The Power of the Internet

By now you should know that i have two tours: The Eco Tour and The Xtreme Circumnav. The Eco Tour is a much bigger seller and i have just closed one of my days in April due to it being full already. Can u imagine that? A day in April being full already!! Why is the Eco Tour more popular among pre-bookers? I think the main thing is the fact that the Eco Tour has been spoken about in the press and message boards for 6 years now with mostly positive reviews since then. It’s been kinda like a snowball effect with the Eco Tour. I remember the first internet "freak" (i am one of them) that came on my tour many years ago when i was first starting out. During the tour she was telling me that she was going to get me loads of business. I said thank you, but in the back of my mind i was thinking "i have heard this one before". My business had been struggling to get bookings with the Antigua market being more geared to big catamaran booze cruises. The hotels and tour reps specifically were not interested in hearing me speak about my eco tour at all. It was a tough2 years. Anyway, she and her husband went back to the cold USA in the middle of the winter and began posting reviews of our day out on the message boards. Sure enough just like she said.......emails and lots of them started pouring in. It was amazing. I have a private web tracker and any time someone posts a link of mine, i see when people use it and where it came from. She didn't know this and most people on the message boards didn't know that i was watching. People felt like they were "discovering" my tour and it was great to give them all the info up front and eventually take them on a tour which matched their expectations. To this day we rely heavily on this concept and we work hard to make sure that every customer who comes out with us has a great day. You never know who will go back and tell "the world" about it. We did find some problems with this concept though. You see if someone says to you, "When you are in Antigua DO ELI's TOUR! Reach him on info@adventureantigua.com " some people just book right away without reading any of the info on my site. They just know that they "have to book" my tour. We had huge groups of people booking expecting a sailing catamaran with music and booze all day. I mean, we have more text on our site than any other tour's web site. We stresses that we are not booze cruise. I kinda got tired of questions like "when is the beer coming out". Anyway, we changed our info around a bit more and added more steps in the booking process to solve this communication problem. We added more pics too and this blog is just another tool to make sure people know what we are about. Please ask questions if you don't find all the info you are looking for on the site or after you send in a reservation request.
Anyway, another interesting problem i saw with the way the whole message board thing was evolving was the way certain operators manipulated them. Many people are naive enough to believe everything they read and to not read between the lines. People often asked me when i was doing the Eco Tour if i was the one writing my own tour reports on these message boards. I laughed until i actually saw operators doing this. One thing you must do when you see an extremely good OR bad review is to check how many times the author has posted. Usually there is a bit of info attached to the profile of a poster which tells you how many times he/she has posted, where they live, what they have posted about, how long they have been a member and other info too. Some message boards let you see all the posts the author has made, so you can see what they have been speaking about. If all they ever comment about is how "awesome" a particular excursion is, and never speak about anything else......then you begin to wonder. Also, if their first post and only post is about an excursion then you have to ask yourself whether you should trust them. Most tourists will speak about their ships or hotels or something before posting about an excursion. It's terrible to think that people would pretend to be tourists in order to generate business for their own company, but however crazy this is......it happens.
One other thing I have seen that can be a huge problem is where people for whatever warped reason decide to become “Trolls”. All they like doing is causing trouble. We see this regularly on the Official Tourism Site for Antigua and Barbuda where some person pretends to be other people and just says negative things about Antigua. Again, with this problem you have to just check the profile to see what they have posted about.
All in all the internet is a useful tool to the visitors of Antigua and Barbuda and my business wouldn’t exist without it. I owe a great deal to the kind people who took time out of their lives when they got back home to comment on the experience they had out with Adventure Antigua. I know for a fact that my company would not have made it past year two without them, and I will never forget their kindness. Thanks!
Speaking about messages, this photo above is of a bottle i found on the deserted east coast of barbuda. I have found many messages in bottles on that stretch, but this one was just a nice green bottle.....

the WILD life

Once again this weekend we powered west on our day off in search of adventure. The fishing was terrible and as planned, in case of this occurrence, we decided to explore Redonda again. This time we wanted to climb to the old deserted mining post. The climb was dangerous with most of the ground being made up of very loose rock and stones. There was almost no stable footing, and adrenalin was pumping throughout the 90 minute climb. At the top, we found the remains of the old steel mechanics which was used to get material and goods up and down the mountain as well as some of the buildings and structures left behind. Apart from all the history, we found the top rich in wild life with nesting boobies and frigate birds. In fact there was plenty to see and take pics of. This pic is of a mother brown boobie and her newborn chick on the top of Redonda with the volcano island of montserrat in the background. They were nests all over the top and we had to be careful where we walked. I can't imagine a tour to a place like this soon, but the experience gives us a better appreciation for the places we show to our guests. The feeling we had exploring this adventurers treasure trove is exactly what our guests must feel when they first get to the top of Great Bird Island or Hells Gate while on the Eco Tour. Life is an adventure and it’s great to sometimes get a bit of the more traditional type.

back to normal

with rains passing, my computer worries are over it seems too. Our server started returning mail to people since our mail quota was over its limit with us not being able to access out mail (computers down). So apart from not having computers in the office, we couldn't receive mail onto our server either after thursday. This has taught me a lesson and i am going to make some majour IT changes next week. Its a slow time of year and a perfect opportunity to do maintenance on all areas of the business. Tomorrow we will finishing getting to our last emails before thinking about going fishing or any of the other fun weekend stuff. Next week looks fairly busy as far as tours go with two private charters in the mix too. The pic above is from my favorite kinda of private charter: barbuda on a calm day. Hope you all have a great weekend. Eli

Computer Death yesterday

For the past two nights we have been having torrential rain and lightening storms and my work computer has died. It will not boot up. I back everything up but there were several emails on there that possibly be lost. It is at the fixers who may be able to bring it back to life. I will know what's up by lunch time today. If they can't do anything, then i will buy another one and put all my backed up emails onto it and start replying. Sorry for the delay guys. I am gonna sort it out by the end of today. Big rain this morning too. I hear that they had very bad flooding in the islands to the North of us.

Yesterday we had two boats out and the weather was awesome. It was a good thing too because we had a photographer from the Sunday Times on board again. I am not sure when the article will be out but if you are in the UK...keep an eye open for it. This is a pic of the Magnificent Frigate Bird which is common here year round. I took this pic on Sunday.

Glass Calm seas!

The weather doesn't get any better for powerboating than this!!! The winds didn't get much above 5 mph today so the seas were totally calm. We had one boat out on a private charter with the other one getting oil changes. The charter was from Sunsail Club Colonna and was for someone's 50th birthday. A full boat of family members!
Tomorrow we have both boats out with a cruise ship in town. We also have a photographer from the UK's Sunday Times with us which will be good. Hope its sunny. The past two days have been a bit cloudy and not good for professional photography. Anyway, speaking of photos.....I took this one is of us checking out dolphins on saturday. We don't see them each week but when we do its always nice.

days off

Ok so i didn't post yesterday as we were off island visiting one of Antigua's sisters again. Our independent country is actually called Antigua and Barbuda but we also have another large island that belongs to us which is called Redonda. It’s not mentioned much because at the moment it is uninhabited and will probably stay that way for years to come. Picture the lost island from KING CONG without any nice lush rainforest and that is Redonda. Desperately rugged and uninviting, this island is perfect for nature lovers and adventurers. We went the day before to take a pro photographer and my crew was so interested that we decided to go again for more fishing and exploring. The water was GIN clear and fishing was excellent. We ended up with 4 wahoo a.k.a. ONO and two tuna before we went snorkeling. The snorkeling below these massive jagged rocks was pretty spooky but we met up with 3 Hawksbill turtles and 1 green turtle as well as many other colorful neighbors. It is a true nature/adventure lover’s paradise and i am sure that one day it will be seen as an important part of our country. The pics show the crew waiting for one last wahoo to bite (which we are having for dinner tonight) and also us 7 miles off and approaching the island of Redonda.

another day on the rock

day off for some of us. In fact, JD, Leslie, and Tony took out Xtreme today on tour so my cousin David and my crew David and a few others went on an adventure........We went to the third island that makes up our country. Its not spoken about much as people don't live there at the moment. At one time there was a guano mine there or something. Anyway, Redonda today is an amazing dive, fishing, snorkel, and hike spot. A true adventurers paradise and we found some today. Kinda late now so i will just post one pic from the island.

back no normal.......Sunshine

We'll after one nite and a day of clouds and rain we are back to normal today with nice calm seas and loads of sunshine. Despite what the little animated "five day forecasts" say we are usually hot and sunny here in Antigua. Do you know that weather.com and yahoo weather and most of the rest of the internet animated forecasts predict rain every day of the year. Today and the rest of the weak reads incorrectly like this on yahoo weather:

Today	Tomorrow	Sun	Mon
T-showers	Scattered Showers	Scattered Showers	Scattered Showers
High: 85°Low: 78°	High: 86°Low: 79°	High: 87°Low: 78°	High: 87°Low: 78°

Its always been the same. I mean when we haven't had any rain in weeks and all the greass around the island is brown they are still saying its raining here. The reason behind it is that our local forecasters' reports say "fair to partly cloudy with a chance of scattered showers" every day, and the big companies interpret that with animated rain clouds which you cant see above but would see on the link. Anyway, most of our emails come in with comments from guests worrying about the rain (that we are not getting) and for 7 years now i have been trying to reassure people that we are not the rain capital of the world. In fact, we probably get less rain that 95% of all Caribbean Islands.

Enough about weather, since this weekend looks like it will be a calm one, i am going to take some of the crew deep sea fishing. Its what we like to do on our days off at this time of year. This is actually a very active time for a fish called Wahoo. They fight incredibly hard and are sooo delicious. We have done quite a few fishing tournaments since we got our boats and if we go to a new one some people laugh and say "you are a snorkeling boat...not a fishing boat". Well by the time we get back in that laugh is long forgotten because we usually do well. Here is an example of Tony's marlin from last May: http://static.flickr.com/75/153881678_e20871ad18_o.jpg
Look out for photos of the monster Wahoo that we are going to catch this weekend. We all love to eat fish and don't like buying fish. We have to catch something!!!!

The ODD rainy day

The forecasters were correct and i did have to cancel both my boat trips today. It rained all night and for most of the day so far. They are forecasting rain for tomorrow but the latest satellite images make it look like things will get better tonight. I met our cruise passengers in the rain this morning on the Redcliffe Quay boardwalk to give them back their credit card deposits, and to try to organize another land tour for them. Since it was raining they understood, but sometimes when its extremely rough outside of the harbour and i cancel they are less understanding. You see, on those days it can be nice and sunny and the water in the harbour is nice and calm. They don't see the dangerous conditions a mile or two around the corner. I cancel tours very rarely since we get such ideal boating conditions in Antigua, but when and if i do........it is for good reason. I saw one boat smaller than mine go out with about 10 people form the ship to do a fishing tour. This is a new one and is organized by NCL. They are going to regret leaving port. WOW that will suck out there today and it could actually be very dangerous. Many new operators in Antigua don't have a boating background and are only in it to make money. They don't even work on the boats. This practice is not good but happens because there is little control of our sector. Anyways.............SUNSHINE TOMORROW!!!!!!
I am going to put two pics up today. One shows the cloud cover over antigua this morning and the other shows what its going to look like this weekend. Enjoy!

Wed 11th OCT

I don't have all of my staff on the site at the moment and will have to update that later. David Mendes seen here on the left having some fun while on a private charter in Barbuda, is now working full time with us. He will be here in Antigua until Jan 2007 when he goes off to study medicine. Growing up here in Antigua spending all his free time on boats, he is perfect for the job. This guy loves the water sooo much that even on his days off he goes out fishing, snorkeling, kitesurfing or surfing.
We have both boats on tours tomorrow but there is a fairly active tropical wave to our east that we are looking at. For good weather info and forecasts a simple site to goto for Antigua is Windguru. If what they are saying is correct, then i will have to cancel both of my trips tomorrow which sucks!!! The satellite imagery looks bad too. We have had such awesome weather this summer so far........the "H" season is almost over too thank god. Usually when we cancel a tour because of weather we can only rebook 50% of the people and of course if its a cruise ship day then we don't get a second chance. Of course, we credit all deposits that we have taken, and try our hardest to re-schedule. I usually encourage people to book early in their trips so that we can reschedule if we have to. We'll see about tomorrow.

Tuesday 10th OCT

Wow, its almost like someone heard me yesterday. Today is calm and looks like lovely weather for a bit of boating. Saweeet!!!

We also have our main boat "arawak odyssey" going out on tour with a good number of guests. I think i would like to use this somehow to gain feedback and offer new info quickly about the business. Will have to see how that is possible. Xtreme will be going out onThursday (hopefully). She is gonna go through some maintenance today but needs some parts changed on the port engine.

People are still worried about swimming with the rays and i am starting to think about putting on another excursion. The Xtreme Circumnav is such an amazing excursion for younger more active people and we have had such fantastic feedback, but its more expensive and now has stingray fear associated with it. You know its the best selling tour at Sandals with more positive guest comments than from any other tour there. Maybe i will design a tour that goes to Cades Reef and Rendezvous Bay. When ground swell is kicking in the winter on the North side this would be perfect. I dunno.....we will see.

A note on stingrays here: Antigua is lucky enough to have three different types of rays gracing out waters. We have the extremely rare Manta Rays which I have only seen a few times, Spotted Eagle Rays which are fairly common and you may see and the very common Southern Stingrays. After the terrible news about Steve Erwin's tragic death, I though I had better do some PR for the rays. Firstly, in world recorded history, there have been 18 deaths attributed to the 150 species of rays world wide. You can see Steve's death in OZ was a total freak accident and a horrible tragedy. The one that killed "croc hunter", Steve Erwin, is called a Bull Ray and is found in South Africa , New Zealand and Australia . It is the largest of all rays getting up to 700 lbs. Our rays here in Antigua are extremely gentle and cuddly feeding on crabs and shell life. They don't have muscle control over their barbs and can not use them to attack anything. Please don't worry about them on your trip to the Caribbean . If you need more info please email us.

Another Antigua Blog is born

hmm....."everyone is doing it"........"companies are doing it"...........

Its october, and the quietest i have ever seen the island. Business is dead, the nightlife is booooooooring, i'm single again, and the worst thing about this month is the weather. October is usually a very calm month with excellent fishing. We go out fishing when there is no work and get too tired to worry about night life. BUT its windy and rough and i am not even fishing.

Instead, i am spending way too much time on the net. So a blog is born: