After paying my deposit to have a Carriacou Sloop built back in November I haven't been back until recently. If you hae not read any of my other blog entries i must tell you that a Carriacou Sloop is a single masted wooden yacht built on the island of Carriacou in the Grenadines. They are filled with history, tradition and passion. About 10 days ago I got on a flight to Grenada from Antigua late in the afternoon. We stopped in St. Vincent and again in St. Lucia before finally landing in Grenada. David "Choppa" Mendes who usually works for Adventure Antigua on school holidays picked me up from the airport and took me back to his place for some dinner. He's the one on the far right in this crew shot:
He is in medical school there and his mom, Judy, was visiting for her 50th birthday. Anyway, I had a great meal and early the next morning David put me on a bus to the Osprey Ferry which would be a straight shot to Carriacou. It was extremely rough and there were quite a few people on board the ferry who were very sick. I was going to meet with Alwyn, the boat builder, for two reasons. Recently I made a deal with someone who had been building a boat very slowly there to take over production of it and launch it myself. He had encountered quite a few problems while building it, was in a stalemate and needed some help. In an interesting deal, I am going to control the boat for five years doing day sailing and then return it to the original owner at the end. It’s a bit of a funny deal, but all three parties are happy with it and Adventure Antigua will end up doing sailing charters and tours earlier than expected. Here you see Alwyn reading the new contract inside the hull of the boat. 
We are shooting to have her ready by the end of April 2008. Meeting with the boat builder and paying him some money to finish "Ocean Nomad" as it was called by the original owner was first at hand mainly because we wanted to have it ready for the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta this April. The second reason for meeting with Alwyn was that I wanted to see how my yacht was coming along. I don't have a name for it yet, but have been wanting an indigenous name. We have a French to Carib dictionary from 1666 and with some interesting sounding words and I was happy to confirm that Carriacou is actually derived from a Carib word "Kayryouacou", meaning "the land of reefs." "Spirit of Carriacou" may be the name of my yacht or maybe just "Carriacou". We'll see.
Alwyn met me at the dock in Carriacou and took me to pick up some local food on our way to Windward which is where boats have been made for centuries. He was very excited about the prospect of finally finishing Ocean Nomad which hadn't been worked on in over a year. He was also very excited about progress on my boat which is where we were going to meet his sons, Chris and Terry.
The three of them had been making "frames" which are the ribs or skeleton of the boat. 
As I said in my last blog, they had been into the jungle to get a few trees and had finally gotten them to the beach some time in January. 
They had been turning these big logs into beautiful carefully crafted ribs. I was about to see how it was all done.........
He is in medical school there and his mom, Judy, was visiting for her 50th birthday. Anyway, I had a great meal and early the next morning David put me on a bus to the Osprey Ferry which would be a straight shot to Carriacou. It was extremely rough and there were quite a few people on board the ferry who were very sick. I was going to meet with Alwyn, the boat builder, for two reasons. Recently I made a deal with someone who had been building a boat very slowly there to take over production of it and launch it myself. He had encountered quite a few problems while building it, was in a stalemate and needed some help. In an interesting deal, I am going to control the boat for five years doing day sailing and then return it to the original owner at the end. It’s a bit of a funny deal, but all three parties are happy with it and Adventure Antigua will end up doing sailing charters and tours earlier than expected. Here you see Alwyn reading the new contract inside the hull of the boat. We are shooting to have her ready by the end of April 2008. Meeting with the boat builder and paying him some money to finish "Ocean Nomad" as it was called by the original owner was first at hand mainly because we wanted to have it ready for the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta this April. The second reason for meeting with Alwyn was that I wanted to see how my yacht was coming along. I don't have a name for it yet, but have been wanting an indigenous name. We have a French to Carib dictionary from 1666 and with some interesting sounding words and I was happy to confirm that Carriacou is actually derived from a Carib word "Kayryouacou", meaning "the land of reefs." "Spirit of Carriacou" may be the name of my yacht or maybe just "Carriacou". We'll see.Alwyn met me at the dock in Carriacou and took me to pick up some local food on our way to Windward which is where boats have been made for centuries. He was very excited about the prospect of finally finishing Ocean Nomad which hadn't been worked on in over a year. He was also very excited about progress on my boat which is where we were going to meet his sons, Chris and Terry.
The three of them had been making "frames" which are the ribs or skeleton of the boat. As I said in my last blog, they had been into the jungle to get a few trees and had finally gotten them to the beach some time in January. They had been turning these big logs into beautiful carefully crafted ribs. I was about to see how it was all done......... 
Although going out on powerboats with my dad (see family pic above) was what we did almost every week, I think I have been sailing fairly regularly since then. 
My grandfather (seen in the pic above with my grandmother and all 7 of their kids somewhere here in Antigua in the 60's) had several yachts when I was very young as did my uncle Jim. In fact I was just speaking with Jim about St. Martin’s Heineken Regatta which he won on “First Run” back in the early 80s. We can’t remember the year but I do remember that it was very windy and rough. We sailed around the island beating everyone easily on that super fast 
I would have raced more of these regattas as well as more of Antigua Classic Yacht Regattas held the week before, but ever since I started Adventure Antigua we have been driving boats for the press. Antigua Sailing Week hired me to drive the press boat for the first three years that I was in operation and we have done several private charters for press and others in the following years as well. I took this photo:
during a regatta where Michael 
I would have never thought about hiring a classic yacht and sailing down the islands to windsurfing regattas that I attended for all those years, but the next time I sail down to the 
They were all nice and shiny but none had character or a soulful feeling of tradition. Sailing on a classic and just being next to one is a whole different feel. For me it’s even more interesting when the classic has been traditionally built right here in the Caribbean. Every single piece of wood has a story to tell and the process if filled with amazing history and tradition. 
The Grenadines are a group of islands belonging to both St. Vincent and Grenada and are situated between the two larger islands. The history of boat building there is incredibly interesting and I will have to blog about it another time, but Eddie was the first person to get a boat from there that I remember. He and my uncle had raced there in the old days against boats from 
Genesis was build traditionally by Alwyn 
He and his sons had build several boats now calling Antigua their home, and Alexis had spend months each summer in the Grenadines with them and with other traditional boat building families taking photos and learning about this ancient trade. Alexis wanted a larger and faster boat than the one he got from Eddie and Alwyn built Genesis to be the fastest of them all. Back on dock having a drink at 
This first stage of the boat building process 
If the Guyana batsman had hit a boundary then it would have all be over and the Jamaicans would have been beaten again. 
It wasn’t to be and the Jamaican fans went crazy. 
Their celebrations were short lived though because the blistering bowling of the Trinidad and Tobago team last night in the final changed their mood very quickly. Jamaica’s run rate was kept extremely low and it wasn’t long before all wickets were taken in dramatic style. When one of the Jamaican wickets were taken by Dave Mohammed, who ended up being man of the match, he pulled off his shoe and used it as if a telephone as his team mates ran around behind him celebrating like mad. When asked what he was doing…he said that there was a call for the wicket he was trying to answer. 
It was loads of fun for the huge number of Trinidad and Tobago fans who had flown in for the final. 
Food at the Sticky Wicket was exceptional and we enjoyed our front row seats. Not bad for less than US $50 per person. 
Afterwards when the checks totaling over US $1.5 million were handed out, the fireworks began. I used to like fireworks but I think after seeing hours of Stanford fireworks over the past few years I think I have lost interest. 
In fact, I hope he never uses them again. Mr. Stanford if you are listening…why not do something more original next time. 45 minutes of continuous fireworks every time you have an event is so 2006, and the environmental impact must be terrible. Why not parachute a bunch of people in, or have Cirque du Soleil come and perform or something else. You have soooo overdone fireworks. My poor dogs don’t like them either. Ok, apart from that the variety of entertainers was great and I am sure that the entire crowd had a wonderful time. 
Despite many people being very against some of Stanford’s business practices and environmental impacts, its hard not to be impressed and excited about what the Stanford 20 20 has done for West Indian cricket. I wish him and the rest of the region all the luck and success in their effort to bring the region’s game back to the top of international cricket.
I took loads of photos. Dre dazzled us with acrobatic shows. 
We found messages in bottles, fished, ate, drank rum, played dominos and enjoyed every second of our little holiday. (except when in this photo taken my mykl below a rain squall caught us while fishing in the mangroves).
I cant show all the photos as they probably will be published in the near future, but i took hundreds. We would have stayed longer as Xtreme was free on monday too, but our country Antigua and Barbuda were playing Guyana at the Stanford 20 20 and we had to get back in time to see the cricket. 
Despite just ever so slightly being beaten by Guyana, we enjoyed the game tremendously. All of the Adventure Antigua 
I had a hard time eating my sweet and sour Chinese chicken at Delightful Restaurant as the flat screen kept on interrupting me with smashing fours, sixes and wickets like crazy. Anyway, Eli seemed to be enjoying himself at the cricket game thanks to the Texan / Antiguan hospitality. They say that there are a billion viewers seeing this tournament live all the way from the USA to India. Cricket is a major passion all over the world and is even being played these days in China. According to Wiki, "Cricket has been an established team sport for hundreds of years and is thought to be the second most popular sport in the world.
Experience in the world cup wasn't enough and the well oiled machine that is Guyana Cricket demolished the Bermuda side. With at the very least ten thousand Guyana nationals living full time in Antigua, their support at 2020 is staggering. Antiguans can almost end up feeling like tourists at a Guyana match and there were some not so friendly young GT supporters set up in front of us when we first got into the grounds. I knew that Guantiguan's are usually friendly people so I got up and looked around for somewhere else to watch the game which was about to start. Sure enough I met up with some of Tony's friends and fellow Guantiguans in another spot. This is Tony with a few of the same guys from the last 20 20 in 2006 just after Guyana won the championship. 
I said that I was looking for a place to sit and watch the game. All together they said bring your people and sit where ever you want around us. Trevor, Mykl, Olly and I quickly set up next to them with our cooler, chicken, and seats. We offered them some of our Rum but they had their own stash of something I think was called Extra Mature Rum from the mother land. Tony finally got there and we watched the match enthusiastically as a group. The Extra Mature GT rum finished first but they had another ration of Demarara rum tucked away. Unfortunately for us all Team Guyana opted to bowl first after winning the toss. I say unfortunately because, we never got to see Guyana's awesome batting. They outed all of the Bermuda side fairly quickly and before the Antigua rum could be finished they had chased down and passed their runs too. It was all over too soon. A win is a win, and that was enough for the GT fans who outnumbered Bermuda fans by about 500 to 1. Just before the action was over, our friendly Gauntiguans started handing out small rotis. That was very nice of them and the food was lovely. Anyway, after a quick weekend adventure at 
There were big fish out here and with the waves and winds it was all very exciting. We had over six nautical miles to go and the thing that worried me most was the prospect of being too tired for Antigua's first 2020 battle later that evening. Our plan was to go down past Rendezvous Bay staying well off shore but coming back in to surf a few of the wave spots further down the coast. Our first one was near what we used to call "Farley Bay". In the "old days" we would windsurf the waves there which broke just over razor sharp coral reef. Although the reef wasn't in the same condition these days it still was pretty sharp. I had been sliced up pretty good several weeks ago while surfing some other reefy waves, but you can't think about that too much when you are out there. Nik was only thinking about doing it again when he was on this wave several weeks ago. (Please dont aske me where it was taken either). Shhh....
If that's all that's on your mind, then you won't catch the good waves. Anyway, the waves were "blown" a term which means they were getting attacked by the winds and were not that smooth. Nevertheless, Nik and I surfed three or four good waves while Rabbs continued past them. On his last surfing session, his board had come unleashed and had ended up on the rocks only to be followed by him. His scratched up board and urchin needle filled feet didn't like that experience too much and with the pain still being felt under his feet, he kept well clear of the reef on this morning. The wave was longer than Nik and I had expected but it was so windy that getting back to the peak after surfing one was difficult. After getting totally breathless a few times we continued on. Nik went outside the barrier reef but I squeezed though a few coral heads and managed to cruise along the rocky shore for a few hundred meters before going out another channel into the Atlantic. This channel had some huge swells coming in and for a moment I thought I was way too close to the reef and had to paddle like a mad man to make it past the impact zone. Up ahead Nik and Rabbs were taking a break and were sitting on their boards. As large ocean swells rolled between them and me, they would disappear from view. The ever changing blue canvas that is the ocean is such an awesome sight and pleasure to behold up close. I looked for whales but knew it would be difficult in these winds to see much. There were "white horses" everywhere.
It almost did a double take upon seeing us and with a splash it zoomed off below. Another thirty meters ahead were three more green turtles and it was almost as if we had found a secret spot for the big endangered animals. Later I told JD to be careful when he was skippering Xtreme past this section of coastline. We only had a little more to go and came closer in to shore as we approached Pelican Island and Johnson's Point. Here we spotted several smaller hawksbill turtles which we speak about at length on the eco tour. These small turtles probably were around 5-10 years old and have another 10-15 before they would reach sexual maturity. Many people and fishermen make the mistake of saying "there are so many turtles out there...how can they be endangered". The problem is that there are indeed many turtles, but most never make it to sexual maturity therefore not getting a chance to propagate the species. Hawksbills are critically endangered and still occasionally hunted illegally here in Antigua and Barbuda.
Although the conditions were not as rough, the winds were not always behind her and while i took a few photos from the shore, i could see her having to work pretty hard against some pretty strong winds. She said it wasn't that difficult! Pretty good looking though. 
Anyway, there are four SUP riders now hooked on this new sport and we hope to have some more stories coming up on this journal.
The humpbacks were back, and this time they were earlier than normal. They pass through every year at about this time on their way North usually with young newborn calves playing alongside. Here is Captain Tony on the eco boat looking for whales with some guests on our way back from a private tour in Barbuda. 
There are no whale watching tours in Antigua for several reasons, but whenever our boats see them we immediately go over to them unless it’s too rough outside the reef. This shot was taken one day in the same area as the ones we have just seen.
We had a group of Italians who snapped a few photos and then asked "Spiaggia?". It always amazes me how some people can avoid being totally fascinated by these huge rare animals. I find it hard to steer away and leave them even when I know I have to continue a tour. Of course what amazes me even more is that our government support Japanese slaughter of these fine creatures. When my dad represented our government at international whaling conventions Antigua and Barbuda were anti Japan. Then the money came pouring into Antigua from Japan and my Dad was replaced by people who see no problem with Japan's stance. This will pass too. For now we have to educate people about whales I guess. I hope to get some new fresh images this year. 
These ones are old and I have used here on this blog before. Captain JD above on Xtreme after we spotted some whales up ahead. Whales will be here until the end of April. If you will be here during that time then keep your eyes on the water. If not, then keep them here.