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

is there war being raged against antigua without us knowing it?

Recently some of the main tourism and news websites have been hacked by people wanting to cause big problems for their users. People's virus checkers warned of Trojan Horses and all that kinda nasty stuff. This has happened not only to several of the main sites, but it has happened more than once too.

Also, as you may have read in one of my earlier blogs (click here), there is an email going around which shows a once beautiful young lady in a blue bikini laying in a few inches of water on a beach. I say once beautiful, because the gruesome images show her cut to pieces in what the title of the email describes as a "shark attack in Antigua". (Check the link above.) I did hours of research and found this email to be totally bogus and nothing more than a hoax to cause Antigua damage.  After all, we know people's fear of sharks.

I  know how obsessed prospective visitors to Antigua's shores are when it comes to sharks and shark attacks because of a simple blog i wrote a few years ago called "the most dangerous thing on your holiday". (click here) In the blog i speak about the fact that we have not ever had a shark attack on the island and i also quote statistics for shark attacks world wide. Then i talk about the real danger which i say is too much sun exposure. Millions more people die from skin cancer than from shark attacks. ANYWAY, I have a very good web tracker that is visible only to me and quickly saw the searches people were using to get to this blog. Every single day people around the world search for something similar to this: "shark attack antigua" and they get to my blog.

Since this shark attack hoax email has been going around, and i blogged about it carefully explaining why it's untrue. Since then thousands of people have been hitting that page after seeing the horrible email just to see if it's true. The email about the fatal shark attack in Antigua is a fake but it's causing harm. Check the first page of my web tracker from early today:

Click on the image to get a bigger version of it. As you can see, most of the hits my blog is getting at the moment is form people trying to find more info about this hoax attack. I am hoping that Antigua's Daily Observer may read this blog and do a little article on it. Let's see if they read it.

My family and friends have been getting messages and calls from people around the world trying to find out if its true about this killing and although i am not a conspiracy theorist, I can't help ask the question: "Is Antigua under attack?"

The West Indies Regatta 2010

If you follow the blog then you know team Adventure Antigua went to the West Indies regatta in st. Barts recently.The team for the sail down was Jason, JD, and myself, but we were also joined by some of the http://www.acquafilms.com/. Iain, Pat and Sarah were going to be taking part and helping out in the regatta with Iain doing the filming specifically.

I usually like sailing downwind at night as i find it quite relaxing and quite beautiful. It was only 90 miles or so down to Gustavia, and we decided to have some dinner at the Al Porto before setting off into the starry night. The winds were about 14 knots once we got outside the lee of the island and we sailed silently and comfortably through the night.

At dawn we could see St. Barths in the distance and we decided to put up the big downwind sail as a bit of a practice. Usually we race with Nikolai as our "rock star", and while i stay on the helm dealing with tactics, nick runs everything else. Jason, as usual said he knew everything about it all and could do it by himself. This turned out to be mostly true with the exception of him having the wrong sail. We had two of the downwind sails made as the first one was too small. I had put that one in storage, but Jason insisted that the one in storage was our racing sail. As soon as we finally got it up, I could see that it was too small. A good thing we were not racing!!! After a good bit of teasing JD, Jason and I dropped the sail and got the other one ready. Up in went and as we sailed down the South East coast of the beautiful island of St. Barths the sail looked as beautiful being poled out by our "big bamboo".

This image was taken by http://www.photoaction.com/ during the Antigua Classic Regatta last year, but gives you an idea of what it looked like on a tighter reach with no need for the bamboo.

Once we arrived in St. Barths we tied up alongside some of the other West Indian wooden boats that were stern to the dock. This image was taken by Sarah:
 

We met up with some fishing friends who we know from tournaments in Antigua and St. Marin.

The year before they had raced with us at this regatta and were eager to join in once again. We mentioned that we needed a bit of equipment for the boat and Christian, the owner of Ocean Must, a powerboat rental place told us to take one of his boats to St. Martin. It was only 12 miles away and we could collect some stuff from the chandlery at Bobbys Marina, have some lunch and be back in no time. And that's what we did quickly jumping on the immaculately kept Contender powerboat with twin 250 hp Yamahas.

Little did we know that it was Carnival in St. Martin and most things were shut. Needless to say, it was a good lunch there. Somehow we ended up getting roped in to collecting the band and taking them back to St. Barths. Sometimes having a cell phone can get you into trouble. The band had flown in from NYC to play for our Regatta at Le Select on Saturday night, but had come in too late to catch the ferry. We were in the wrong place and the wrong time and took them back to St. Barts. In fact it wasn't bad at all as they had all their gear already in Gustavia. They even paid for fuel!

When we got back we slowly got over to one of the organizers harbour gallery where there was a party organized for us with food and drinks. Everyone was jolly and happy trading stories about these lovely old boats. Even the new ones like ours is generally spoken about as an old boat because of it's design and the way it was built traditionally.

That night wasn't a big one as we were all very tired. Jason went off with the other sailors to a film festival but JD and I were sleeping by 10. We'd be racing in the morning.

At the skippers meeting they said there would be a 10 minute warning gun before the sequence and the starting sequence would be 5 minutes. The person giving the briefing then asked the skippers if they knew what time the start of the race would be. One of the guys said 10:15 and the race director said "that's correct". OK, so off we went. Later as we prepared to start I noticed three boats take off at 10:10 sailing towards the first mark. I called on the radio and was told that the race had started. Great we were already way way behind!

The race didn't involve any beating to speak of with one tack just before the windward mark. We caught up very close to the lead boat Genesis at one point but had problems getting our pole unjammed and lost some of the ground sailing tight up the coast. We finished second that day over the line and went in to complain about the start. Three other skippers said that they had thought the start would be at 10:15 and were surprised at the 10:10 start. Anyway, it was a hot saturday in St. Barths and time for some beers at the beach. I love chilling out at the Brazil bar on shell beach.

The day turned into night and the band started early at Le Select. The rocked the island!!!

Jason, played dominoes with some of our local fishermen crew while the band played some great tunes.

It ended up being a very heavy night with us migrating to Bazz Bar until it closed and then to the Yacht Club disco even later. By the time we woke up for our pastries and coffee we were running a bit late and a bit low.

The winds had dropped and were very light which Ocean Nomad never likes. We started perfectly and already were ahead with a good lead off the start. I had missed the "captains briefing" but our local fishing/sailing crew had the details and were calling the course to me. Up ahead we could see the first mark and gybed it and set the reacher heading to the island where i was told we had to round next. Suddenly we heard some shouts from one of the boats and realized we were sailing in the wrong direction. I guess i should have made it to the skippers meeting! Back on course now we were in second! Once again, this race had no tacking and in the very light conditions sailing from one point to another we never do well. We couldn't gain on Genesis and were eventually passed by the newly refurbed Summer Cloud. In fact, Summer Cloud went on to pass Genesis too winning the race across the line.

It was now time for lunch at Colombier beach. The boats all rafted up alongside and we quickly put up our awning for the shade.

Unlike the rest of the boats, we had a grill and fresh fish thanks to our fishermen friends. There is nothing like fresh fish cooked out on the water by professional fishermen.

Wow, it was good, but after a while it was time to race in our third and final one for the regatta. The start was a bit too close behind the anchored yachts and almost the entire fleet was over early on the start by about 20 seconds. I hovered back, but figured they wouldn't do a general recall and finally moved to also start early albeit at the back of the fleet but alongside Genesis. It was so light and slow that we could call out to each other with a bit of teasing. We managed to get our down wind sail up quickly and easily covered and passed Genesis. By the time we got to the downwind mark, an island, we were in second again behind Summer Cloud. Once again there was no beating in this race and it was a tight close haul to the finish. Despite Summer cloud being way ahead of the fleet they had to sail down to the finish which was set up at the last minute lower than any of us had expected. Genesis who had footed off and was sailing low and with speed was in the perfect position to go directly to the line and finished first over it. 

While we were disappointed with our sailing results this year, we felt that the courses and general organization of the racing could have been a bit better for us. In the end the event was more of an event that a regatta, and organizing a bunch of traditionally built West Indian boats with their owners, crews and friends for a weekend of parties, cook ups and some racing was the main focus. At the awards, Summer Cloud won overall as she clearly was faster on corrected time than the rest of us. Andrew and his company, Woodstock had refurbished the boat after taking it from Gustavia where it had stayed after last years event and she was like a new boat once again. Each boat was made to feel like they were winners and each captain was given a prize of some sort. The prize giving ceremony was unlike many i have been to and we we did all feel very proud of our commitment to these traditionally built boats. There used to be hundreds of them around the West Indies with each island building their own version of the fast sailing work boats. Now there are only a small handful left with only one tiny little island still building them semi regularly. This even was more of a celebration of the Caribbean wooden boat movement and all in all it was a great success. Alexis Andrews pulled it off again and he should be proud of this little special event.
The ride back upwind to Antigua wasn't as much fun for ALL of our crew as the event had been. One of them who shall remain nameless wasn't happy at all. They even kissed the customs dock when we finally got back to Antigua. It was a bit nasty when we left St. Barths with rain squalls and blustery winds:

Next year in our effort to keep the spirit of this tradition alive, we will be sailing on the newest of the Carriacou Sloops, ZEMI.
Apart from the photoaction chopper shot, the images were taken by Sarah Gochberg and me.

www.adventureantigua.com

Adventure Antigua - St. John's - Reviews of Adventure Antigua - TripAdvisor

image by shelly chadburn.

Some more great reviews for Adventure Antigua's day tours. These trips are not just your average snorkeling trip. As you will read, we put plenty of thought into the design of the tours, the design of the boats, the hiring of our crew and everything else that goes into our unique tours. We have been doing tours professionally for 10 years, but taking frineds and family out boating is what we have been doing all of our lives. It's who we are. Nothing makes our crew happier than having happy guests. Thanks to those of you who have taken time to write these reviews:

Adventure Antigua - St. John's - Reviews of Adventure Antigua - TripAdvisor

Marlin Fishing video on Xtreme (possible bad language)

As many of you know the biggest fishing tournament of the year is coming up this month in just a few weeks actually. We got some of our regular crew together and invited a few guests to come for a little practice session on Saturday.
Fishing was slow as Marlin fishing can be, but we managed to catch and release one nice blue marlin about 170-180 lbs. We also got dinner for all crew to take home in the form of a nice big dolphin fish (Mahi Mahi) not to be confused with the mammal with a similar name.
Anyway, we had a pro video man on the boat with us who did a quick little video for us. Iain from Acquafilms did this one. Enjoy:

"Adventure Antigua - Best Tour Ever"

Recently we have made some changes to the way the Eco Tour has been run. After Antigua's SubCat folded there were some good crew looking for work. It just so happened that we had taken out an ad looking for crew at the same time. I'll speak more about the new crew soon, but this blog is to feature a recent review of the eco tour which has now been featured on the very popular Travel Buddy website. We are very proud of our little Antigua tour and we are even more proud of it today after the lovely review. IT shows that the new crew are working very well with some of the veterans and that things are on the right track. The new engines, and propulsion systems are being shipped as we speak and by mid summer there will be a total rebirth of the eco tour. "Adventure Antigua - Best Tour Ever!" Read the review here: Travel Buddy and feel free to share the link on any site that you think will help spread the word about this unique and small tour. There are some websites out there that tell cruise ship passengers to stay in port while in Antigua. Possibly if more of them saw reviews like this they would understand that there are some very cool things to do while in antigua.

(edit) I decided to copy and paste the review here:

I simply cannot put into words how completely magical this tour was. At the risk of sounding cheesy, it was one of the most beautiful days of my life. The tour provided for a small crowd (a few more than a dozen) for the most wonderful trip.

First of all, know it's not a "snorkel trip" or a "booze cruise". On the contrary, it is exactly as the title states, an "eco tour". You will learn about the island, the wildlife, the flora and fauna, as well as get up close and personal with some very cool marine life. There are a couple "get-in-the water" stops, but they are not the overall focus like may snorkel trips.
Eli's Eco Tour is SO MUCH MORE. I'm a swimmer and love to snorkel, however this tour was still perfect for me and I wouldn't have traded it for an overcrowded trip with untrained guides any day. The guides were EXCELLENT, with one being a marine biologist. They were able to point out turtles and many other kinds of sea life I'm sure I would've missed on my own.
The tour took up our entire time in port, but I can't imagine spending the day otherwise. I cannot recommend Adventure Antigua enough. Booking is safe and easy online. They stay in touch extremely well.
We had about an hour before we were to meet the ship outside this great little clothing store called Exotica Antigua (which sounds WAY more racy than it was.) Upon boarding the catermaran (without your shoes, which was a highlight for me! :) we sailed off to see multiple views of the island. Unfortunately, we were there during full moon (low tide) and dry season, so we couldn't get far back into some places, but I saw jumping stingrays, hundreds of HUGE sea stars, and turtles. We did an easy-to-moderate hike to Bird Island for awesome views of the Atlantic (where they say you can sometimes see a humpback whale). Upon returning to the ship, we were served an awesome island chicken lunch onboard. After that, we spent around an hour (I lost all track of time) at Hells Gate where you could choose to swim, snorkel, hike, or relax on the boat. We chose to snorkel and saw some of the best coral and marine life we've seen (and we've been to MANY Caribbean locations to snorkel). After that we went to yet another snorkel site where the fish were a bit larger. The guides are right there to help you. In my opinion, a beginning snorkeler would have little trouble on this trip, ESPECIALLY with the friendly and patient staff. However, for those like myself that enjoy a bit more of a challenge, this trip provided that as well.
Rarely would I ever repeat a trip, but this one, without a doubt, I will book again. As a matter-of-fact, because of this trip, I'm ready to find a local hotel for an extended stay as opposed to a cruise ship stop.
I can't say enough good things about Adventure Antigua. Everything about the tour was exceptional, from the locations, to the snorkeling, but especially the crew. Thank you guys! We'll be back!

www.adventureantigua.com

Day sailing in Antigua with www.adventureantigua.com

A cool video taken by some friends

Stevie who is skippering Xtreme today while JD helps me get ready for our trip to the West Indies Regatta is featured in this video taken by Andre Phillip. Generally the video shows a typical day out on a boat with friends going around the island and it's very good stuff. I think it was shot with the Go Pro HD too, but i will have to check with the gang. Enjoy:


Antigua by boat from dre phillip on Vimeo.

www.adventureantigua.com

more from sunny antigua's sailing week 2010

Well today it's very warm, windy and sunny for the third race of sailing week. Yesterday the sailing week website promoted one of their sponsors ondeck which is a sailing charter company very unlike mine (www.sailing-antigua.com)
As you can see from the video, you get to race in international events with ondeck.



For more laid back sailing you can always come out with me on the Carriacou Sloop. By the way, we are getting the boat ready this week to sail down to the West Indies Regatta in St. Barts. You can see a video of that regatta by clicking here.
Unfortunately I will miss one of the best reggae DJs in the world IMHO who will be playing with the Soul2Soul group this weekend. For more on that check out this video here:

The Antigua Sailing Week Beach Bash

In the end The Antigua Sailing Week Beach Bash was a very well organized party with an excellent variety of music up and down the beach that wasn't as loud as i thought it was going to be. My wife and I enjoyed listening to Wadadli Riders just up the beach from Itchy Feet. Daddy-O-Grande came and jammed with the Riders for a while which was pretty cool. We had gone down to the party on our boat "Xtreme" with some friends including the island distributer for Veuve Clicquot. Needless to say, that our boat was very well stocked!!!
For a change the party seemed organized and I have to say that I was impressed with the way things turned out. The weather wasn't so sunny, but it didn't rain until we were getting off the boat in Jolly Harbour sometime around 8 pm.
The Antigua Sailing Week website showed this good video of some of the top racers:

Today they are in Jolly Harbour and the bands are playing already. The fleet is smaller than usual which is a shame because I think this one is better than the race weeks we have seen in recent past.

Sailing Week starts slowly

Hundreds and hundreds of people were planning to go and see the yachts race around the east coast of antigua today. The yachts have left Falmouth Harbour, but many of us who were going out to follow have stayed behind to wait until the weather starts to clear up. We woke up to rains today and although they have finally stopped now at 10:25 am, it's still quite overcast out there.

Anyway, the rosé and champers are still on ice and we are probaby going to leave "jollywood" in an hour. The Dickenson Bay Beach Bash (sound clash) seen in the image above sounds MAD but thousands will be there later today for sure. The Adventure Antigua catamaran "Dolphin" is already out on the water with people celebrating "indi and ari's" birthday. Just spoke to them and they say it's looking very good from where they are..

The United Progressive Party do an about turn on the Guiana Island development.

I think I must be going crazy and imagining things because yesterday I thought I heard our tourism minister say that cabinet has approved a 2000 acre development of Guiana Island and all the lands associated with Dato Tan. This can’t be right can it?

Before they got into power the United Progressive Party marched, and campaigned against the project declaring that it would be an environmental disaster. In their manifesto before they were elected for the first time they promised that the area would be protected, and now on the Observer Radio talk show “Voice of the People” with Winston Derrick yesterday, John Maginley, minister of tourism, just mentioned it in passing. He spoke of thousands of hotel rooms, and “36 holes of golf”, a marina and other things and then moved on to the next subject without a comment from Winston.

This I must have imagined right?

How could the most controversial development in Antigua’s history, something that the UPP and their supporters were so passionately against be now approved by cabinet and mentioned on the radio by the minister without a single comment or mention of its significance. I am extremely worried about this development and its implications. There have been no consultations with our local environmental groups, the fishing associations, or any other body that I am aware of except the people who stand to make money from this massive development once Vantis sells it.

What is also strange is that the Minister kept saying that the government can’t do anything with things owned by Stanford, specifically speaking about the big marina that Winston asked about.

Why can’t the government do anything about the Marina, but they can authorize the Dato Tan development plan for Guiana Island which is owned by Stanford also. I suppose there may be different company names. Keep in mind that this plan isn’t the last and most recent Stanford plan for the area which in my opinion is far less damaging for the environment than even a modified Tan project with its marinas and golfing.

As someone who is now on the board of two environmental organizations and someone who makes a living doing “Eco Tours” in the area, I think that this 2000 acre development needed far more inclusion of stakeholders and I while I agree that we need development, I think it needs to be done in a sustainable manner.

EDIT:
Since writing this i have been told that the new plan is different than the Dato Tan plan. The new one is for 1000 hotel rooms and not the 5000 that Tan had wanted!!! Makes me feel so much better....

Disaster at sea that could have been prevented

The unfortunate boating accident which ended up with three men being left in the sea without anyone searching for them until one was found just by chance is something that simply shouldn’t have happened and it’s been bothering me for many reasons.

Firstly, in this day and age no boat should leave port to go offshore without an EPIRB. I think it’s high time for Fisheries and the Marine Department to make this bit of life saving equipment mandatory. An EPIRB is a little emergency beacon that sends messages to satellites and to coast guards in the USA, and locally that your boat is in trouble.

What’s more is that the beacon which floats in the water with you keeps sending the exact GPS location so the coast guard know where you are. The US coast guard speaks with whatever ships and other coast guards are closest to you. IT works world wide and is recognized as the most likely tool to save you quickly. They cost as little as US $350. The more expensive ones ($800 us) can be personally registered, so that the US Coast Guard will have your name and the numbers of people you want notified in an emergency. They get called as well as the ships and coast guards. A few years ago people on those row boats coming across the Atlantic were saved because of their EPIRBS after their boats were compromised.

With or without an EPIRB, mariners should let someone back at home know that they are leaving port and will call when they get to the next port, also telling them that it shouldn’t take longer than “X” amount of time. This way if there is no call, then someone knows something is wrong. When I was 16 and going to Barbuda on the little pirogue, we would use this method every time and I still do it on much bigger trips.

Of course all boats should have proper marine VHF equipment and if you are going offshore you should have a waterproof handheld VHF radio that you can use if the boat goes down. All boats even “unsinkable” Boston Whalers can go down. Think of a Boston Whaler catching fire with 200 gallons of gasoline on board!

Something we use and learnt about years ago is a “Grab Bag” (click here for an example) which is a bag containing basic survival equipment and can include the hand held VHF too. On a 500 mile trip we did last summer on our wooden sloop we had a huge grab bag ready to go into the water with us if something bad happened. The EPIRB, life jackets, energy food packs, water and many other things were in that bag. Hundreds of people have been saved by similar bags.

The things I have mentioned are all good generally, but this week’s incident points out that much more was missing.

It doesn’t sound as though the boat cleared customs, immigration or the port in either SXM or ANU which means that possibly they didn’t really want to notify many people of their movements or even of their problems until it was too late.
I have seen the boat (in St. Martin) and to say that it was properly maintained for an ocean crossing would not be accurate.
There needs to be a policy where the 911 operator writes down or records people’s calls in such emergencies. I am hearing reports that despite the crew on the boat telling 911 that they were going down 7 miles NW of Diamond Reef, the message the coast guard got was that they were in the North Sound (some 14 miles away). These are life and death communications and need to be better dealt with.
In this image X shows where the crew said they were. Y shows Diamond Reef and Z shows the North Sound. As you can see there is a huge difference:

To me it is very strange that knowing a boat was going down as the 911 operator was told, that the coast guard didn’t alert everyone they could that a boat was going down with people on board. If I had known, I would have gone down there as I am sure many other boaters would have done. Why did they wait until Tuesday after Toby Fuchs and John Watt found the only survivor to resume searching and to contact ABSAR and the coast guards of the other islands? It’s as if they were forgotten about just like Inigo Ross, brother of Xabier Ross – Wadadli Cats) was forgotten about by the St. Vincent coast guard all those years ago.
One other thing that I thought about last night while trying to sleep is that I was under the impression that cell phone calls can be triangulated to give a very rough estimate of where the call was made. I may be totally wrong with this, but if a boat is sinking and you can’t get the people on the phone again, couldn’t you try to figure where they called from? You would know for sure that it is or is not The North Sound.
Now I come to an unpleasant mistake that is there for everyone to see on youtube. Why on earth would the coast guard and medical people sit back and interrogate someone who had nearly died or possibly is dying in front of them? This guy has been in the ocean for days and instead of rushing him to the hospital, or possibly sticking an IV into his arm to try and rehydrate him, they are asking him for the same story over and over.

MADNESS!!!
All in all there are many lessons to be learnt here and I don’t think we are paying close enough attention to this story.

Things you may see on this saturday's special Eco Tour

To celebrate Earth Day, Adventure Antigua has teamed up with the EAG to bring you a very special eco tour of the North Sound this Saturday leaving from Shell Beach at 12:45 pm. You can get your tickets from the EAG by calling them on 462 6236 or emailing eag@candw.ag

The photos below show some of the wildlife and other things that you can see in the area we will cover:

Brain coral while snorkeling.

Mangrove Habitat at Guiana Island

Whales outside the reef. (possible but not a guarantee)

Bottle nosed dolphins

Spotted Eagle Rays

Interesting and diverse "flats" eco systems.

Endangered Hawksbill turtles

Corals

Maiden Island's Controvercial artificial reef

The fans

Hells Gate

Queen conch

and even smaller shells

The gentle Southern Stingrays

Frigate Birds and many others.

There is a special price for kids on Saturday so make sure you call the EAG soon to reserve.

Antigua Classic yacht Regatta 2010 still has one more day

The racing this year has been tough for many boats with strong winds and blustery conditions. After not having rains for months and months, Antigua finally got some! We got quite a bit actually with inches falling over the past week mostly falling later in the afternoon and at night. Yesterdays conditions were windy enough that many boats didn't put their "chutes" up. As you know if you read my blog a few days ago, I am not racing this year, but Jason, our main sailing crew is out there racing on Ocean Nomad.
Slightly rusty and not having the proper sails, they finished fourth the first day but with better sails and the crew more experienced they pulled a close second on the second day of racing.
The racing today is cloudy and fairly windy once again and they should have another close day of racing. Check the results here later. If you can make it you should come down to the Antigua Yacht Club Marina to see all the Classic yachts. There are ten Carriacou Sloops (traditionally built wooden Caribbean boats) racing this year and each is alongside the Skulduggery bar. As usual there is plenty of interest surrounding these colourful boats, but slightly more this year with the Pink Lady taking part for the first time. Pink Lady is owned by the Palm Island Resort which is where my wife and I recently spent a few nights during our honeymoon. Palm Island is part of the Elite Island Group of hotels and resorts which also includes Verandah, Galley Bay and St. James Club here in Antigua. The top boss had told me sometime in the Fall that he'd have the boat up here being run by a bunch of ladies. I wasn't sure it was going to happen, but sure enough there is a pink boat sailing in this years event skippered and crewed by a bunch of female pirates. The eye catching crew of this Palm Island boat can actually be heard before you eyes are drawn to them. WOW! Those girls are real "sailors" and are taking the "traditional" sailing and partying theme to the outer reaches of imagination. There was a funny little story and a bunch of photos on the antiguanice.com site the other day. (click here) Baywatch meets Pirates of the Caribbean!!!
Will speak to Jason a little later to see how it all went. Tomorrow is the final day of racing.
Apart from the regatta, people here are also watching developments of the European No Fly Zone which has cancelled all trans Atlantic flights since Thursday. Our Adventure Antigua bookings have slowed dramatically as is expected. I understand that British Airways has already cancelled their flights for tomorrow too. With a very active volcano only 25 miles away, I don't think anyone here expected that we would be severely effected by one thousands of miles away. The hotels and tourism sector here which is the backbone of our economy is praying for the flights to resume ASAP.
The photo above was done by Roddy Grimes-Graeme of http://www.acquafilms.com/ when we were out sailing. His team of video and photo people are out covering the regatta for the main sponsor.

QUEEN OF HOUSE MUSIC BARBARA TUCKER IN ANTIGUA

A friend of mine is trying to help Antigua's nightlife and its music in general. Torsten is writing, composing, playing and producing music for many Antiguan artists as well as many from abroad through his company Offshore Music. He has also brought Ministry of Sound to Antigua several times and once again they are here to liven up the dance floors at Abras in English Harbour. Here is a little press release he sent me:

QUEEN OF HOUSE MUSIC BARBARA TUCKER HEADED TO ANTIGUA


Offshore Music Ltd. Announces Tucker will Headline at Abracadabra’s April 16th.

Torsten Stenzel, owner of Offshore Music recognised the need for a different kind of sound in Antigua, to complement the traditional genres of soca, calypso and reggae. His instinct to promote dance music served him well as witnessed by the positive reception of Antiguan nightclub goers to the successful staging of a major event in the country. Stenzel brought the biggest name in UK dance club music the Ministry of Sound to Antigua and Barbuda in 2009 and followed up on the successful evening in January 2010.



To further capitalise on the momentum, Offshore Music will host a landmark music event at Abracadabras, English Harbour on Friday, April 16, 2010. Ministry of Sound will continue to play a major role in the evening through the inclusion of DJ Phats and Small (Turn Around, Feel Good) and featured headliner, the one and only Queen of House Music, Barbara Tucker.



Barbara Tucker is a tour de force in the dance club music world, having recently celebrated 25 years in the business. The artist, who writes most of her own music, is a household name in the world of house music reaching the top of the Billboard Club Hits charts seven times with such mega hits as Beautiful People, Precious Love, and Everybody Dance, while her latest chart-topper Feelin’ Like a Superstar released on her own record label, continues to gain strength. This multi-talented performer is also a noted Broadway actress and choreographer, working with the likes of Moby, Pet Shop Boys, Wyclef Jean, and Herbie Hancock. Ms. Tucker performs all over the world from Africa to Siberia, Tokyo to New York, and Offshore Music is adding the twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda to this respected list.



This will be Ms. Tucker’s first live performance in a Caribbean country and she is slated to perform for one hour at the event. Along with the multi-million record selling Ministry of Sound DJ Phats and small, are prized local DJ’s in their own right; Offshore and Alan Russell. Luyo Sound System will provide special staging, lighting, animation and P.A. system. Prizes will be given away throughout the evening and performers will be dancing for the crowd. The doors open 11 p.m. until…with ticket prices $35 pre-sale and $45 at the door.

This event is strategically positioned between the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta (April 15-20th) and the 43rd Antigua Sailing Week (April 24-30th) giving residents and visitors another major entertainment option to enjoy. Sponsors signed to date include Carib beer and Mount Gay Rum.

Offshore Music is proud to announce a successful negotiation for the presence of German television station ProSieben (Pro 7), the second largest privately owned T.V. station in the country, to broadcast the event live. A potential viewing audience of 2-3 million across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland has the opportunity to take in the event during airing of the popular entertainment show Red! Das Star und Lifestyle (Red! The Star and Lifestyle Magazine). This is a first for German television in the region.

Offshore Music Ltd. is an Antiguan-based production company specialising in film scoring, and music and video production. Based in English Harbour, the company has sold over three million records worldwide of the dance music scene.

I'm not crying wolf, but the shark email going around is a hoax!

People have this obsession about sharks and one day i blogged about shark attacks around the world, the Caribbean and Antigua (click here). As you know if you read it, there has never been any shark attack around Antigua. Someone was bitten by a little reef shark in Barbuda while they were spear fishing late in the afternoon in Barbuda. A bag of bleeding fish in the old days when the reefs were fully alive wouldn't have taken long to attract some sharks. Anyway, over the past week there has been a horrible email being sent around titled "shark attack in Antigua". The first pic is a lovely photo of a great white shark showings its jaws for the camera. We don't have great white sharks in the Caribbean as the water is too warm. Since the waters are warmer than usual then even less likely.


The rest of the photos show a horribly disfigured young woman in a blue bikini. The extremely graphic photos make you want to gag and i never understand why people send those kind of images around to all their friends. In this case I wanted to see them because I hadn't heard about a shark attack in Antigua. Nobody here had because we did not have a shark attack in Antigua.

Upon close inspection, i could see that the unfortunate lady looked like she had the tell tale scars of propeller damage as seen on manatees up in Florida here:

The close long gashes looked like those we found on a turtle that had been hit by a boat last year. Anyway, i searched high and low for info on the net about a young woman who had been attacked and killed by a shark, losing an arm in the process. The photo showed her arm severed but on the beach next to her without any other scars on the arm.

There is no doubt in my mind that she was hit by a prop of a boat and not killed by a shark. Whatever happens I know for sure that she wasn't killed here in Antigua and surely not by a shark here in Antigua.

Why someone would go so far as to email the photos around, put them on forums and tell the world she was killed by a shark in Antigua is beyond me. Some people are really sick.

Environmental Awareness Group news

The Environmentat Awareness Group is planning a series of activities to celerate Earth Day and to try and raise a few $$ to help run the organization. Environmentalism isn't as strong as is needs to be in Antigua and support for the EAG is even weaker especially financially.

One of the things Adventure Antigua is trying to do to help the EAG is joing them in a special Eco Tour of the North Sound on Saturday April 24th using one of our boats. The tour will be a half day tour during the afternoon and we will be using our biggest boat The Dolphin which is normally reserved for private charters and the half day snorkeling tour from the Pineapple, Verandah and Long Bay area.

Anyway, we will collect guests from the old small dock at Shell Beach near the end of the airport's runway at 12:45 pm. There will be a maximum of 49 people on the big catamaran and we will do the eco tour seen on this link (click here) with the exception of the Hells Gate adventure.
You can have a general idea of what the tour will be like if you check the video there too, but remember it will be on the slower and larger boat. Since we will already be in the North Sound, we won't have to do any cruising up and down the coast to get there.
The main thing to remember apart from this being one of the coolest things to do in Antigua because of the beautiful and very interesting surroundings of the North Sound, is that this is a fundraiser for the EAG. You can learn more about the organization at http://www.eagantigua.org/
Drinks, snacks, all the interesting narration of the area, a short eco walk/hike and some snorkeling all included for just EC $130 or US $50. To reserve you spot on this unique tour please email the EAG. There isn't a kids rate as this rate is fairly low for this type of tour and also because this is a fundraiser. Think of it as you helping out the environment of Antigua and Barbuda.
In a day or two I will blog about a new development that will make going on this tour even more interesting and important.

Sunday Chill

If you come to antigua and ask anyone what you should do on a Sunday, they will tell you to go to Shirley Heights which is an old British Naval Fort that now has been tuned into a lively party every sunday afternoon. Of course if you have been there as many times as i have, then you may want to try something different. Sunday Chill is a concept taken from places like the party island of Ibiza where mellow clubby kind of music is played near a pool. It's hard to describe exactly since I have never been to Ibiza, but yesterday we decided to check out Sunday Chill up at Charmichaels above Sugar Ridge Hotel. The longtime Ibiza DJ and producer Torsten Stenzel, who is now living and working here in Antigua producing and writing music takes a few sundays a month out of his busy schedule to play some very cool music up there.

The sunset was pretty "insane" up that high and the music and drinks all came together to provide a pretty neat atmosphere that can only be described as..... SUNDAY CHILL. I'm not sure when he will be playing next up there, but I will probably be there. IT's the next best thing to do on a sunday afternoon (on the mainland anyway). The photos are from the sugarridge site.