Shocking photos and story from St. Johns, Antigua

My company Adventure Antigua operates tours by powerboat around Antigua and often has to collect guests from Redcliffe Quay in St. Johns. Every single time we go in there we pass garbage floating inside the harbour. Commercial harbours around the world are usually nasty and it's fairly normal for some garbage to bypass storm drains and end up in the water. Water running along the gutters and drains has to end up in the harbour, but there should be some sort of grate filtering garbage. In Antigua this doesn't seem to be a priority. These images were taken after an hour of rain in St. Johns back in January of 2007. Both the Antigua Sun and the Daily Observer papers used my images and mentioned the garbage. One of the call in shows spoke about it and generally people were shocked to see all the trash floating around in the harbour. A small fraction is stopped by the coastline around Deep Water Harbour, but most of it goes into the sea. I can't imagine what the east coast of Nevis and St. Kitts look like. They should write to our government on this issue! Dumping garbage into the sea is against International Law and the government of Antigua and Barbuda know that this is happening. It wouldn't take much to put small catchment mechanisms on the gutters preventing the trash from getting into the harbour, and why it's not done is beyond me. Check the photos taken from my boat:

Anyway, this past Saturday September 19th was International Coastal Cleanup Day and we went out to see if we could get rid of some of the trash in the hopes that we could stop it from getting back into the sea. There are a huge variety of living organisms that are harmed by this garbage. The most common way they are killed is by getting tangled in it, but they also are killed when they mistake the plastics for food. Human beings are being harmed as well and more and more of the chemicals in breaking down marine plastics are finding their way into our bodies. In some areas in the ocean up to 50% of the stomach contents of fish have been found to contain plastics. This article on marine plastics breaking down was published today on BBC.

Anyway, on Saturday a group of 18 of us took one of my company's boats out to two tiny beaches near Yeptons and Coconut Beach Hotel. A few years ago i had seen one of the life boats from a cruise ship collecting garbage from there. I guess they were embarrassed to have their guests see this trash on their first Antiguan beach as they entered the country. This is probably yet another thing the wealthy Cruise Association should look at. I guess the huge staff at the Ministry of Tourism could come up with some action too. As we arrived, the rain was coming down sideways and the weather wasn't great. Unfortunately we ran out of garbage bags very quickly. We had taken 150 of them. The trash not only is on the shore but has been washed and blown up the hillsides. It's embedded in the ground there too. What a mess. Although the beaches looked so much better after we attacked them we could see more garbage flowing out of the harbour as we worked. It's won't stop until the gutters and drains are fixed properly (and not just with yellow and blue paint). Check the images we took from Saturday:

Sailing course offered in Jolly Harbour

The Jolly Harbour Yacht Club is offering two types of sailing courses at the moment. One on Saturdays is for kids and is totally full at the moment. The other is for any age group and still has space. IT starts this Sunday and is EC $300 for members and $450 for non members. It goes from 9 am until 12 and lasts six weeks. Learn the basics and then sail on their little "boats". In no time you will be sailing by yourself on a "laser". For more info speak with Pippa Tel: 722 8468
Although Jason has sailed up and down the Caribbean with me and does all the http://www.sailing-antigua.com/ charters with me too, I am going to send him so that he can be trained properly from the basics.

If you would like to get involved in a new sport in Antigua give them a call.

Free boat trip this saturday

As long as you don't mind helping pick up some garbage for a few hours you can have a free boat cruise and even some snorkeling. This saturday is the International Coastal Cleanup day all over the world and Adventure Antigua has been taking part for three years now. If you want to come please contact nell on 726 6355 or email her on info @ adventureantigua.com

amazing weather = plenty of boating

The weather this past week has been totally amazing for power boating with clear sunny skies and very calm seas. I always love September for the calm days and think we have more light wind days during this month than any other. Today is another sunny and glass calm one and we've decided to take some family and friends to Barbuda for the day. Will try to take some photos!

The Adventure Antigua team takes themselves out on a tour.

Back in the early days of Adventure Antigua I would often take the entire crew (back then it wasn't that big) on regular outings when we didn't have tours. If we weren't fishing we were taking friends out on with some lunch and drinks.


Our favorite "company outings" were the ones where we went to St. Martin. Nearly 100 miles down and 100 back and non stop laughing and enjoyment the entire time.


I have many fond memories of us doing a tour on a Friday, dropping off our guests at the cruise ship or hotel and hustling back to clear customs, grab some things and leave into the sunset with the St. Martin "goto" set on our GPS.

It's one those sessions that we would dip into our own special rum punch and take the time to enjoy the ocean even more.

Wow. We consumed too much rum on some of those trips!

BUT I think we will have to do one of those st martin trips again soon.
Anyway, we haven't done a proper crew outing for some time and all our group "meetings" have either been on the dock or over at Foredeck Bar in Jolly Harbour on a Friday for their happy hour. Of course September is probably the slowest month of the year for us so we do have quite a bit of free time on our hands. I knew there were no tours scheduled for Monday so I sent a text to the crew and Nell telling them that they all had to meet by my house at 9 because we were going sailing. I also told them this wasn't optional just to make sure they all would be there.
First to show up at 8:45 am was Leslie. Then JD and Tony shortly afterwards. Then Chris, Alex and Jason pulled in just before Nell at 9 am. Mom was the only part of the Adventure Antigua team that wasn't on this trip and i will organize another one with her soon. She was running the office and couldn't make it. Anyway, for me it started well because usually if the guys know that we don't have tourists to pick up on time they can be a bit late. This time everyone was there on time and I was very happy not to have to wait. We jumped right on to Ocean Nomad (the only sailing vessel in our small fleet), and let go dock lines. We were off! "Fenders in!" was the call by the three captains on board almost all at the same time. The laughing had already started. Within no time we were sailing towards Johnsons Point and up the south coast passing Curtain Bluff and Carlisle Bay on route to Falmouth Harbour. Our destination was Bumpkins Beach Bar on Pigeon Beach where Nell had placed a lunch order. The winds were better than i had expected probably blowing between 12 and 16 knots right on the nose.

Two of the crew had never been sailing in their lives before so it was especially enjoyable for us all. Tony and JD are doing a structured sailing course next week so it was good to have them helping out in all the tacks we did up the coast.

Lunch was pretty good and we decided to go up to The Yacht Club Marina for ice cream. Of course as we arrived back on the boat each of the boys had to show that they had the best flips and dives. There were quite a few flops which usually ended in wild laughter.

Leslie's flip attempts were definitely the best of them, but i can't embarrass him by showing them here.

We actually played there for nearly an hour forgetting about the ice cream for a quite a while. The anchor came up and we headed over to Seabreeze in search of some sweets. Unfortunately it was closed, so we set the sails and head out of the harbour. The cruise back was very relaxing even with five or six gybes.

For a fairly inexperienced crew made up mostly of power boaters they did very well.

I think each one of us enjoyed the day and it was probably one of the best team outings we have ever done. Simple but fun.
http://www.adventureantigua.com/

The entire Adventure Antigua Crew goes sailing

September is a terribly slow month and there are many days when nothing at all is going. Today we are going sailing to try and have some fun and also to try to help JD and Tony learn a bit more about sailing.

Both of them are doing a sailing course later this month and could do with a bit of experience. I think the plan will be to sail up the coast towards Sandals and Dickenson Day, have some lunch and sail back.

Will post some photos tomorrow. All of the photos on this blog entry were done by www.photoaction.com and were purchased by one of our racing crew, Harry Ingram.

"storms" to sailing

Well Tropical Storm Erika was a big disappointment to many of the storm junkies that i know. I have to admit that i had hope for some good waves to go surfing with or at least some good winds to go windsurfing with. About three times a year i get to go windsurfing in extreme conditions and I was thinking that Erika would be one of them. Instead she fizzled to a weak storm and then depression and then wave as she meandered past us like a has been rock star.
The surfing was so so a few days before and the windsurfing amounted to loading up gear into my truck and waiting for the winds that never came. Some areas of the island got quite a bit of rains but even that disappointed me. We had mostly drizzle which did last most of the day on Thursday. Wednesday night we had some strong wind gusts in the squalls but that was when i was trying to sleep so it wasn't as exciting as we had anticipated. Of course we are all very happy that it wasn't a hurricane and that nobody was hurt and nothing got damaged, but a little action is all we were asking for. That's the thing about hurricane season and storms that most people from abroad don't understand. Just because it's hurricane season and just because we have a storm bearing down on top of us doesn't mean we will experience tropical storm or hurricane conditions. In fifty years we have been directly hit by 6 hurricanes and taking a holiday here in the summer isn't a bad idea if you need some chill time in a nice place. Speaking of chill time, I am going sailing today on our sloop with the Jolly Harbour Youth Sailing team. I don't think I will be getting any chill time today. In fact, this may be more extreme than Tropical Storm Erika. Yeeeee haaaa

Tropical Storm Erika - a troubled woman

From my post on StormCarib.com yesterday:

Well after some chores i loaded up my windsurfing gear and expected some
action on the north shore. Not only didn't we get enough winds but I got
sunburned while i waited for something to happen. I don't think we had
more than 18 knots for the whole day and still Erika which is supposed
to be just to our SSW isn't saying much. What a lovely sunset and moon
rise though with a wild array of colours almost looking like the colour
IR sat map that shows the disorganised storm teasing us. To see a bright
moon inside some brighter pink high cloud was quite something 20 minutes
ago. I'm not sure we will get any more shows of light later on. The radar shows DA about to get some and some patchy rains scattered east and south east of us, but this troubled girl looks like she's about to call it a day. I doubt Erika will be a storm
for much longer. I would hope we get at least one thunderstorm out of her....but with her it's anyone's guess.

Last night the lightning was quite a show in the east. Since then we finally
got some rain in Jolly about 3 am and it's been raingin on and off since
then. A
few strong wind gusts in the squalls but mostly light. The center of
the very
weak tropical storm is just off our south west shore and according
to the radar
seen here which shows actual rainfall, there is plenty more
rain to come.

To me it looks like the eye of the storm is pretty much over Antigua right now, but the storm is so weak that it doesn't count for much apart from plenty of rain. It's a day for TV, the computer, tea and relaxin'. I think some areas may see some flooding today if it gets heavy which is very possible. I also think that some of the squalls could give us some stronger gusts up to 30 mph but so far it's calm.

Tropical Storm Warning for Antigua. I'm going windsurfing!

AT 1100 AM AST...1500 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM ERIKA WAS
ESTIMATED TO BE NEAR LATITUDE 16.5 NORTH...LONGITUDE 60.4 WEST OR
ABOUT
100 MILES...165 KM...EAST-SOUTHEAST OF THE LEEWARD ISLANDS.

ERIKA IS
MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 10 MPH...17 KM/HR. A WEST-
NORTHWESTWARD MOTION
IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATER TODAY. ON THE
FORECAST TRACK...ERIKA WILL BE
MOVING THROUGH THE LEEWARD ISLANDS
TONIGHT AND TOMORROW.

MAXIMUM
SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE DECREASED TO NEAR 40 MPH...
65 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS FORECAST
TODAY WITH SOME SLIGHT
RESTRENGTHENING POSSIBLE TOMORROW.

TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND
OUTWARD UP TO 105 MILES...165 KM
MAINLY TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER.

weather, boat building and sailing all in one.

Today is the start of "fall" as people in North America call it and also the start of the peak month for hurricane season. We have a low pressure system just east of us that seems to be having a very hard time figuring out what the heck it's doing. The weather channel people in the USA can't figure out what to say about it and neither can the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It could strengthen into a depression at any time and into a tropical storm and then even into a hurricane as it passes safely to the north of us. They say the opposite is true and that it could weaken as it moves into some dry air just north of us. Either way, we are going to be checking it very carefully over the next 8 hours and into tomorrow.

My power boat building project is on the go slow at the moment, but i do have a few photos of the paper model that i built. I'm not sure if you can see the measurements and the angles on each piece. Anyway, you get the idea of what the boat will look like. The wooden one is gonna be built later this week.

When it's done it will look like this one we saw in Bequia:

Lastly i thought i would leave you with a video of us sailing some time ago just to remind you what the sloop looks like on a day out.

Possible Tropical Storm warning coming soon

If you are in Antigua at the moment or are on your way here before mid week then be advised that the forecast isn't looking good. At this hour the National Hurricane Center is trying to decide if what was "Invest 94L" (a fancy name for a strong tropical wave or low pressure system) was turning into a Tropical Depression which is the stage of a low pressure system between a tropical wave and a tropical storm. Of course the stage after a tropical storm is a hurricane. Many of the weather forecaster blogs are saying that Invest 94L is probably a Tropcial Depression as i write this and many are suggesting that it may become a Tropcial Storm very soon afterwards. This is where it gets interesting. These days all the super computer forecasting tools that there are out there are usually good enough to predict the track of an approaching storm. We have seen them accurately predict where these storms go each year. In fact, they seem to do a better job each year too. This invest has been different. None of the models seem to know where the hell it will go. Windguru.com still says the weather this week will be awesome, so maybe they know something we don't know.
After reading the weather discussion on www.crownweather.com and looking at the moving sat maps on www.weathercarib.com i think we should all be thinking about getting ready for a storm. I will post updates here and on www.stormcarib.com so keep checking the sites.

balsa wood for a scaled down model boat

My good friend Roddy from www.acquafilms.com has always wanted to build a boat and is very interested in my project of building a 14 foot power boat. I built a model out of card and will show that soon, but i wanted something a little more robust. Roddy had some old model plane balsa and hooked me up (after sushi last night). I will build a 1/2 model of the boat this weekend and show by monday. I hope to start building the real thing soon as well.

Come help out on International Coastal Cleanup Day Spet. 19th

September 19th is International Coastal Cleanup Day. You can find more info on it at the Ocean Conservancy site here: For the past few years we have taken one of two of my boats out to clean up a beach or two that you can't get to by car. "We" is usually a group of people from all over the place who happen to be in Antigua and who are interested in marine life and helping to clean up beaches. So much of the garbage on our beaches ends up in the water and then causes so many problems. Just yesterday I was doing a little talk to the Antigua Yacht Club kids about beaches, reefs and the marine species that live in those habitats. Carl James runs their kids sailing program and had asked me to come down and chat with them. Anyway, we did quite a bit of talking about turtles too as the kids seemed very interested in them. After the talk and before going on a snorkeling trip with the kids, Carl took them on a little beach cleanup down the coast from the Yacht Club. He called me to let me know that they had found one of the "two year old" turtles that we had just spoken about. It was dead and had been washed up on the beach tangled in a bit of discarded fishing net. Ya will never know how much wild life you will be saving by collecting some garbage from the beaches.
If you are interested in coming out with us on the 19th of September to one of the off shore beaches to do a cleanup and then a bit of snorkeling possibly contact my sister Nell who handles the bookings on 1 268 726 6366 or info@adventureantigua.com and make a reservation.
This photo was from two years ago and shows a group of us and the garbage we collected from just one beach at Green Island.

Building your own power boat

Ever since i first went to the Grenadines in November i have been intrigued with the passion many young people there have for building their own speed boats. Since there are so many islands scattered around eachother people need to get to and fro using boats. Fiberglass boats are too expensive down there so almost all small powerboats (and many of the larger boats) are locally build out of wood. As many of you know, i was down there getting a 40 foot wooden sloop made. Ocean Nomad which we do sailing and snorkeling tours on was finished on the beach there back in April 2008. Anyway, each time i go there i take great pleasure is seeing all these little powerboats. Most of the islands in the Caribbean still have one or two people still making them but in the Grenadines almost all of them are locally build of wood. Here is one i saw in Union Island back in November 2007:

As you can see, the young desingers there love to make their boats full of colour, and there is quite a bit of competition and pride encompassed in building them.
Here is another one anchored off the west coast of Carriacou at sunset:

Simple boats but very functional in our choppy waters. With plenty of deep V up in the front of the boat these little vessels cut through the water very well.
Here are photos of some in Grenada:






Most of the fast more modern ones are built using a two by four skeleton and a ply wood skin covered in some fiberglass to keep the wood from rotting. The older ones are built the old school way as our sloop was. No ply wood and no fiberglass. Ones like this have been built the same way for hundreds of years:

The slower and older boats are all like this:

Anyway, without having any experience in boat building I was very interested to listen carefully to my boat's designer speak about making models so that he could scale from there to the big boat. Seen here the model of my new sailing boat still being built is carefully designed with 16th of an inch to one inch scale.

Notice any resemblance?

Hopefully by the end of this yeat she will look something like her sister (our other boat) Ocean Nomad seen here below in photos taken by www.photoaction.com :



Anyway, with some of the things i learnt i decided to start building my own small powerboat. Last week my sister Nell told me that she wanted to go boating with some of her friends and that it wasn't fair that we didn't have a small boat she could use. I agreed! Not only that, when it's calm and i want to go fishing by myself i always think it's crazy to use one of the big boats.
Tomorrow i will show you the simple model i have made. It took me about three days of work on and off, but a scaled model has been almost finished of what will be a fun 14 foot speed boat which will be perfect for fishing and playing.
For more info on our wooden boats check http://www.sailing-antigua.com/ and http://www.adventureantigua.com/