Antigua and Barbuda’s 26th Independence Anniversary celebrations came to a close last week, a time of year in which numerous culturally vibrant activities take place, culminating on November 1st - Independence Day.
November 1st is a very significant Day for Antiguans and Barbudan’s because it signifies the day that 'we’ broke away from British colonial rule. On that momentous day in 1981 the people of Antigua and Barbuda made the decision to chart their destiny as an independent nation.
Over the past twenty-six years, Antiguans have come together to celebrate annually, our cultural identity, our past and ancestors, but more importantly, our freedom.
Among this years Independence offerings was a Food Fair, in which a variety of culinary customs and traditions were demonstrated, showing how to make traditional local dishes, like the chatta dumpling, or bamboola.
There was also the fourth Annual Homecoming Queen Pageant, in which twenty young ladies from Antigua and five from Barbuda were selected to compete for the coveted title, now held by Sybil Ramrattan, the new 2007 Independence Homecoming Queen.
There was a Calypso and Awards Night, held at the Royal Antiguan Hotel which saw Leston “Young Destroyer” Jacobs, take home the award for Calypso of the Year and as well as one for Best Social Commentary. Calypso has been a powerful vehicle in Antigua and the West Indies, conveying the thoughts of local storytellers for the past century.
In fact, the year 1956 saw the Mighty Sparrow burst onto the scene taking the calypso world by storm with his legendary hit Jean and Dinah. Jean and Dinah, which celebrated the departure of US troops from Trinidad, ushered in a new era of politically charged calypso.
Having done some research, by most accounts, this politicized form of calypso helped facilitate Trinidad's independence from Britain in 1962. It is safe to say that socially and politically conscious calypso has had a major influence on many of Antigua and Barbuda’s social and political movements as well.
Despite the excitement of all these activities, I have to admit that for the most part, I observered from afar. I had two days off this week and nothing was going to stop me from taking advantage of the wind, by going for a kite surf!
After months of no wind, finally it was a steady 20knots. While people celebrated their Independence parading around town, a few of us celebrated with an afternoon session at Green Island. Stoked!
Annabel Fuller
We finally got back into Jolly Harbour in the dark and set about cleaning the boat and getting rid of our fish. Cocos Hotel wanted the fish that had been sitting on ice since we had caught it. The total weight was over 100 lbs and we would have won the Dolphin (mahi mahi) prize and finished in the top 5 in the wahoo division. 
We were running later than expected and as the sun set half way between Antigua and Nevis with our rum and cokes slipping down as was the sun, i was a little worried about how late we were.
Just exactly as 
Some of the blog entries had so much interest that i was actually shocked by the response. For those of you that missed the story of Adventure Antigua you should go back and have a read. 
A new addition to our Adventure Antigua fleet is going to be built over the next 12 months and we will keep you up to date with that as i feel that it will be extremely exciting. 
ITs not going to be like the yacht seen in the moonlight above but it will be nice. For now, i'd just like to thank all the regular readers. I wish you would say hi more often in the comments section this year. Dont be shy! Stay tuned for our nevis adventure coming soon.
Usually there are about 25 to 30 boats from the nearby islands, and for the past few years it has been St. 
Why am i killing fish one day and wanting fish protected another. I agree this seems a bit strange but if you understand the specifics of the fishery as well as follow carefully what i am saying then you will see that i am not against fishing. What i am, is against uncontrolled fishing here in Antigua and Barbuda. Each year we learn more and more about the species which are targeted in our waters and many decisions and practices of informed fishermen change as the information comes in. Of course there are many fishermen who don't care at all about threatened species and keep targeting them. I have done almost every type of fishing there is during some time in my life as crew and on my own. I have spear fished, netted, long line fished, fish trapped, cast from shore, bottom fished, trolled, fly fished, used lobster snares, collected conch, cockles. You name it and i have done it, but in addition to all of that i have been very interested in learning about and keeping track of how these methods of fishing affect the fishery and environment as a whole. Some of the methods above target species with very specific catches and without much by catch. Other types as in the case of net or fish traps, there are a huge range of fish including many useless species (by catch) are caught. Learning about the different methods used here and others not yet adopted here, as well as the learning about the species caught has given me my own point of view. There are many species which have been over fished in my lifetime without hope of returning in any great numbers, and there are other species in the fishery which are being caught at higher rates than they can reproduce. I personally love eating fish, and think that catching and eating fish is part of my Caribbean culture. This doesn't mean that i go out there and catch whatever i see first. Targeting species that are not threatened and that can handle the type of fishing methods we use is something that i think makes a difference. Sustainable fishing is something that the Ministry of Fisheries has no clue about and because of extreme Japanese influence here, this probably wont change anytime soon. When i go deep sea fishing with my crew, we target mahi mahi (the species most able to withstand commercial fishing), wahoo, and some types of tuna. Most other fish that we catch are released including all bill fish. We kept one large marlin in a tournament once in my life, but have released all others. Tournaments have stringent rules about what fish are allowed to be kept and each year they seem to become more eco friendly and progressive with their rules and regulations. Conservation issues are usually brought up by people within the sport fishing circle and many if not all "rules" are self imposed. This isn't something unique to Antigua either as the recreational hunting and fishing sectors all over the world have pioneered conservation fights. Not only are these conservation issues brought up and discussed by sport fishing associations, but in many cases, it is these associations that bring conservation issues before the authorities eventually getting things changed. This past weekend we went to a one day fishing tournament over in our friendly neighbor island Montserrat. We used the Arawak Odyssey boat (seen here on another fishing trip).
Like smugglers, we left Jolly Harbour at 3:00 am under the cover of darkness heading for Havers Shoal 38 miles away. We arrived just before lines were permitted to go over the side and there was glimmer of light showing in the East. Unfortunately, the winds were stronger than forecast and it was quite choppy. Our team consisted of 
If you are interested in seeing how it all comes together then i suggest going to a bit of the coastline that has mangrove or taking an 
The flats alongside these mangroves below have slowly been getting mangroves covering it since the big hurricanes of the 90s. 
The habitat in many cases can grow if allowed. It isn't aways easy though as Mr. Alan Stanford discovered at Maiden Island. His development company cleared much of the mangroves there when they first started their project as you will see if you 
The barrier reefs are now lower as i describes in my last blog entry and more wave action and higher sea levels are washing sand up from the beach onto land behind the beach or even into ponds behind beaches. 
Since beaches are of critical importance to our nation one would assume that huge amounts of sand being removed from a shoreline would be a big deal. Instead, after all the storms the sand which is now no longer on beaches is removed by people. One of the main reasons OJ's beach bar is now OJ's rock bar is that the property owners up and down that beach have been removing sand after storms since Hugo. OJ can tell you how many truck loads of sand got taken away from the properties near him. A staggering amount of sand. If you read my previous blog entry then you would know why this sand isn't just replenishing itself. We haven't had any major beach event like this during the UPP administration until Hurricane Dean passed way to our south. Although we had little weather from Dean we did get massive waves pounding our south facing beaches for about 24 hours. Massive amounts of sand were pushed from the beach onto areas behind the beach in quite a few places. This happened to other beaches in the past but this time it was the south coast that was hit. Windward Beach was worst, with Rendezvous Bay being another, Johnsons Point beach (near OJs) another and Darkwood another where sand was pushed under the new bridge. The very next week sand started going missing in bucket loads from Windward Beach. I haven't been there since then so i am sure that it is worse. The property which is for sale on the road between OJ's and Blue Heron hotel had the sand that washed up onto it removed too. The worst however was and is Darkwood once again. Darkwood beach has had hundreds of truck loads of sand taken from it since Hurricane Hugo and all with the permission and in most cases with the management of the Public Works department. After once such storm the mining of sand was so severe from the swamp behind that to this day the swamp hasn't caught itself. The beach now has more rocks than ever and when you compare old photos or video the new Darkwood looks like a different beach. One would have thought that the UPP would have been wiser. After i noticed huge piles of sand washed under the bridge at Darkwood I immediately called the Ministry of Environment to uge them to push the sand back onto the beach. I was told that they have no jurisdiction over sand and couldn't do anything. They said that the only people who could touch the sand was Public Works. Public Works! Great! Sure enough, it was public works that once again started trucking this same sand away from Darkwood the next day. Click on the image for a larger version:
In fact they have been doing it for weeks since Dean. Look at this photo. You can Click on it to see the large version. Sand in any high tide or big swell will wash under the bridge (which by the way they try as hard as they can to keep unblocked by sand so that the sand can wash through easily) and once its off the beach then it can easily be trucked away. Why easily? Well easily because our nation and its leaders thinks that once sand is not on a beach then it can be moved away to be mixed with cement. Hard to fathom the mentality but i would like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister of Tourism Harold Lovell and the leader of the nation Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer a question. Why are you sitting by and allowing the destruction and mismanagement of the most important thing that we have in Antigua? I would think that as intelligent people, you can see that laws and policy need to be changed so that our beaches are better protected and managed. I can only think therefore that this whole issue has slipped you by. Please do something about it. My dad, John Fuller, told me that the Environment Division was incorrect by saying that they were helpless. According to him, the chief Environment Officer, in this case Diane Black Lane, has the authority to declare a situation where sand is washed off a beach during a storm, an "environmental disaster" and then have the authority to return the sand to the beach. No person or institution should be allowed to take sand of any amount from a beach in our country. If the UPP think that taking sand from Barbuda's mine is bad then they have to agree that taking sand from our beaches is worse and must be stopped.
This notion is based simply on ignorance unfortunately and has lead to the endemic problem of complacency. Old Pappa Bird "the father of the nation" ingrained into people's minds that tourists had to come here because we had the best beaches and the only proper airport. Both now have turned out not to be true. He would never have believed that St. Lucia would be a tourism powerhouse when all they had when VC Bird was in power was farming. The fact of the matter is that our not only has our ALP and UPP governments not put money back into beaches, but they have allowed the same beaches to degenerate.
Stone jetties are constantly being pushed out into the water without the Government here stopping them. Just this past week, there was a huge one pushed out at the Blue Waters and Crosbies junction. This had no government permission. The silt that comes off those jetties is another problem which is related to the next beach killer.
IT is horrible what has happened to them over the past 20 years because of our leader's negligence. Anyway, let me move on to another problem the beaches face.
The healthy reef grows up protecting the beaches by blocking too much wave action and by adding more sand to the area in the process i explained earlier. The photo below shows a protected area with the barrier reef outside. The beach nearby has seen erosion recently as the level of the barrier reef dropped after being hit by hurricanes. Japan is actually growing coral in order to protect a small group of islands it owns. We don't even protect the coral here.
