Three big parties coming up to finish off the summer in style. The First:

My long time friend Justin Nation is teaming up with Abracadabra Bar here in English Harbour to put on a big party on Saturday 14th August.

Justin grew up essentially on the streets of Antigua and had a pretty tough time throughout his childhood. Somehow he managed to find out that he was magically gifted artistically and taught himself how to create art on his computer. He never limited himself to any one art form and is as good at visual arts and graphic design as he is at his music endeavors. That being said, it's his music that has become his main passion. Working with many other great artists across the Caribbean and in the USA where he was based for a few years recently, he has produced many remarkable songs. Some have ended up being very successful. Recently he has been teaming up with other singers and producers to not only produce but also to perform in his music.

An album is in the works at the moment in collaboration with several of Antigua's top musicians as well as my friend Torsten Stenzel, himself an internationally recognized producer originally from Germany. I am sure I will have more info about this album soon as it is going to be marketed internationally and will be very good without a doubt.
A few days ago  http://www.365antigua.com/ ran a story on Justin JUS BUS Nation and specifically about the party. Here is a little of it:

Well, it's a joint celebration for Abras and birthday boy Jus Bus. The diverse artist was born in America but raised in the islands of the Caribbean. He's spent the last 26 years of his life perfecting a natural talent for music and graphic arts. To promote his struggling brand and musical abilities, he unofficially remixed artist including Jay Z, Drake, Rihanna, Marcy Playground, John Legend and Nina Simone until 2009 when he landed his first official placement with Sony USA on the John Legend "Evolver" album for the remix of No Other Love featuring Estelle.

The article goes on to say that this party on the 14th will be:

A well-rounded journey through sound will feature the best of todayʼs hottest exotic DJ's along with guest appearances by F.R.E.E. Entertainment and Team Ultra to create the ultimate party experience. Musical performances on the night by Wardadli Souljahs, Deejay Charlie, T-Dawg, with special appearances by Shamobe, Kenne Blessin, Team Ultra, Trilla, Lee Pee Ching, Logiq Pryce & Jus Bus and more!

Justin and I both use new media quite a bit to promote our brand and you can find him on his twitter account here and on his website here.

Later this week I will speak about the other big party the following weekend. Save your energy, the end of the summer is going to be active in more ways than one.

i've been missing in action

For the past week i have been once again down on the tiny island of Carriacou. We are told that "Carriacou" means island surrounded by reefs in the now extinct Arawak language. The Arawaks were one of two tribes of Indian people found in the Caribbean when the first Europeans arrived in the late fifteenth century. 

Another Arawak name is Zemi which is a unique sculpture that housed the spirit(s). It was a very special piece in the Arawak village and I have found many of them here in Antigua with my dad who is the local expert on Zemis. Anyway, our new sailing vessel seen out at anchor above, which sailed for the first time recently was named Zemi by my wife. I was thinking of naming it Calalloo after the popular Caribbean dish and also the name of the hotel my grandfather built over next to Curtain Bluff. Anyway, Zemi sounded better and that was the name that she was launched under. Since her launch in the new year, she has had a mast put in, rigging set up, and sails built.

Last weekend was the Carriacou Regatta and Zemi's builders had said that they wanted to race her then.

This forty two foot sloop with a massive genoa and main was going to be sailed for the first time the day before the race if all went well. Of course, as is usually the case down there, things didn't get done on a tight schedule and the first race ended up starting with us still on anchor scrubbing moss off the bottom and putting spinnaker blocks on the top of the mast.

Somehow we managed to set sail and cross the line 20 minutes late. This boat is ready to sail..... sort of, because without any winches at all, it wasn't easy. We had to add extra sand bags to ballast the boat enough to race and we found out that in winds over 15 knots we simply didn't have enough down below.

Anyway, we did fairly well an managed to improve in every race as we changed bits and pieces on the boat.

For me the regatta was the "sea trial" that every new boat needs before she can go off shore, and the plan was to sail back to Antigua after the regatta once we knew she was sea worthy. That plan also got changed when we realized that tropical storm Collin was going to be passing too close for comfort to Antigua. Without any modern navigational equipment and no engine the risk that something could go wrong in bad weather spinning off from a tropical storm was too great. We decided to slip the boat in Carriacou and get some fresh paint on her before we made the 350 mile trip up to Antigua. As it happened the storm fizzled out and we had beautiful weather in Antigua. Zemi will soon be sailing up from Carriacou to be properly painted and finished here in Antigua in a similar way to what we did with the Ocean Nomad which we use with http://www.sailingantigua.com/

The Lionfish is probably here in Antigua already.

From island to island all the way from Florida along the West Indian archipelago the Pacific Lionfish has migrated up current. The story is that this very dangerous alien species first first got into the waters off Florida during the disastrous Hurricane Andrew back in 1992. I don't think there were many people who thought we would see them here. Just over a week ago The Nature Foundation St. Maarten reported that a specimen had been spotted on a wreck very close to shore.
Why is this terrible news and why do i describe them as "very dangerous"?
I describe them as dangerous for several reasons. The lesser evil is that they have a very painful sting. According to the Nature Foundation speaking about the fish that was spotted there:

If you do happen to catch it please be VERY careful; all of the spines on the caudal, pectoral, anal and dorsal fins are venomous and can cause an EXTREMELY painful and dangerous sting. First aid treatment is immersion in hot water, as hot as the victim can take. Advise your divers about this as well.
It is important that if you do catch it the specimen be delivered to or picked up by the Nature Foundation as we need to do tissue sampling and send it off to NOAA in the States, we need to analyze the stomach contents to figure out what its been eating, and we need to positively i.d the subspecies (P.miles or P.volitans). All of this info will help us control the invasion better.

The sting you get from touching one is pretty bad, but another more sinister evil is how quickly they reproduce and take over habitats in the Caribbean. These fish are not natural to this area at all and have almost no predators. They on the other hand, prey on anything that swims near them. A Jamaican fisheries officer told me that when they arrive on a reef, they quickly kill all of the other fish on the reef. He says that before long the Lions are the only fish on the reef. This type of invasive species is the most dangerous one as it destroys the ecosystem's food chain and ultimately the system itself. After writing these words I googled a bit to see if i could find some good articles to back this up. The Guardian out of the UK printed this article yesterday: Read Here.

Unless there is some very weird miracle, the lionfish will be spotted in Antigua and Barbuda very soon as it continues to spread like a plague down towards South America.
All Doom and Gloom? Well, there isn't much positive to say about this story, but I can only say that this is once again another reason among the many that i have already written about that the Fisheries Department of Antigua and Barbuda need to start working on protection of key species of fish. Groupers are one of the only predators of lionfish, and we naturally had a very healthy population of groupers until very recently. Overfishing and the total lack of proper fisheries management has lead to some species of grouper becoming extinct here and all of the rest of the shallow water reef species severely endangered. If the North East Marine Management Area gets started with a proper board and a proper manager, groupers and all other species of reef fish will make a rapid comeback. We will then start to see other large predators out on the reefs including the green moray eels and sharks that were so common up until the 1990s. The NEMMA and other carefully managed marine parks may be the key to preventing the total destruction of our marine habitats. Lionfish are killed by groupers, but without groupers the lionfish will takeover. Have a read of this interesting report on lionfish in other areas of the West Indies. Click here. This is a section from that article:

While complete eradication does not seem realistic, affected nations are encouraged to initiate targeted lionfish control efforts as soon as possible, including targeted fisheries (lionfish flesh is tasty and cooking denatures the spine venom). Efforts to reduce densities of lionfish at key locations may help to lessen their ecological impacts. Recovering and maintaining healthy populations of potential native predators of lionfish, such as large grouper and sharks, may also help reduce the deleterious effects of these voracious invasive predators.

 History repeats itself unless you learn from it.

Just back from a trip to see Zemi in Carriacou.

Last week I took on a quick delivery job which entailed me taking a powerboat down to the Grenadines. The boat belonged to Elite Island Resorts which has Galley Bay, St. James Club, and Verandah here in Antigua. They run a magnificent island resort in the heart of the Grenadines called Palm Island which is in fact where my wife and I spend the second half of our honeymoon last year. We had to deliver the boat to Palm, but part of the deal was that I would use the boat to deliver a few small items to our new Carriacou Sloop "Zemi". Eventually we will add this boat to our fleet.
Back in the early part of this year the new boat was launched with the usual traditions and ceremony. Here is a movie which contains a collection of images several of us took along the way as well as on launch day:

She has now had most of her ballast added, and just before we arrived there last week, she had her mast put in.
Our job while there was to get the mast properly rigged with the forestay, shrouds and running backstays. We also had to attach both jib and main halyards. Imagine trying to attach blocks and halyards to a mast that had none in it before. It's a good thing one of the builder's sons has ice running through his veins. It was a scary thing to watch as he climbed up the mast and balanced on the spreaders while attaching the blocks. Crazy. Don't ask me why they couldn't find a single shackle on windward to put on the top of the mast. That would have made it easier to get him up there safely. Anyway, by the end of a day and a half of work, we were almost ready to sail. Unfortunately we had to return to Antigua and left them trying to fit the rudder and boom. I think they will be sailing by the start of next week.
This shot taken with my phone shows Calistus up high on the mast fixing the rigging in place.

He was up there for ages as it was very hard work and not the safest. Imagine if this boat was being built in the UK where health and safety regulations are the strongest on the planet!
Anyway, the boss was his dad, and it seemed like this was something Cal had done many times. He showed no fear at all and got the job done.
Alexis Andrew's Genesis is almost in Carriacou and another Carriacou sloop will be on its way down from Antigua this weekend. They are both on their way to the Carriacou Regatta which is held over a few days starting on the 30th. We went last year and I was toying with the idea of going down to race Zemi this year, but I think I may end up missing it. That being said, the Zemi may end up sailing it's maiden voyage in the regatta if the builders get her ready in time. I will go down again some time this summer to sail her out of Carriacou.

Tropical Meteorology 101 - hurricane season must.

I found this on the CrownWeather site and he had taken it from another site shown in the link below. If you are planning a holiday to the Caribbean this summer then I hve to tell you not to worry. Remember Antigua which is in a pretty good spot for hurricanes has had 6 days of hurricane conditions over the past 50+ years. You will be fine! Anyway, you should brush up on your meterology and how a hurricane forms and what happens next. This is the best set of info I have seen so far. Check it out so that you know what we are speaking about this summer. "Tek it easy", eli.

Tropical Meteorology 101 - GCWX - Hurricane Season 2010 - The Premiere WX Community For LA & MS

Digicel has had a problem in Antigua and has kept it secret.

The problem with Digicel in Antigua that most people don't know about has to do with phones that receive and send data. Because it's so easy to miss this problem, most people won't even believe it if you tell them. In fact, many people working for Digicel have no idea about the problem either, but it's costing some of us money and causing many problems for others. Of course Digicel says that they service allows the user to send and receive date while receiving phone calls and texts, but this isn't working properly. The problem is that calls are not coming through occasionally when you are sending or receiving data. Our company has several phones in using data on our corporate plan where we have quite a few phones. It doesn't happen all the time, but we have had to buy a LIME phone which receives forwarded calls from our digicel number printed on the brochure. We sit in full signal with our digi phone and get calls on our secret LIME number every single day.
We had been complaining about the problem for over a year with Digicel always telling us that we must be in a bad signal area. All of our Adventure Antigua brochures have our digicel number on it and don't have our lime number. Our employees, our customers and I have to call our office/brochure number many times during the day and we all have gotten voice mail thousands of times. Our phone is manned 24/7 and we know that without it being answered we don't get customers and our boats sit in port. Answering the phone is paramount to getting good business and we make sure that we are in an area that has good signal. Yet for over two years we have been noticed the problem with voice mail all of a sudden coming in without a single ring. We have also been told by everyone who calls the number that it just after it not being answered it just goes to voice mail. Time and time again we called Digicel reps to be told that we don't know what we are talking about. Finally after a year of our Lime phone taking forwarded calls each day, I spoke to a Digicel technician who we can call "Mitch". He listened to the same story i had been telling the corporate account reps for ages and said "yes, we recently found out about this problem. We know that some of the calls coming into phones that are sending or receiving data don't come through. We have done some research and found out that we need some new equipment to solve this problem". I called the Digicel office in Antigua straight away demanding another phone and sim card for my phone so that i wouldn't have to buy another Lime phone. They asked me to put it in writing to them. I did and never got a reply. Ten days later I sent it again, but didn't get a reply. Recently I spoke to our corporate representative and asked him to find out about the problem and to find out why I haven't had a reply to my letters. I am still waiting to hear from him. Anyone using data and receiving plenty of calls.... you are missing many of them. Anyone ever tell u they called you and you had no missed call, or have you ever received a voicemail without the phone ringing when you are sitting in an area that has a strong signal? It's time for digicel to come clean and to not only do something about it but to compensate many of us for lost business.
I would go as far as to say that if Digicel know about this problem and has kept it secret, then this is fraud according to my definition of it. What do you think? Below is the first email that I sent to their office here in Antigua as requested.

---------- Forwarded message ----------


From: eli fuller
Date: Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 4:19 PM

Subject: problem with incoming calls that are also receiving/sending data

To: mailto:&%5E$%5E#&@digicelgroup.com

Cc: Adventure Antigua,

Dear Althea, For what seems like six months i have been complaining to Digicel representatives about a problem that i had noticed with your service. When in a position with full signal I often a) receive voice mail alerts and/or b) am told by people (including my staff and customers) that they had called me without getting a reply.
This wouldn't normally be a problem IF I heard the phone ring or noticed a missed call. The problem is that this usually happens without my phone ringing and registering a missed call.
As i mentioned, i complained about this time and time again. In fact, it happened so much on our main company phone 268 726 6355, that I nearly fired my own sister who answers that call. I accused her of not telling the truth because I would be calling her counting the calls, only to get her voice mail. She'd ring me back saying that the phone never rang. This is our main company phone that is advertised in all of our promotional materials. Our business depends on this phone receiving calls so much that I told her to go and buy a phone from Lime. We now have our 726 6355 number forwarded to the lime number, so that we don't miss calls from our customers. Despite this phone number not being on any of our promotional materials YET, we get calls on that number forwarded from our digicel number every day. This is totally unacceptable but what makes matters worse, is that for months and months I have been telling digicel reps that I am experiencing this problem on my phones and they always tell me that essentially i am imagining it. You can imagine how frustrating it is to know a problem exists and to be told that there isn't one.
Today I finally spoke with someone in your company who knew something about the problem. I was told by this person that they recently realized that they had problems occasionally where people who were using data were not receiving calls that rang through on the other end as if they were not being answered. THIS IS THE PROBLEM I HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE A YEAR!
I know I have lost business because of this as tour reps tell me that they have just called the next tour company time and time again when they were unable to get a reply from our number.
At the very least I want you to give me simple phones and sim cards for three of my company phones that I know are experiencing this problem. We will then forward all calls to these (non data) phones so that we can receive our calls when the other phones are experiencing problems. I also would like a credit for the amount i spend every month with Lime which as it happens is a tiny charge. We only use the phone to receive calls that don't come through on our 726 6355 number and have been doing this for nearly a year.
As I mentioned on the phone, this problem which is being kept quiet by Digicel has cost my company money and wasted quite a bit of my time and patience.
Please let me know what you are going to do about it, and also please tell me when you think it will be repaired.

Thanks, eli
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Just another comment on fisheries in Antigua

As you will know if you have been a regular reader of my blogs over the years, I often comment on the lack of proper fisheries management here in Antigua. Our marine ecosystem is way bigger than our terrestrial systems yet it has no real visible management and as a result many areas of the fishery and the marine environment that support it are having huge problems. Use the little search box up in the corner to search for "fisheries" and you will probably find more posts.
The comment here is about a dinner I went to this week. Actually it happened twice. The first was a dinner with a bunch of people from both sides of Antigua's political divide. The politics wasn't that interesting, but what was to me was that dinner was two different types of fish. One is probably the most widely consumed fish in Antigua and Barbuda. I have no idea what the real name of the fish is or even what it looks like. "Banga Mary" is imported from South America and eaten all around Antigua these days. The other was flying fish, another import. While i ate the deeply fried fish, I contemplated the situation. Here we were in a room with some of Antigua's most influential people and possibly the next prime minister and we were eating imported fish. Why is it a big deal? Well it's not that I am complaining as I was a guest, and the fish actually tasted very nice. It's just that I know that the reason we were eating this imported fish is that it's almost impossible to get enough local fish for a large group such as we had that night.
On Saturday night I went to another dinner. This time the dinner and import was salmon and it was totally delicious, but again had the cook had been able to get some nice local fish we wouldn't have been eating something imported.
Yesterday I went to First Choice Supermarket, where I was surprised as how much seafood they had on the shelves. Salmon, shrimp, squid, scallops, lingfish, mackerel, conch, mahi mahi and others. The only thing on the shelf that was actually locally harvested was conch. Interesting as conch fishing is banned in many parts of the Caribbean because of such low stocks. On paper, we have legislation about conch fishing and there are size limits, but if you go around Antigua's coastline you will see piles of tiny conch shells that were illegally harvested. Why? Simply because nobody is out there checking.
Anyway, even the mahi mahi at First Choice was imported. I assumed it was simply because each time I have seen mahi before in the supermarkets, it had been imported from the Indian Ocean. These had a funny colour to them and had been frozen some time ago. The labels didn't say if the fish was from Antigua as did the conch. This is a fish that we have around Antigua off shore in good numbers.
The average hotel guest coming here to Antigua will not eat local seafood in their hotel at any time during their stay. This is almost totally because of terrible fisheries management. The same can be said for our residents. We have a very hard time finding any variety of fresh local fish. IT isn't because we don't have good fisheries facilities. We have quite a few lovely ones donated by the Japanese in exchange for our whaling vote. The simple problem is that overfishing without management has all but killed our fishery. There are still a few areas which can be utilized, but without management they won't last long. I fear that conch and lobster will be wiped out before long unless something is done. The sand producing and reef sustaining parrot fish and other similar herbivores are being harvested in unsustainable netting methods at alarming rates at the moment without any management at all. It's almost not worth speaking about it because the powers that be don't seem to be interested at all.
There is always cod fish right? We have been eating that here for hundreds of years..... Hold on a moment. The cod fish industry wiped cod out.

"My wife and I had an AWESOME time!!!!"

Another lovely review of our Xtreme around Antigua day tour. It's reviews like these that make us very happy to be doing what we do. THANK YOU MIKE!!!!!

Mike Esposito

Review posted on Trip Advisor....7/4/10

My wife and I have nothing but good things to say about Adventure Antigua. They were extremely helpful in getting our reservations setup before we arrived in Antigua and great throughout the tour. We did the Extreme Circumnavigation tour - it is a little more expensive than some of the other tours available, but well worth it!!!!

The power boat that they take you on is a blast - make sure to sit in the front if you like waves, ocean spray and to feel the full experience of the boat. It happened to be raining on the day we went, but my wife and I still had an AWESOME time!!!! We laughed the entire time and made the best of it. The captain and tour guide (forgot their names) both taller, skinnier guys, were hilarious. They knew that some people were not too happy with the rain, but tried to make the best out of the day. In our opinion, the rain was not something that anyone could control, so we just made the best of it. The captain and guide were very down to earth and great to talk with - they type of people you enjoy hanging out with, plus they were full of great knowledge about the island.

You go through a bunch of smaller islands and then you go to Stingray City - the camera guy who takes your pics and the guys who help you touch the stingrays were also great - very friendly and helpful to those who might have been a little scared at first (my wife). The stingrays are beautiful and come right up to you - you can even feed and pet them.

From here you go to a private beach where the team sets up a lunch for everyone - the BBQ chicken is to die for - some of the best I have ever had...! Then you go to Nelson's dockyard and then to pillars or Hercules where you snorkel for a little bit. We had a massive storm come in and so we were only there for about 10 minutes - I have been a Scuba diver for over 15 years and that was definitely some of the most "extreme" snorkeling I had ever did - the captain and guide quickly got everyone back into the boat and then we continued to make our way around the island. We were supposed to stop at one more beach for rum punch, but the weather took a turn for the worse, so we just started heading in - I learned how to drink rum punch in 6 - 7 foot seas while going 30 - 40 mph haha - seriously so much fun!

The waves were huge that day, but for us, it only added to the fun of the tour - definitely "extreme" haha...it is a tour and day we will never forget - tons of laughing, beautiful sites and well worth the money. I can only imagine that it is that much more beautiful and fun when the seas and weather are calm.

This tour books up quickly so make sure you get your reservations either before you get to the island or right when you get to your resort. Top class operation that I would definitely use again.

While Antigua's fisheries policy is focussed on Japanese Aid, Rome burns!

The title above is just so true. I have written many articles pointing out how exactly our nations marine eco systems are in severe decline while at the same time our government has received tens of millions in grants from Japan in a "quid pro quo" arrangement. We vote with them on any fisheries related issues at the various international conventions. Each country has one vote and ours is worth quite a sum.

This is simple politics and its the same world wide. I won't change it and will have to live with it. That being said, it is unacceptable that all of this money and support we are receiving form Japan isn't actually helping our marine eco systems in a way that will benefit future generations of fishermen or any other group.

Several days ago a large foreign flagged boat ran aground in the North East Marine Management Area (NEMMA) causing some damage to an area of shallow sea grass beds teaming with marine life. Remember, this area has been legally made into a Marine Protected Area (MPA). Our boat tours passed it early in the morning while the ship tried fruitlessly to get itself off the shallows. There was a huge cloud of silt all around the boat as its prop wash pushed and pulled the boat in the shallow waters. Here is a photo of the boat taken later on when they had stopped trying to move themselves:

If you look above the L in "Lovely Lisa" there is a guy at the wheel house, and this gives you an idea of how big the boat is. A little further back yo can see the boat's registration number. "TT" shows that this fishing boat is from Trinidad & Tobago which doesn't actually have anything to do with the point I am trying to make, but opens up another huge can or worms which I will tackle when i get more info. Everyone involved is being very tight lipped, so I don't know why a huge TT registered commercial fishing boat was stuck on a grass flat in our waters.
Back to my point...... We called the coast guard so that some help to the situation could be afforded. They didn't seem to know about it. A call was made to the Fisheries Division who also didn't know about it. The person on the phone seemed concerned and surprised and obviously wanted to do something about it, BUT they said something like they didn't have access to transportation. Later it was alleged that the budget for fuel in the Fisheries Division had been cut to almost nothing which meant that they were essentially grounded. All those millions of dollars in Japanese aid to build fisheries buildings and not a dime permitted to be used in protection of Marine Protected Areas or anything else for that matter. What a joke. It's all politics and you have to feel for the workers in the Fisheries Department. A call was also made to the Environment Division because they always seem to have transportation in the form of cars and trucks. They said they would speak with the Coast Guard.
In the end the boat was pulled off the shallows by a tug after considerable effort and it was towed to the tug's base nearby at Crabs industrial area.
Finally the Coast Guard and Fisheries inspected the boat and the decision was made to take the boat to the Coast Guard Base. I have seen nothing in the news about this boat but as far as I am aware, no charges or considerations were made in association with the damage to NEMMA's Marine Protected Area.
Anywhere else, the boat would have been heavily fined and impounded until the fines were paid.
Here is an article taken from the Amandala by Aaron Humes. It speaks of a more serious situation that happened recently in Belize. It shows that the financial side of these accidents are something that a broke government may want to take not of!

In what Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh called one of the most “technical” cases he has ever decided in his time in the Belize Supreme Court, the Government of Belize won its claim against the owners of Dutch cargo ship Westerhaven, which plowed into Belize’s Barrier Reef on the night of January 13, 2009, allegedly because of negligence on the part of its captain, Fritz Schroeder.

The MS Westerhaven Schiffahrb GMBH& Co. KG must now pay BZ$11.5 million in damages for running over an acre of pristine coral while on its way out of Belize, headed for Santo Tomas in Guatemala. The Company was represented by Michael Young and Darrell Bradley of Youngs Law Firm, while the case for the Attorney General was argued by the mother-daughter team of Lois Young and Deanne Barrow.
Estimates of the damage were as high as BZ$52 million at one point, but when the case went to court in November the defendants conceded liability and pressed for a judgment of US$2.5 million – the amount they estimated it would cost to rebuild the reef with artificial coral. They also argued that a 1976 Convention of Limitation of Liability on Maritime Liens, to which Belize is a party, would limit the amount the C.J. could grant to the Government.
The Government on the other hand requested as much as $31 million, based on an estimate of value of some $5,000 per square meter of coral.
In the judgment, according to Barrow, the C.J. stated that the 1976 Convention does not apply to injury to coral reefs, and therefore he was unlimited in what he could award in damages.
At the same time, the C.J. thought that $11.5 million was “fair” based on a reduced measure of value, at about BZ$2,000 per square meter. (The amount of coral damaged is estimated at a little over an acre, or between 5,500 and 6,500 square meters.)
Deanne Barrow told us that on the matter of rebuilding the reef, the idea was considered “not practical” because of the state of devastation the Westerhaven left in its wake; there was quite literally “nothing to build on,” she told us.
The area damaged is located about 32 miles southeast of Belize City, and is according to Barrow located within a prime protected area for Nassau Grouper spawning.
Expecting a possible appeal, the Government is seeking to enforce the BZ$13 million bond on the ship signed last February, weeks after the grounding.
In court this morning, we are told, the Chief Justice read a poem celebrating the value and beauty of the Belize Barrier Reef, long recognized as the second-longest unbroken chain of coral reef in the world behind its more illustrious cousin in Australia, and which demands Belize’s protection.

Recently back in Feb, another yacht ran aground on a lovely reef inside the NEMMA. Huge efforts were made by nearby residents and others to get this boat moved. All the government departments kicked the problem between them like a world cup football while the boat caused more and more environmental damage. The boat is still high and dry up there off Green Island. There is aslo another ship causing environmental damage in Seatons also in the NEMMA. Nothing has been done there either. A massive fuel leak from the West Indies Oil platform happened a few months back. NADA done bout that either. There are many more similar cases. There are environmental accidents all the time here and nobody pays any attention to them. When will our leaders learn?

EDIT 2/7/10

I called the local Coast Guard to find out more about this T&T registered fishing boat. They told me that they didn't really know why the boat was being kept and that i should speak with the Customs Department which i did next. They told me that the only reason the boat was being kept was that "it was found in an unofficial port of entry." JEEZ!!!! They were taken there by a tug boat that took several hours to get them off of a protected bit of marine eco system!!!!!!!!

Purple haze all in the Caribbean......

At various times of the year, the Caribbean can be covered in thick haze which makes it difficult to see very far at all. Many people looking at things like web cams will think that what they are seeing is just a cloudy day, but most of the time in the spring and summer months what they are seeing is haze caused by African dust or the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) as it is called in meteorological circles. Check this photo from today's Saharan Air Layer (SAL) Analysis:

As you can see, the dust coloured in orange and yellow, is covering the eastern Caribbean as it comes over the Atlantic from Africa. I just took a photo on my HTC and uploaded it to my twitter page for you to see the stuff. Click here for that photo. Pro photographers hate this haze as it can make for fairly flat images, but to be honest, that's the least of the problems this dust can cause. I wrote a long detailed blog about it with a pretty good explanation about it all in 2007. Click here to learn more about African Dust in the Caribbean.

Happy cruise passengers vowing to come back!

A review from one of our cruise passengers who unfortunately came to antigua on a rare rainy day. They should have been out today when the weather was perfect! Thanks for the review!

From: Paula [vital1@******.net]


Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 1:17 AM

To: Adventure Antigua

Subject: Re: AA-Booking Eco Tour Confirmation June 23rd 2010 x4

 Hi! The weather didn't cooperate at all for this tour, but I had to let you know what an outstanding job the crew did that day. They warned us it was going to rain and everyone decided to go anyway. The first rain wasn't that bad, but when the storm blew in at Bird Island it got rough! Captain Cool, Chris and did a great job keeping everyone safe. I've grown up near the water and know how quickly the seas can become angry.
Anyway, Nicole was the other crew member and everyone was fantastic! This was my son and my second time and my boyfriend and his son's first time to take the tour. Even though we only did half, they had a great time and are using the rain as an excuse to go back and try it again! I just felt compelled to let you know that you have wonderful people working for you and we will be back again.

hot and sticky at the moment in antigua.

At the moment, I am sitting on my computer trying to catch up on emails and all the other admin kinda stuff that you try to ignore but know you can't.
We had a stretch of bad weather for boating last week. We canceled both our tours on two different days that started out terribly but ended up being nice days. The satellite and radar sites that we often use in conjunction together didn't work in our favor, but from experience i know it's better to be safe than sorry. On another day we looked at the same websites and forecast that it would clear up sending out our boats. Xtreme managed to miss most of the bad weather which seemed not to be as bad on the East and South of the island. That being said, the North and West side where the Eco Tour had been didn't fare the same. They had significant rains for quite a bit of the tour. My captain gave the guests the option of paying for as much as 50% of the tour's price but said that it would be up to them to decide if it was worth that. It was his decision on what call to make. Anyway, the guests, mostly from a cruise ship all decided to pay the 50% which i must say was very kind of them. Cancelling four other boat trips that week wasn't too cool at all, but sometimes the weather can be a bit hard to predict when a tropical wave is passing through. We usually get it right and don't usually have to cancel tours. Of course when we do, we credit 100% of the money back to our customers.
Today there was no need to worry about that and the Eco Tour is out in some very warm but calm conditions. It's dry too unless you are snorkeling which is where most people would want to be today. WOW it's warm. JD and I will be out cleaning the sloop's bottom later today. This isn't usually the best way to spend an afternoon but it's sooo hot that I think neither of us will mind being below the surface.
I have been uploading photos from my phone quite often to my twitter account. Keep an eye out there every now and then for images like this one.

This is one I posted the other day over at Weatherills Beach.

interesting film about our home

A very interesting and timely presentation from visiting ambassador.

"Birds as environmental indicators" will be a very interesting lecture held in Antigua on Monday. Once in a while I am sure that many of you reading this get tired the same old TV programs, tired of just hearing the same stuff every day, tired of seeing the same people every week. During the summer many people complain that there isn't enough stuff to do. If you want to experience and LEARN something new and possibly meet some new people, come to the EAG lecture this Monday evening at 7 PM.
For me it's very interesting that this lecture is being presented at a point when many Shearwaters and other birds seem to be dropping dead in alarming numbers. It's also a very poignant lecture for Antigua because so many habitats are being wiped out and with them bird species. I can only imagine what the meeting "Fish as environmental indicators would be like". Anyway, I hope to see you there this Monday!

A fishing video from Marlin Magazine

Some fishing video action taken out with friends in Antigua.

Marlin 300 Player

other blogs of interest, and more info on birds being killed off.

my web tracker picked up on a few hits coming from a blogger in the BVI. The Captain gives a good list of other blogs they enjoy reading. Check it out here.

Also, i have more info to add to the blog i wrote yesterday about the birds being found dead. It seems as though Greater Shearwaters and possibly sooty shearwaters are being found dead in large numbers in both oceans according to reports from Peru, Guadeloupe, Antigua, and the Bahamas. More info is coming in as birds are being collected here in Antigua by fishermen and given to Vets and fisheries officers.
All a bit alarming.

An alarming number of migratory birds are being found dead out to sea.

I hope this isnt related to the BP oil spill that i mentioned in my last blog, but I went fishing on Saturday and noticed an unusually high number of Audubon's Shearwaters off shore. At least, that's what i think they are called. Looked at the photos and they do look the same. Anyway, we spoke to several fishing boats that saw dead ones floating. On Sunday one boat spotted ten of them floating dead in the water. After speaking to other deep sea fishers who have been fishing the East off Antigua it seems as though we have a problem as many of them report seeing dead birds. Why on earth this is happening, we will only know when we get a specimen. Seeing a dead bird in the water is a rare event, but seeing many is totally not something any of us has seen.
These shouldn't be related in any way to the birds that were recently intentionally poisoned at Jolly Beach Hotel. That's another story!

Why the BP oil spill is just another thing for the Caribbean to worry about.

With so much worry in the world about the terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, many people are searching for answers about how this will effect us where we live. Of course there are answers for questions like these, but not the ones we want and not specific enough to quell our fears.

The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay. The Ixtoc I spill is currently #2 on the all-time list of largest oil spills of all time.

Those of you who spent much time on beaches in the eary 80s will remember pleny of oil and "tar" as we all called it back then drifting ashore. There seems to be many theories about where this oil came from, but I am pretty sure that much of it was from that huge Mexican spill. Although we are not hearing much about the prospect of oil from the new BP gulf spill getting to our Caribbean shores, it is almost inevitable that some will arrive here. However, by the time it does, it will have passed along so many thousands of miles of coastline that we may only get small amounts. This all could depend on what happens with winds and currents in this years hurricane season. For more info on that (if you have time to read about the atlantic currents) you can read the blog I did three years ago about "flotsam and jetsam". Click here.
If you don't have time you can figure it out from this image showing atlantic currents:

This is just some info i suppose to help you figure out why this BP oil spill is also very bad for us all. Notice the red lines in the Gulf of Mexico above meeting up with the "gulf stream" and then slowying making their way around the northern Atlantic and finally back to and through the Caribbean. Keep in mind that we get a huge variety of migratory species of birds, fish and marine mammals that will pass through the spills track too. Anyway, as if the spill wasn't bad enough, we have to worry about all the other stuff damaging our marine ecosystems. Recently there was an article about a huge coral reef bleaching event predicted for this summer (along with the prediction of hurricanes). Click here for that article. Sadly, this one doesn't fill me with dread because unfortunately we don't have much coral left in the eastern Caribbean to be killed off. Here in Antigua the wholesale wiping out of fish from the shallow water reef systems has all but prevented any coral from making a comeback since the first big hurricane in 1989, let along the big ones of the 90s. Our Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are not protected at all so the reefs are in terrible shape. While our government and our Fisheries dept. drag their heels on getting the MPAs protected properly by some sort of structured management, people still can enjoy setting gill nets and spear fishing within reef systems where the last of the parrot fish and other herbivors are found in small numbers and sizes. We shouldn't rely on our island government to spring into action. Organizations like the Antigua Hotels and Touist Association should learn more about the reefs and related marine systems as well as the problems associated with getting these MPAs off the ground. The churches should be involved too. They should be trying to get these areas managed. Caribbean Beach Tourism as i like to call it which helps keep this small nation afloat financially will be nothing but a dream of a bunch of old hotelliers without the realization that healthy marine eco systems are vital for healthy tourism. I could go on and on, but it won't do much good. For now, if you can swallow any more, please have a look at this video which shows very simply why areas just like our offshore habitats turned to "slime" in other islands not too far away. Remember it's not all bad news, if you didn't get to see the last video i blogged about MPAs please come back and click this link after seeing the video below.

EDIT 17/6/10
I found this video which shows more of what i was saying in this blog:

on the eco tour today. see images on twitter

ill be uploading photos to www.twitter.com/antigua

check it out!

Gotta love our cheap Antiguan politicians and government reps.

TUESDAY JUNE 08, 2010
Antigua & Barbuda in front line
of whaling debate
Tuesday June 08, 2010 Page 14 By Shelton Daniel (Daily Observer)

Antigua Barbuda is again at the front line of the annual tussle between
pro- and anti-whaling interests.
The bitterly opposed camps are, as usual, ramping up their worldwide
lobbying and propaganda as the annual
meeting of International Whaling Commission (IWC) approaches.
Delegations from the 88 member states, along with innumerable NGOs on
both sides of the divide - as
well as countless reporters and observers - will descend on the Moroccan
city of Agadir Monday, June
21 to Friday, June 25 for the IWC's 62nd annual meeting. This year's
gathering
is of special significance, as, for the first time since a 1982 moratorium
on commercial
whaling, the IWC is now proposing a controlled resumption that it believes
will better serve the organisation's
founding mission of conservation. Uncompromising opponents to any form of
whaling (such as the Australian government and the international
environmental group Greenpeace) see this
as a disguised Japanese-inspired move to officially approve a decade long
open season of whale
slaughter. Analysts say this sets the stage for a highly keyed up and
combative encounter in the summer
heat of North Africa.
A m b a s s a d o r Anthony "Mamba" Liverpool is the current vice-chair
of the IWC and a
lead author of the draft 10- year proposal, which its creators hope will
provide the blueprint for a workable
peace plan between the warring IWC factions. The document's main premise
is that it is far better to permit
restricted and strictly monitored whaling within sustainable limits,
rather that to permit dissenting or
unregulated whaling interests to set their own quotas - if at all - and to
determine which whale
species are endangered. Antigua & Barbuda is one of four Caribbean
countries that presently support so-called sustainable consumption of
whales
- a position that allies them with Japan and the few other nations that
commercially
hunt whales for food. Dominica, while not making a complete about face
from its usual pro whaling vote, has indicated that it will abstain this year. The country has in recent difficult to reconcile its tourism marketing pitch as "The Nature Isle"
with support for whaling - given the growing popularity of whale-watching as a prime
visitor attraction.

Speaking with The Daily OBSERVER on the weekend, local environmental
activist Martha Watkins-
Gilkes said the government in St John's should change course and oppose
whaling - or to at least do like
Dominica and abstain. She believes such a revised policy will be more
sensible and rewarding.
Like most other anti-whaling environmentalists, she's urging the adoption
of whale-watching
as an alternative that will boost the tourism industry on which this
country so heavily depends. Watkins-
Gilkes says Antigua & Barbuda's current support for whaling puts off many
travellers from choosing
here as their holiday destination. From a tourism standpoint, there is a
lot of negativity about this on
Antigua. You just have to Google Antigua. If you type in Antigua whaling,
you will get over 200,000 sites ...
a lot of which are against Antigua's stance in voting pro-whaling."
Watkins Gilkes said a very large number
of Antiguans and Barbudas were also opposed to the position taken by the
government
at the IWC, and suggested that even if the government did not wish to
heed the international pressure, it should at least listen to its own
people. She said
there was great potential here for whale-watching, given the number of
whales that pass through the
country's waters yearly. Not surprisingly, among those who strongly
disagree with Watkins-
Gilkes is Antigua & Barbuda's former chief fisheries officer. Daven Joseph
who also served in times
past as the country's IWC commissioner, said Antigua's position on whaling
is informed by scientific
evidence and not emotion. "The Caribbean countries' position at the IWC
is not in support of
Japan. It's a position that is based on the principles of sustainable use
of maritime resources," Joseph said,
echoing a position he has consistently advocated for a very long time. "I
am the coordinator
for the Caribbean programme at the IWC and I will never recommend or
encourage countries to support
the taking of any whales that are endangered or threatened." Joseph said
the
decisions taken by Caribbean countries at the IWC are based on sound
scientific advice. "The countries
of the region - all the ministers - met in Grenada on the 11th and 12th of
last month and agreed to a joint
position." The other Caribbean countries that vote at the IWC in favour
of "sustainable whaling" are St
Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. They have
been criticised for lending critical
support to Japan in exchange for economic assistance, mainly in the
form of fisheries projects. But Joseph said those who demand a change in
Antigua & Barbuda's
stance at the IWC must also be prepared to bankroll the economic
alternatives. "Apart from St Vincent and
the Grenadines, we in the Caribbean are not whaling countries. And if we are
asked to give up our rights to
take these animals we should be compensated for it." Expanding on that point
he added: "You're
hearing in the news media how much money Japan is making; we're hearing how
many whales the United States is taking; how much millions and billions of
dollars that Australia and New
Zealand are getting from whale-watching. And we are saying that we have a
right to benefit from these
international resources." Joseph added, "Our interest is for a compensation
package within any agreement at the IWC for these countries that are
benefiting
so much from whales to put funds into a programme so that we can
draw down on technical assistance and also funding for enterprise-building
in
our country. This will enable us to develop whale-watching and maritime
industries that can enhance our
economies."economies."

Mr. Joseph wouldn't know sustainable fishing if it slapped him in the face. If he cared about that as much as he cared about his connections with Japan then he'd be waging war against the French islands that are raping our marine recourses every single day.
Here was the last blog I wrote some time ago on the subject of Antigua's official support for Japan. Click here.

Long lost "Part 2" of fishing tournament report.

Wow, I think that the past four weeks has been a terrible record for blog negligence. I have been very very busy though with work. Will blog about that next. First I gotta tell you what happened on board Xtreme on the second day of the fishing tournament.

On this day our Junior Angler decided to rest and instead we were joined by David "Choppa" Mendes, one of our old regulars, who had just arrived back from his med school on a short holiday. We all met up at the boat in Nelson's Dockyard when it was still dark and set off before most of the other crews had even arrived. Also going out at the same time was Captain Mike on the charter boat "Vitamin B", a Bertram 31.
Many boats were fishing in various different places some going very far indeed, but our plan was to generally fish in the same area we had done the day before North-East of Antigua. It's a place where we have hooked many large marlin and lost our big one the day before too.
We arrived at the fishing grounds just after we were permitted to start fishing and the spirits were very high on board. We fished towards a French FAD we had recently found in our favorite marlin area. With them putting a FAD in that area we knew there had to be action since there was plenty of it before the FAD was set. Shortly after we arrived one of the rods burst to life in the early morning sunlight with a hard marlin strike. We looked back as we started clearing the other rods quickly and saw a marlin jump right out of the water shaking its entire body trying to "spit" the hook. It was like a movie scene set in slow motion. The marlin, probably about 200 lbs in the air shaking back and forth for a second or two and before it landed back in the water the lure and hook getting tossed aside. As quick as this one attacked the line we had lost the fish again. Again, we lost this fish due to no fault of our own. The hook was fixed in the recommended position on the lure and all was done according to predominant rule of thumb. Yet the fish was gone once again. Two minutes later after we had let the lines back out we were still trying to figure out what we could have done differently and with a beautiful scream one of our starboard side rods burst to life with a marlin on the end.

This one didn't jump so we couldn't tell how big it was. I knew blue marlin often travel in pairs and wondered if this was the big wife of our last fish. Within no time Guili was hooked up in the harness and all the other lines were cleared. We were slowly following the fish and were fighting! "Xtreme hooked up and fighting", is what i called in on the radio to Fish Control. We were not near any other boats and I don't think our VHF radio is that powerful. We hadn't heard Fish Control for the weekend and so far for the morning we hadn't been able to reach any other boats on the radio. I called in again in the hope that someone would hear me and pass on the info as required in the rules.

The fish took a long second run so we knew we were not on a small fish. Usually marlin under 250 lbs don't have the power to take two huge runs pulling line that has 27 lbs of drag. Guilli worked the fish and kept the pressure on the fish bringing line back in. We fish shimano 50 wides mostly filled with spectra braided line and a top shot of 80 nylon. Often we bring marlin to the boat that never managed to take all the top shot out of the reel. This one was well into the braid so we could tell there was a considerable amount of line out. Then the fish went deep. The line was straight up and down at thirty minutes into the fight and we were not gaining much on the fish at all. It was a standoff for a few minutes before the fish took another short run and the line went slack. I quickly sped up as we have seen crazy marlin do U turns before shooting up to the surface fooling us to think that they had burst the line or gotten off. Just in case I sped up to try to put pressure on the line. Slack line is the enemy, but the line remained slack and we knew this fish was no longer ours. For the third time in just over 12 hours we had lost another good fish. The mood wasn't good at all on the boat, but we all still quickly put lines back over the side. We knew there had to be more out there and it didn't take long to realize that. About thirty minutes later we hooked up once again. This time it was Garvin on the line and the marlin was a jumper.

It took off a considerable length of line before we had a chance to slow it down, but we didn't want to rush anything on this try. I could tell the fish wasn't a small one by the splashes in the distance. We knew that we may have a fish that could be taken back to the scales. Within 20 minutes the fish was getting close and there was talk about killing the fish. Unfortunately this tournament is still a kill tournament with enough money being offered in prizes that you wouldn't turn your back on if given the chance. The gaff was set up and our simple measuring line was also readied. The line was set to the length that would make a blue marlin 300 lbs if placed between the tip of the lower jaw and the fork in the tail. Our line had a lure on the end and was attached to a rod. All we had to do was bring the fish close to the boat with and put the tip of the rod next to it's lower jaw and see where the lure ended up. Sounds easy huh?

Anyway, as the dark outline of the fish came into view on our port side the crew yelled and screamed that this fish was a keeper. I wasn't convinced. One of the crew told me that we didn't need the measure for this one as it was way big enough. They all reminded me that I was not a good judge of marlin size. We have caught and released many marlin but had only killed one before in a tournament. That time I was also worried that the fish wasn't big enough, and it turned out that it was 589 lbs. That was the early days of my marlin fishing and I had released many marlin since then. I wasn't convinced about this fish and told the crew that I didn't think it was big enough to make the 300lb limit, telling them that we had to measure this fish properly. We got the fish close enough to wire, but we had got it here quickly and the fish was very much alive and not wanting to be close to the boat. It would have been easy to just gaff it, but we had to measure it. As John finally was able to bring it to the side of the boat close enough to check the measurement, I put the line in the water. This photo was taken by Guilli exactly at this point. If you look very carefully up in the right side of the frame you can see the rod tip that had the measuring line in the water near the front of the fish :

Before we could see the measurement, the fish started to go wild again and pulled free from john and going under the starboard bow. I had to reverse hard to port to clear the line and it took us another 5 minutes to get the fish close once again. It still wasn't sedate and as we put the measure alongside the fish we argued and second guessed and discussed. This was the first fish we had brought alongside today after loosing two others and a huge one the afternoon before. No marlin had been caught yet and if this one made 300 lbs we would be getting a nice big check. The fish started to struggle again and we decided to bring it on board. We gaffed it and after quite a struggle we brought it aboard.

Only then could we properly measure it and the line showed that the fish was an inch shorter than our measuring line. A dark mood set across the boat for a while as we all sat there thinking about the possibility of it being under weight. The day went on and we actually had another two strikes I think but they didn't hook up or take much line. Towards the end of the day we heard that the fishing had been very bad this year and our fish was the only marlin caught with one other boat releasing two blue marlin and a white.

We were among the first boats back in and after dropping off the fish close to the scales we left John and Garvin there to check the process while we moved over to our mooring to start cleaning up. We really had a feeling that it was underweight even though we had all taken bets on it's size all guessing it was just over 300. Within 20 minutes we heard the bad news. It was 283 lbs and just 17 lbs short of the minimum weight. 

Team Xtreme was in the dog house! Environmentally it wasn't really a huge deal. Sport fishermen in Antigua kill less than five marlin a year if not considerably less. French commercial fishermen have dozens if not hundreds of FADs in our waters stretching from North of Barbuda all the way to our economic border with Guadeloupe and each one aggregates fish including marlin that the fishermen harvest.

I have spoken to many fishermen in islands from St. Barths south to Grenada and it is common for small commercial boats to catch up to three marlin in a day while fishing for tuna on FADs. I fished once on a commercial long line boat where tuna and sword fish were our target species. We had a short line (ten miles) and managed to catch five blue marlin in one night. 

While everyone on Team Xtreme, and mostly the skipper, seriously regrets killing an undersized fish (which was chopped up and eaten), we know that this kind of thing happens in kill tournaments like ours. We have been asking for observers to be stationed on each boat and our tournament be changed to a no kill one. I know that this can happen and hopefully will happen because we will never kill a marlin again on purpose. I say on purpose because it's possible that even in "no kill" tournaments fish get that get hooked up are killed.

Anyway, I am considering ending our marlin fishing, but for now still think that the impact of us going fishing for marlin a few times a year is sustainable.

I think that there is enough support to make our tournament a no kill one and will let you know when this happens. All in all, we had fun out there fishing for the two days but would have had way more fun if we had been able to bring 50% of our strikes to the boat. If we had done that and released them we would have won very easily on points alone. That's why they call it fishing and not catching...... 

Interesting talk on ocean survival that would help Antigua and Barbuda

Below is an email I got from the original "Big John" who ran Dive Antigua for about 100 years I think. He's very switched on when it comes to eco related issues and this is a good one. As you know if you have followed my blog carefully, we here in Antigua have some very good Marine Protected Areas that could help our people and economy greatly if they were managed as they were designed to be. We just need the government to act. The biggest MPA here is NEMMA which appears to be stuck. If it isn't stuck then i would like to know more. Anyone?

Great TED talk on how to save the ocean eco systems.



As you know I have been saying for years that Antigua and Barbuda with
it's 1,500 sq. mile surrounding shallow area, would be the perfect place
to have set aside no fishing areas and as pointed out in the video, fish
populations spread out into areas open for fishing and subsequently
the fishermen catch more fish than if they did not have no no-go areas.

It's always nice to have new data to back up our proposals.

Best wishes,

John

fishing tournament a week later part 1

8 am saturday 29th. A week ago at this hour i was skippering xtreme 12 miles north east of green island at the start of the 44th annual fishing tournament. Our crew and gear were very well prepared and we were ready to fight a big marlin. The day was rough and we experienced several very big squalls. Donovan our junior angler was hit by a big wave and completely saturated early in the day. Fairly early in the morning we had a marlin come and hit one of our lures. Infact, i think it hit two of our lures 1 after the other but didn't get hooked. When you're fishing in the deep waters off antigua with huge lures, most of the fish on the service are blue marlin. We found some flotsam some out there and wahoo were accumulating under it. We caught 1 and quickly left the area to avoid catching more. We were fishing for marlin after all. We fished and fished and fished and never saw another marlin until the last 5 minutes of the day when the top rod burst to life with a violent strike. It was for 4:25 pm and 5 minutes before lines were in unless you're fighting fish. I could see a huge bill thrashing around behind the boat before it took off with another astonishing run. The fish pulled off about 300 meters of brand new line in what seemed like seconds. The second run was stronger and faster and more violent than the first and as line was being rapidly stripped off the reel and rod in a north westerly direction we saw the fish jumping over to the south west........... and then it stopped. It stopped too abruptly and Big John and I knew the fish was no longer ours. There was still quite a bit of strain on the rod but that was just the weight of two thirds of the reels line stretching out behind the boat. It became slacker as it got closer until we understood that the fish hadn't spat the hook, but had bust the line. Our crew's feelings on other crew's stories of bust lines are not that sympathetic as it usually means a mistake was made. We couldn't figure out what mistake was made here. The line was brand new and we had scale tested the reels drag to make sure it wasnt too tight. Guilli had been on the rod and I though he had been getting pulled about quite a bit for only 27 lbs of drag. He and I were the only ones who had seen the fish jumping while the others cleared all the gear in preparation for a big fight. We both knew it was a big fish and Gil said it was the biggest he had ever seen. We all were upset about missing this big chance and drank beer on the way home to try to cheer up. Back at nelson's dockyard we found out that everyone had experienced a slow day.

fishing tournament this weekend in Nelsons Dockyard

Yes the 44th annual fishing tournament here in Antigua will start up on Friday afternoon with their famous EC $5 bar (US $2). Saturday all the boats will tear out of the harbour together in the "bimini start" and shortly afterwards fishing will start.
This year Adventure Antigua's TEAM XTREME have decided to enter the Marlin division once again, but this year we will only be fishing for Marlin and nothing else. Sometimes we see mahi mahi out there in the tournament, change our lures and catch some while getting distracted from Marlin Fishing. Not this year!
For more info on the tournament including fishing times photos and info on the parties, click here.
Last week I posted a little video taken on our last fishing trip. Click here for that short marlin fight and release.
Tomorrow, we are going out for another warm up session. wish us luck!

A great review of the Xtreme Round the Island Tour

This trip report came from http://www.antiguaforums.com/ and is a nice review of our Xtreme tour with stops at Stingray City, Green Island, English Harbour and Nelsons Dockyard, Pillars of Hercules and Rendesvous Bay. We cover 50 miles as we go around Antigua and get to see all the beaches, bays, reefs, coves, harbours, inlets and islands. Thanks to "Jailbird" for the review!

Eli's Extreme Tour
by jailbird on Sun May 16, 2010 8:35 am

My friend and I who are in our 50's took this tour but were a little worried that we may have taken on more than we should due to some health issues and the boat.

Well..................we had the best day of our holiday with Eli's team. Apologies if I get the names wrong but Eli you will be able to correct them for me (thank you). JD, Leslie and Al?? arrived and picked us up at Coconut Beach Club, to the amasement of the other guests, so we felt like Celebs before we got on the boat ! We were then told we had to 'straddle' the seats. I will leave this up to your own imagination but if you have seen the pictures of 'Darkwood' on here you will get my jist .......................we had a LOT of laughs with that one !!! As did the crew.....

We then proceeded to pick others up from various hotels with a 'potted history' of the Island as we went. I was with a long standing friend who had never been to Antigua before and she was just amazed and very impressed with the history lesson, as indeed was I.

Our first stop was at Stingray City. I think I should tell you firstly that the other 4 couples on the boat were 'considerably' younger than us and fit.

After they all got off the boat onto the floating landing pier I was going to stay onboard and look at the stingrays from over the side of the boat but my friend deceided she would get off and go in with them. Leslie then persuaded me to get down the ladders and have a look. He talked me through it (after my left hand slipped on the handrail of the ladder and I ended up 'pole dancing' onto the landing platform with my other hand. He caught me just as I proceeded to go into the water BETWEEN the boat and the landing platform! Not an easy task with a lady my size lol) and eventually encouraged me to go into the water with them (not an easy job - thank you Leslie) and touch them. I have to stress that I would have not done this without Leslie's encouragement and I am sure that after my dramatic exit from the boat he probably wishes I had stayed onboard ! More hysterical laughing..................

We then proceed to another little Island for lunch (sorry can't remeber the name) with more history along the way.


We had a lovely lunch at the stop and swam in the water. Leslie said he would teach me to snorkle but I declined .......( more to come later on this subect)

There were lots of little lizards and they were running over our feet. One actually had a drink out of my friends cup (mango juice) !
We then proceeded along the Island to Nelson's Dockyard and JD? gave us the history on this site.

At the pillars of Hurcules(sp?) the boat stopped and everyone was given the choice to go snorkling. Well, my firend and I deceided we would not do this as neither of us has done this activity before and it was in about 40' water ! My friend then persuaded me to have a go and AL?? said he would help me. JD ? said I should put a floatation belt on to give me a bit more confidence and said it would be better if I sat on the side of the boat and jumped into the water. AL?? was already in the water below and said he would help me and there were calls of encouragement from him in the water to go in......big mistake him being under me in the water !......I fell in, with some encouragement from my friend (pushed), on top of AL?? and we both went under quite a way (he won't do that again with someone my size! lol) Anyway, once I had composed myself and put my 'bits' back in, that had come out with the speed I hit the water ( not a pretty sight), and AL?? had composed himself he then proceeded to try and teach me how to snorkle. I would like to say I am a natural... but alas no. I had a try and did see the sea bed but decided this sport was not for me. Once JD and my friend had composed themselves (laughing)enough to help me back onboard AL?? then proceeded to help me back up the ladder with his hand on my backside. I felt really sorry for that young man!( I think he drew the short straw) anyway I finally got back onboard and AL?? was off,like an olympic swimmer, in case I changed my mind and deceided to go back in. lol

After about 40 minutes of everyone snorkling we set off to a lovely beach for swimming and a drink of Rum Punch. I personally had 40 ciggies to get over the trauma of the snorkling ! But it was a lovely relaxing end to the tour.
I know only too well that people seem to always say that they had had wonderful trips out on holiday but I feel that this was above and beyond any that I have ever taken. The crew must have wondered what the hell Eli was doing letting us book this trip when they saw us! The crew were absolutely fantastic and a credit to Eli's company. Nothing was too much trouble and they encouraged us to take part in all the activites and laughed as much as we did, probably more !! My friend was still laughing on the flight home at the look on my face when Leslie told me, when we first got onboard to, 'open my legs and staddle'. Its a long time since someone said that to me! The crew also personally thanked us for the laughs when we got back off at Coconut Beach Club and said they had enjoyed having us on the trip.
I would readily recommend this tour if you can snorkle or not but would also finish with try everything once. We did and laughed all the way.
Thanks Eli and crew for the wonderful memories and laughs and an excellent trip.

JB "jailbird"

FOR MORE IMAGES AND A VIDEO OF THE TOUR PLEASE CLICK HERE