An alarming number of migratory birds are being found dead out to sea.

I hope this isnt related to the BP oil spill that i mentioned in my last blog, but I went fishing on Saturday and noticed an unusually high number of Audubon's Shearwaters off shore. At least, that's what i think they are called. Looked at the photos and they do look the same. Anyway, we spoke to several fishing boats that saw dead ones floating. On Sunday one boat spotted ten of them floating dead in the water. After speaking to other deep sea fishers who have been fishing the East off Antigua it seems as though we have a problem as many of them report seeing dead birds. Why on earth this is happening, we will only know when we get a specimen. Seeing a dead bird in the water is a rare event, but seeing many is totally not something any of us has seen.
These shouldn't be related in any way to the birds that were recently intentionally poisoned at Jolly Beach Hotel. That's another story!

Why the BP oil spill is just another thing for the Caribbean to worry about.

With so much worry in the world about the terrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, many people are searching for answers about how this will effect us where we live. Of course there are answers for questions like these, but not the ones we want and not specific enough to quell our fears.

The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay. The Ixtoc I spill is currently #2 on the all-time list of largest oil spills of all time.

Those of you who spent much time on beaches in the eary 80s will remember pleny of oil and "tar" as we all called it back then drifting ashore. There seems to be many theories about where this oil came from, but I am pretty sure that much of it was from that huge Mexican spill. Although we are not hearing much about the prospect of oil from the new BP gulf spill getting to our Caribbean shores, it is almost inevitable that some will arrive here. However, by the time it does, it will have passed along so many thousands of miles of coastline that we may only get small amounts. This all could depend on what happens with winds and currents in this years hurricane season. For more info on that (if you have time to read about the atlantic currents) you can read the blog I did three years ago about "flotsam and jetsam". Click here.
If you don't have time you can figure it out from this image showing atlantic currents:

This is just some info i suppose to help you figure out why this BP oil spill is also very bad for us all. Notice the red lines in the Gulf of Mexico above meeting up with the "gulf stream" and then slowying making their way around the northern Atlantic and finally back to and through the Caribbean. Keep in mind that we get a huge variety of migratory species of birds, fish and marine mammals that will pass through the spills track too. Anyway, as if the spill wasn't bad enough, we have to worry about all the other stuff damaging our marine ecosystems. Recently there was an article about a huge coral reef bleaching event predicted for this summer (along with the prediction of hurricanes). Click here for that article. Sadly, this one doesn't fill me with dread because unfortunately we don't have much coral left in the eastern Caribbean to be killed off. Here in Antigua the wholesale wiping out of fish from the shallow water reef systems has all but prevented any coral from making a comeback since the first big hurricane in 1989, let along the big ones of the 90s. Our Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are not protected at all so the reefs are in terrible shape. While our government and our Fisheries dept. drag their heels on getting the MPAs protected properly by some sort of structured management, people still can enjoy setting gill nets and spear fishing within reef systems where the last of the parrot fish and other herbivors are found in small numbers and sizes. We shouldn't rely on our island government to spring into action. Organizations like the Antigua Hotels and Touist Association should learn more about the reefs and related marine systems as well as the problems associated with getting these MPAs off the ground. The churches should be involved too. They should be trying to get these areas managed. Caribbean Beach Tourism as i like to call it which helps keep this small nation afloat financially will be nothing but a dream of a bunch of old hotelliers without the realization that healthy marine eco systems are vital for healthy tourism. I could go on and on, but it won't do much good. For now, if you can swallow any more, please have a look at this video which shows very simply why areas just like our offshore habitats turned to "slime" in other islands not too far away. Remember it's not all bad news, if you didn't get to see the last video i blogged about MPAs please come back and click this link after seeing the video below.

EDIT 17/6/10
I found this video which shows more of what i was saying in this blog:

on the eco tour today. see images on twitter

ill be uploading photos to www.twitter.com/antigua

check it out!

Gotta love our cheap Antiguan politicians and government reps.

TUESDAY JUNE 08, 2010
Antigua & Barbuda in front line
of whaling debate
Tuesday June 08, 2010 Page 14 By Shelton Daniel (Daily Observer)

Antigua Barbuda is again at the front line of the annual tussle between
pro- and anti-whaling interests.
The bitterly opposed camps are, as usual, ramping up their worldwide
lobbying and propaganda as the annual
meeting of International Whaling Commission (IWC) approaches.
Delegations from the 88 member states, along with innumerable NGOs on
both sides of the divide - as
well as countless reporters and observers - will descend on the Moroccan
city of Agadir Monday, June
21 to Friday, June 25 for the IWC's 62nd annual meeting. This year's
gathering
is of special significance, as, for the first time since a 1982 moratorium
on commercial
whaling, the IWC is now proposing a controlled resumption that it believes
will better serve the organisation's
founding mission of conservation. Uncompromising opponents to any form of
whaling (such as the Australian government and the international
environmental group Greenpeace) see this
as a disguised Japanese-inspired move to officially approve a decade long
open season of whale
slaughter. Analysts say this sets the stage for a highly keyed up and
combative encounter in the summer
heat of North Africa.
A m b a s s a d o r Anthony "Mamba" Liverpool is the current vice-chair
of the IWC and a
lead author of the draft 10- year proposal, which its creators hope will
provide the blueprint for a workable
peace plan between the warring IWC factions. The document's main premise
is that it is far better to permit
restricted and strictly monitored whaling within sustainable limits,
rather that to permit dissenting or
unregulated whaling interests to set their own quotas - if at all - and to
determine which whale
species are endangered. Antigua & Barbuda is one of four Caribbean
countries that presently support so-called sustainable consumption of
whales
- a position that allies them with Japan and the few other nations that
commercially
hunt whales for food. Dominica, while not making a complete about face
from its usual pro whaling vote, has indicated that it will abstain this year. The country has in recent difficult to reconcile its tourism marketing pitch as "The Nature Isle"
with support for whaling - given the growing popularity of whale-watching as a prime
visitor attraction.

Speaking with The Daily OBSERVER on the weekend, local environmental
activist Martha Watkins-
Gilkes said the government in St John's should change course and oppose
whaling - or to at least do like
Dominica and abstain. She believes such a revised policy will be more
sensible and rewarding.
Like most other anti-whaling environmentalists, she's urging the adoption
of whale-watching
as an alternative that will boost the tourism industry on which this
country so heavily depends. Watkins-
Gilkes says Antigua & Barbuda's current support for whaling puts off many
travellers from choosing
here as their holiday destination. From a tourism standpoint, there is a
lot of negativity about this on
Antigua. You just have to Google Antigua. If you type in Antigua whaling,
you will get over 200,000 sites ...
a lot of which are against Antigua's stance in voting pro-whaling."
Watkins Gilkes said a very large number
of Antiguans and Barbudas were also opposed to the position taken by the
government
at the IWC, and suggested that even if the government did not wish to
heed the international pressure, it should at least listen to its own
people. She said
there was great potential here for whale-watching, given the number of
whales that pass through the
country's waters yearly. Not surprisingly, among those who strongly
disagree with Watkins-
Gilkes is Antigua & Barbuda's former chief fisheries officer. Daven Joseph
who also served in times
past as the country's IWC commissioner, said Antigua's position on whaling
is informed by scientific
evidence and not emotion. "The Caribbean countries' position at the IWC
is not in support of
Japan. It's a position that is based on the principles of sustainable use
of maritime resources," Joseph said,
echoing a position he has consistently advocated for a very long time. "I
am the coordinator
for the Caribbean programme at the IWC and I will never recommend or
encourage countries to support
the taking of any whales that are endangered or threatened." Joseph said
the
decisions taken by Caribbean countries at the IWC are based on sound
scientific advice. "The countries
of the region - all the ministers - met in Grenada on the 11th and 12th of
last month and agreed to a joint
position." The other Caribbean countries that vote at the IWC in favour
of "sustainable whaling" are St
Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. They have
been criticised for lending critical
support to Japan in exchange for economic assistance, mainly in the
form of fisheries projects. But Joseph said those who demand a change in
Antigua & Barbuda's
stance at the IWC must also be prepared to bankroll the economic
alternatives. "Apart from St Vincent and
the Grenadines, we in the Caribbean are not whaling countries. And if we are
asked to give up our rights to
take these animals we should be compensated for it." Expanding on that point
he added: "You're
hearing in the news media how much money Japan is making; we're hearing how
many whales the United States is taking; how much millions and billions of
dollars that Australia and New
Zealand are getting from whale-watching. And we are saying that we have a
right to benefit from these
international resources." Joseph added, "Our interest is for a compensation
package within any agreement at the IWC for these countries that are
benefiting
so much from whales to put funds into a programme so that we can
draw down on technical assistance and also funding for enterprise-building
in
our country. This will enable us to develop whale-watching and maritime
industries that can enhance our
economies."economies."

Mr. Joseph wouldn't know sustainable fishing if it slapped him in the face. If he cared about that as much as he cared about his connections with Japan then he'd be waging war against the French islands that are raping our marine recourses every single day.
Here was the last blog I wrote some time ago on the subject of Antigua's official support for Japan. Click here.

Long lost "Part 2" of fishing tournament report.

Wow, I think that the past four weeks has been a terrible record for blog negligence. I have been very very busy though with work. Will blog about that next. First I gotta tell you what happened on board Xtreme on the second day of the fishing tournament.

On this day our Junior Angler decided to rest and instead we were joined by David "Choppa" Mendes, one of our old regulars, who had just arrived back from his med school on a short holiday. We all met up at the boat in Nelson's Dockyard when it was still dark and set off before most of the other crews had even arrived. Also going out at the same time was Captain Mike on the charter boat "Vitamin B", a Bertram 31.
Many boats were fishing in various different places some going very far indeed, but our plan was to generally fish in the same area we had done the day before North-East of Antigua. It's a place where we have hooked many large marlin and lost our big one the day before too.
We arrived at the fishing grounds just after we were permitted to start fishing and the spirits were very high on board. We fished towards a French FAD we had recently found in our favorite marlin area. With them putting a FAD in that area we knew there had to be action since there was plenty of it before the FAD was set. Shortly after we arrived one of the rods burst to life in the early morning sunlight with a hard marlin strike. We looked back as we started clearing the other rods quickly and saw a marlin jump right out of the water shaking its entire body trying to "spit" the hook. It was like a movie scene set in slow motion. The marlin, probably about 200 lbs in the air shaking back and forth for a second or two and before it landed back in the water the lure and hook getting tossed aside. As quick as this one attacked the line we had lost the fish again. Again, we lost this fish due to no fault of our own. The hook was fixed in the recommended position on the lure and all was done according to predominant rule of thumb. Yet the fish was gone once again. Two minutes later after we had let the lines back out we were still trying to figure out what we could have done differently and with a beautiful scream one of our starboard side rods burst to life with a marlin on the end.

This one didn't jump so we couldn't tell how big it was. I knew blue marlin often travel in pairs and wondered if this was the big wife of our last fish. Within no time Guili was hooked up in the harness and all the other lines were cleared. We were slowly following the fish and were fighting! "Xtreme hooked up and fighting", is what i called in on the radio to Fish Control. We were not near any other boats and I don't think our VHF radio is that powerful. We hadn't heard Fish Control for the weekend and so far for the morning we hadn't been able to reach any other boats on the radio. I called in again in the hope that someone would hear me and pass on the info as required in the rules.

The fish took a long second run so we knew we were not on a small fish. Usually marlin under 250 lbs don't have the power to take two huge runs pulling line that has 27 lbs of drag. Guilli worked the fish and kept the pressure on the fish bringing line back in. We fish shimano 50 wides mostly filled with spectra braided line and a top shot of 80 nylon. Often we bring marlin to the boat that never managed to take all the top shot out of the reel. This one was well into the braid so we could tell there was a considerable amount of line out. Then the fish went deep. The line was straight up and down at thirty minutes into the fight and we were not gaining much on the fish at all. It was a standoff for a few minutes before the fish took another short run and the line went slack. I quickly sped up as we have seen crazy marlin do U turns before shooting up to the surface fooling us to think that they had burst the line or gotten off. Just in case I sped up to try to put pressure on the line. Slack line is the enemy, but the line remained slack and we knew this fish was no longer ours. For the third time in just over 12 hours we had lost another good fish. The mood wasn't good at all on the boat, but we all still quickly put lines back over the side. We knew there had to be more out there and it didn't take long to realize that. About thirty minutes later we hooked up once again. This time it was Garvin on the line and the marlin was a jumper.

It took off a considerable length of line before we had a chance to slow it down, but we didn't want to rush anything on this try. I could tell the fish wasn't a small one by the splashes in the distance. We knew that we may have a fish that could be taken back to the scales. Within 20 minutes the fish was getting close and there was talk about killing the fish. Unfortunately this tournament is still a kill tournament with enough money being offered in prizes that you wouldn't turn your back on if given the chance. The gaff was set up and our simple measuring line was also readied. The line was set to the length that would make a blue marlin 300 lbs if placed between the tip of the lower jaw and the fork in the tail. Our line had a lure on the end and was attached to a rod. All we had to do was bring the fish close to the boat with and put the tip of the rod next to it's lower jaw and see where the lure ended up. Sounds easy huh?

Anyway, as the dark outline of the fish came into view on our port side the crew yelled and screamed that this fish was a keeper. I wasn't convinced. One of the crew told me that we didn't need the measure for this one as it was way big enough. They all reminded me that I was not a good judge of marlin size. We have caught and released many marlin but had only killed one before in a tournament. That time I was also worried that the fish wasn't big enough, and it turned out that it was 589 lbs. That was the early days of my marlin fishing and I had released many marlin since then. I wasn't convinced about this fish and told the crew that I didn't think it was big enough to make the 300lb limit, telling them that we had to measure this fish properly. We got the fish close enough to wire, but we had got it here quickly and the fish was very much alive and not wanting to be close to the boat. It would have been easy to just gaff it, but we had to measure it. As John finally was able to bring it to the side of the boat close enough to check the measurement, I put the line in the water. This photo was taken by Guilli exactly at this point. If you look very carefully up in the right side of the frame you can see the rod tip that had the measuring line in the water near the front of the fish :

Before we could see the measurement, the fish started to go wild again and pulled free from john and going under the starboard bow. I had to reverse hard to port to clear the line and it took us another 5 minutes to get the fish close once again. It still wasn't sedate and as we put the measure alongside the fish we argued and second guessed and discussed. This was the first fish we had brought alongside today after loosing two others and a huge one the afternoon before. No marlin had been caught yet and if this one made 300 lbs we would be getting a nice big check. The fish started to struggle again and we decided to bring it on board. We gaffed it and after quite a struggle we brought it aboard.

Only then could we properly measure it and the line showed that the fish was an inch shorter than our measuring line. A dark mood set across the boat for a while as we all sat there thinking about the possibility of it being under weight. The day went on and we actually had another two strikes I think but they didn't hook up or take much line. Towards the end of the day we heard that the fishing had been very bad this year and our fish was the only marlin caught with one other boat releasing two blue marlin and a white.

We were among the first boats back in and after dropping off the fish close to the scales we left John and Garvin there to check the process while we moved over to our mooring to start cleaning up. We really had a feeling that it was underweight even though we had all taken bets on it's size all guessing it was just over 300. Within 20 minutes we heard the bad news. It was 283 lbs and just 17 lbs short of the minimum weight. 

Team Xtreme was in the dog house! Environmentally it wasn't really a huge deal. Sport fishermen in Antigua kill less than five marlin a year if not considerably less. French commercial fishermen have dozens if not hundreds of FADs in our waters stretching from North of Barbuda all the way to our economic border with Guadeloupe and each one aggregates fish including marlin that the fishermen harvest.

I have spoken to many fishermen in islands from St. Barths south to Grenada and it is common for small commercial boats to catch up to three marlin in a day while fishing for tuna on FADs. I fished once on a commercial long line boat where tuna and sword fish were our target species. We had a short line (ten miles) and managed to catch five blue marlin in one night. 

While everyone on Team Xtreme, and mostly the skipper, seriously regrets killing an undersized fish (which was chopped up and eaten), we know that this kind of thing happens in kill tournaments like ours. We have been asking for observers to be stationed on each boat and our tournament be changed to a no kill one. I know that this can happen and hopefully will happen because we will never kill a marlin again on purpose. I say on purpose because it's possible that even in "no kill" tournaments fish get that get hooked up are killed.

Anyway, I am considering ending our marlin fishing, but for now still think that the impact of us going fishing for marlin a few times a year is sustainable.

I think that there is enough support to make our tournament a no kill one and will let you know when this happens. All in all, we had fun out there fishing for the two days but would have had way more fun if we had been able to bring 50% of our strikes to the boat. If we had done that and released them we would have won very easily on points alone. That's why they call it fishing and not catching...... 

Interesting talk on ocean survival that would help Antigua and Barbuda

Below is an email I got from the original "Big John" who ran Dive Antigua for about 100 years I think. He's very switched on when it comes to eco related issues and this is a good one. As you know if you have followed my blog carefully, we here in Antigua have some very good Marine Protected Areas that could help our people and economy greatly if they were managed as they were designed to be. We just need the government to act. The biggest MPA here is NEMMA which appears to be stuck. If it isn't stuck then i would like to know more. Anyone?

Great TED talk on how to save the ocean eco systems.



As you know I have been saying for years that Antigua and Barbuda with
it's 1,500 sq. mile surrounding shallow area, would be the perfect place
to have set aside no fishing areas and as pointed out in the video, fish
populations spread out into areas open for fishing and subsequently
the fishermen catch more fish than if they did not have no no-go areas.

It's always nice to have new data to back up our proposals.

Best wishes,

John

fishing tournament a week later part 1

8 am saturday 29th. A week ago at this hour i was skippering xtreme 12 miles north east of green island at the start of the 44th annual fishing tournament. Our crew and gear were very well prepared and we were ready to fight a big marlin. The day was rough and we experienced several very big squalls. Donovan our junior angler was hit by a big wave and completely saturated early in the day. Fairly early in the morning we had a marlin come and hit one of our lures. Infact, i think it hit two of our lures 1 after the other but didn't get hooked. When you're fishing in the deep waters off antigua with huge lures, most of the fish on the service are blue marlin. We found some flotsam some out there and wahoo were accumulating under it. We caught 1 and quickly left the area to avoid catching more. We were fishing for marlin after all. We fished and fished and fished and never saw another marlin until the last 5 minutes of the day when the top rod burst to life with a violent strike. It was for 4:25 pm and 5 minutes before lines were in unless you're fighting fish. I could see a huge bill thrashing around behind the boat before it took off with another astonishing run. The fish pulled off about 300 meters of brand new line in what seemed like seconds. The second run was stronger and faster and more violent than the first and as line was being rapidly stripped off the reel and rod in a north westerly direction we saw the fish jumping over to the south west........... and then it stopped. It stopped too abruptly and Big John and I knew the fish was no longer ours. There was still quite a bit of strain on the rod but that was just the weight of two thirds of the reels line stretching out behind the boat. It became slacker as it got closer until we understood that the fish hadn't spat the hook, but had bust the line. Our crew's feelings on other crew's stories of bust lines are not that sympathetic as it usually means a mistake was made. We couldn't figure out what mistake was made here. The line was brand new and we had scale tested the reels drag to make sure it wasnt too tight. Guilli had been on the rod and I though he had been getting pulled about quite a bit for only 27 lbs of drag. He and I were the only ones who had seen the fish jumping while the others cleared all the gear in preparation for a big fight. We both knew it was a big fish and Gil said it was the biggest he had ever seen. We all were upset about missing this big chance and drank beer on the way home to try to cheer up. Back at nelson's dockyard we found out that everyone had experienced a slow day.

fishing tournament this weekend in Nelsons Dockyard

Yes the 44th annual fishing tournament here in Antigua will start up on Friday afternoon with their famous EC $5 bar (US $2). Saturday all the boats will tear out of the harbour together in the "bimini start" and shortly afterwards fishing will start.
This year Adventure Antigua's TEAM XTREME have decided to enter the Marlin division once again, but this year we will only be fishing for Marlin and nothing else. Sometimes we see mahi mahi out there in the tournament, change our lures and catch some while getting distracted from Marlin Fishing. Not this year!
For more info on the tournament including fishing times photos and info on the parties, click here.
Last week I posted a little video taken on our last fishing trip. Click here for that short marlin fight and release.
Tomorrow, we are going out for another warm up session. wish us luck!

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....