as for my body. I think that's the case with many people. What was going to be kind to my knees? My buddy Nik kept telling me about stand up paddle surfing or SUP. Essentially its a mix between canoeing and surfing using a big purpose built surfboard and a long paddle. You can cruise along exploring the coastline or you can go out to surf that is difficult to get to while normal surfing. I tried Nik's board a few times and enjoyed it so much that i was very excited about getting my own. This had to be better on my knees, so i ordered some gear from my friend Sean in Maui. After our two boards came in, my girlfriend and I went for a nice long cruise from Curtain Bluff Hotel to OJs. It was 4 miles downwind close to the reefs, flats and mangrove habitats of Cades Bay. We saw turtles, rays, permit and loads of other sea life and birds. I was loving it, but i did notice some pain in my knee. The next day my knee killed. If i couldn't do this then what could i do?
The next day i went to get some scans of my knee and sent them up to Mr. Justin Cobb in London. He's the one who has been working on my knee since 2002. As one of the world's leading Orthopaedic surgeons and a close family friend, i trust him with my life. Justin has just chaired a conference where 300 orthopaedic surgeons from around the world discussed knees and hips. He says that every year there are huge advances in technology and that there is a very good option for me. It looks like i may be in England within a few months to do some "relining" of my old knee. He says it wont be a total knee replacement, but more of a resurfacing or "relining" the ends of bones when cartilage has worn away and bone has been destroyed. Anyway, i am not sure when this will be and in the meantime i will be using my SUP in the afternoons. They say there will be waves this weekend!!!! eli

lost shipwreck

People often ask me about shipwrecks in Antigua and there seems to be so much intrigue surrounding them. Today and maybe on the next blog I will chat a bit about wrecks and what type of ships and boats end up in trouble here only to end up on the bottom and in some cases on top.
Anyway, the reason we were looking for this wreck in the first place is that our new boat being built down in Carriacou needs a lead show attached to its keel. This bit of ballast isn't readily available, and I am trying to recycle some lead from a wreck's keel to use in our new one.
I have spoken many times about my uncle Nick Fuller and good he is at salvaging boats that get into trouble. His company North Coast Salvage has pulled probably over 100 boats off reefs helping to prevent damage to corals as well as prevent these boats from becoming part of the reef. It is dangerous work and it way more technical than the average person and many times the average skipper knows. I have been out on salvages with him at night and the excitement level is almost as high as the danger. It’s scary yet enjoyable if you are able to save the boat you are out there for.
There are many reefs around Antigua and Barbuda that have made it a dangerous place to navigate around since the first European wrecks here back in the early 1500s. Almost as soon as boats started coming across the Atlantic they were wrecked here in Antigua or in Barbuda. Why? Well the entire island of Barbuda is made up of limestone and coral (almost the same thing I guess) and it is very flat indeed. Waters coming in from the Atlantic are extremely deep right up to the massive barrier reef system just off the beaches on the windward side. To this day there are no lights on that side and boats just don’t know its there until it’s too late. Even with today's modern GPS navigation boats are making mistakes. Just last week when I went fishing with my dad, we heard Uncle Nick speaking to a boat that had run aground in Barbuda. Lucky for the crew the winds and waters were as still as it gets and it was pretty easy for them to get off safely. Antigua's North coast is very similar to Barbuda with a low limestone coastline and barrier reefs just off shore. From our house on the North Shore I watched many boats run into trouble as a kid. So many skippers get it wrong. It’s not just the inexperienced ones either and several excursion boats that I know of have ended up in trouble over the years. The south side of Antigua is made up of ancient volcanic rocks and although there is a huge barrier reef called Cades, the waters are generally safer for navigation. Cades is where Ross and I went looking for this wreck using Xtreme yesterday. It's a long reef stretching from just outside Curtain Bluff in an east west direction towards Johnson's Point. For thousands of years the beautiful Cades Reef stretched submerged just inside the 100 fathom curve and outside the shallows along the coast providing food and protection for humans and a huge variety of wild life. In fact some of the best and most sophisticated of all Arawak Indian settlements were close to Cades reef. Much has changed since Arawak Indians fished on Cades reef some 2000 years ago including their ultimate genocide. The Siboney hunted there 2000 years before them too only using shell and stone tools. Nobody knew what happened to them but 4000 years later I doubt anyone would be able to catch enough to survive there with stone and shell tools. I know I am getting off topic, so let me get back to the wrecks. Many say that the hurricanes we get these days are stronger and more frequent than ever before. We don’t get many hurricanes here in general with no direct hits between the early 1950s and 1989 when we were hit by Hurricane Hugo. It was the first storm in my lifetime to hit Antigua and was a strange one for the south coast. Cades reef which lay submerged since the first coral polyps colonized the area hundreds of thousands of years ago became an island in one night back in 1995. For some reason I always thought it was the stronger hurricane Louis that raised the broken reef out of the water and had arguments with Trevor about this. Anyway, I just spoke with Captain Franco of Franco's Glass Bottom Cruises and Rob Sherman, GM of Curtain Bluff Hotel, who both agreed with Trevor. Hurricane Hugo back in 1989 developed massive waves coming in from the South which trashed the entire coast and Cades Reef. Many beaches still are missing sand to this day from that storm and so much coral was broken during that storm that by morning an island had been made along the entire span of the reef. As seen in this pic taken from an interesting page on The National Center for Coral Reef Research the huge corals were just ripped apart and thrown where the waves wanted to have them. This reef had been fooling captains and crew for hundreds of years and now all of a sudden even in bad visibility you could see it poking as much as 8 feet out of the water. I took this photo back in Sailing Week 2006 and it shows what i am speaking about.

My uncle Nick wasn't happy and his business suffered as a result. he he he The poor reef has never been the same and to make matters worse we were hit by another even stronger hurricane in 1995 and again in 1998. Far fewer boats ran aground with the reef out of the water but at night some mariners still managed to make the mistake. Several yachts last year ended up in trouble on Cades including the one Ross and I was looking for. The yacht was about 35-40 feet long and like many wrecks, was rumored to be on a smuggling mission. This time the cargo was alleged to be illegal immigrants. Somehow, the yacht sailed right up onto the dry coral in the middle of the reef and was left there where it sat for months and months being slowly picked apart by the sea and those who looked for tiny treasures. A friend got a nice compass from it. We on the other hand were looking for its keel, but knew it would be very hard to find because of what happened this hurricane season. Although we have not had any hurricanes hitting our shores directly since 1999 we did have massive waves pounding the south shore in summer 07 when Hurricane Dean passed 170 miles to the South. The waves were so big in fact, that the strip of land (broken coral) almost all got washed back into the sea and the yacht in question vanished. This photo taken by "bugdriver" shows the reef after the storm and as you can see its gone back to being submerged. Uncle Nick is happy again I imagine. ha
Ross and I arrived at the place where I imagined the wreck rested before the storm. I made a call to Andre, skipper of Wadadli cats who snorkeled close to it many times, and he said we were exactly in the right place. He was passing a mile to our port side and could see us. We entered the water as a short rain squall with rainbow passed above us and were not surprised by how much warmer the water was. Around us colourful fish scattered as if disturbed by our big splash. The waters were clear as is usual on the south side at this time of year with visibility over the coral blow us spanning about 70 feet. We swam over the reef passing 3 barracuda, many other fish and countless black spiny sea urchins which seem to be making a big comeback at the moment. There was a section of the dry coral still above water and it was there that the wreck was sitting before Dean passed this summer. As soon as we got to the spot we started finding small bits and pieces of the boat. A section of aluminum mast, the bimini top's frame, a coral encrusted mask, a small hatch, bits of the sail, some stainless steel bits and pieces, but nothing significant. We looked and looked seeing nothing bigger. We even got out of the water onto the little "island" for a better look and tried to imagine how the wreck would have been pushed by the massive waves. As you can see from this pic showing almost exactly where we were in the distance yesterday, the waves During Dean's passing were of titanic proportions. Just when we were about to give up and go back in, I saw a tiny piece of sail sticking out of the broken coral. Imagine thousands of rocks which were live coral at one time, tightly piled upon each other only inches below the surface. In all of that, the piece of sail poked out. I turned over a few of the broken pieces of coral as tiny, thin, black starfish scurried out of the way, and it became evident that we had found the yacht. The sail was attached at the boom/mast joint and the rest of it was burried right there i guessed. We had found it! That was the good news I suppose, but the bad news was that it lay almost entirely covered in broken coral. There was no way that we were going to get that keel. For now until the next massive storm the wreck and its keel will stay inside Cades reef.
Wow, look how long this blog ended up being. My next few blogs will add more info on Antigua and Barbuda’s ship wrecks and why we don't have more of them to snorkel and dive on. I will also explain why we don't have much chance of finding treasure in any of the hundreds of wrecks that we have scattered around the place. Hope you enjoyed the long read. eli