No reason that Antigua's fishers can't go off shore.

When speaking about sustainable fishing and specificially about fishing for pelagic species, the people representing the commercial fishermen of Antigua and Barbuda keep saying that fishermen here in Antigua and Barbuda don't have big enough boats. I have been saying that this isn't true for years because I see little pirogues from most of the English speaking islands to our south way out in the Atlantic off shore fishing for deep sea species. Hell, when i was 16 years old I would take our little 40 hp powered boat fishing way offshore and to Barbuda. Things have changed a bit for us since then:

Also as mentioned time and time again in my blogs, we see small Guadeloupean and St. Barts boats in our waters fishing too. Click this blog to see what i am speaking about. See how the boys from St. Barts catch pelagic fish easily from small boats in this video:


Recently one of our friends who fishes all season long here in the deep waters off shore took one of Antigua's smallest commercial fishing boats out 25 miles east of Antigua to fish on one of the Guadeloupean FADs. These photos below were taken by someone on our open boat between storms and trust me, it wasn't nearly as calm getting there or getting back. They ended up with about 300 lbs of tuna and mahi mahi.
The time for fishing sustainably on and almost collapsed inshore fishery should be at an end and we need to encourage fishers to move to more sustainable methods. Click here for more on sustainable fishing. 

Here is a photo taken from their boat:

As you can see: the boat isn't big at all. In fact, the wide angle camera shot makes the boat look way way bigger.

www.adventureantigua.com

I don't ususally take other Antiguan writer's work and post it, but this time the author gives full permission in her first line. I am "macoing" her very good facebook note.
 

Friends, Facebookers, Maco's all...lend me your ears.

Yes it's been quite a while since I wrote a note but if you've read any of my notes before you know that when I do put one down, there is a reason, and the madness has method and rhyme.

Considering the nature of what I'm about to address, I know that not everyone may agree and thats fine, but to be brief, and "crispy" as someone called me today...let me put this as a disclaimer: This is Marcella Andre's facebook page. Its not my job hence I subscribe to my own code of conduct, I'm not looking for friends or enemies for that matter, neither favours nor accolades. I'm just sharing my thoughts. If you don't like what you will find in this "note" take it to the Lord in Prayer...or in simpler terms Bite Me! If you have a dissenting view, please dissent with respect for me and others. Whew!! that was a load off my chest.  

The Context

I have a feeling that some of you who posted comments to my preview think that I am about to talk about Sargasso Weed and its myriad effects...but no, sorry, thats not it. I think I'll leave that to Eli Fuller and marine biologists thankyou. The title of this post should give you an indication that I'm referring to our tourism product. Yes...the Beach is just the Beginning they say....And then what???

Setting the Scene

For the last five weeks, I have been "tour repping" every weekend. For those of you who don't quite get the concept let me explain. A particular tour company in company requested my services for this 5 week duration because they recently struk a deal with a number of travel agencies in the French Caribbean. To ensure excellent service, they needed a french speaker to assist them with the guests experience while here. Each weekend there was a total of about 100 visitors from Martinique staying for a week, and placed at Veranda, St. James, Jolly Beach, Galley Bay and Halcyon. (BTW, Thanks for the reccomendation to the person who suggested me) (Side note: parents, please implore your children to learn another language or two, you'd be amazed at the opportunities that just this skill creates...Thanks to my momma I can proudly say I speak two and a half languages in addition to my mother tongue)

Anyhoo...back to the topic at hand. As a tour rep, basically you are expected to meet the guests at the airport when they come in, visit them at the hotel specifically for the purpose of "selling tours", and also be available to them should there be anything they need to resolve with the hotel, any queries they may have on anything at all...basically they own the right to your attention for the week while here.

The experience has been fantastic. You know I'm a "people person" so that aspect of it has been great, and just the opportunity to use my french is always welcomed. The experience was also a learning experience and it is one that led to the question that I am trying to get an answer to...after the beach what?

You see, in my "tour repping" orientation, I was handed a list of what we offer to our visitors. It reads something like this...Shirley's Heights,Historical Tours... Catamaran Tours (x 2 different companies x 3 excursion possibilities-bird Island, Cades Reef, Circumnavigation, all going to the same places) , Barbuda Tour, Stingray City, Helicopter Tours, (hella expensive!!) Island Safari (where you see among other things "fig tree drive"), Zip Line, Deep Sea Fishing, Horseback Riding (wow!)...you get the drift? There are quite a lot more but they are along the same lines. I worked with four pages of possibilities but there were many more....along the same lines, just different operators. One of the things a tour rep needs to know is the type of tourist that they are dealing with. Once you have figured that out, then it helps you decide what tours you are going to pitch. By the end of week one I had decided to stick to Catamaran, Town, Island Tour, Stingray. Those are the ones that were most likely to sell. Additionally a tour had to be created specifically for them that included a french speaking person who could explain to them what they were seeing.

In one of the groups there were three girls who did practically everything they were offered. They spent a total of at least U.S. $700.00 individually on just excursions. Let's not forget they were also paying for a week at Veranda, did some shopping and dining outside of the hotel. Because they were such good sports, and because they were some pretty cool chicks, I offered to take them to a restauraunt that they had heard about and wanted to go to - Warri Pier. So there we are, sitting at dinner, four of us,they are telling me that they had a great time, showing me pictures of all their "adventures" - oh wow....picture from the helicopter- beautiful beaches...next set of pictures, at the beach from one of the catamaran tours , next barbuda's beach - excellent, next set - in the water at stingray city....a few at Shirley's heights etc.....so as we conversed that evening I asked them about their impressions of Antigua and though I was a little hurt for Antigua and its offerings I also was not surprised at what they said.

They expounded in great detail on the fact that though they had a great time (because they planned to no matter what), yet they still have not been able to identify Antigua's "culture" or what Antigua represents, or what thing, way of being is Antiguan. Big surprise. (NOT!) I listened as they told me that the people at the dockyard need some customer service training (forget what I said above,...I'm available to facilitate!:-) because the person said to someone else within earshot of the visitors "I only speak one thing - E N G L I S H" and then practically dragged through the Dockyard tour as if they were harrassing her. I know you've heard this one before but they also visited a couple places in Heritage Quay and they felt as if they had been judged already because they did not appear to be americans with lots of U.S. dollars to spend or even British people with the power of the pound behind them..so they were ignored. Undaunted, the ladies still shopped because of course what the clerks would not have known is that the spending power of the Euro was on their side. Note well, that despite the great time they had, those unpleasant experiences were still recalled as a part of their overall "experience". Oh and one last gem... they found that we sure do play a lot of reggae and dancehall here. No joke. I'm just telling you what they told me - their perceptions.

So think about it. What really do we have to offer to the caribbean tourist? How does a caribbean visitor discover the heart and soul of Antigua while in Antigua? In my attempts to encourage the purchase of excursions I was actually met with responses like " we have water around us too...thats not really interesting to us" "we want to discover things Antiguan" and really, they are correct. No brainer. If I live on an island (as I do) I really don't want to spend my money in someone elses island visiting beaches and circumnavigating because I can do that at home. If I'm going to the beach on another island, getting there will not cost me US 120.00. I want to discover and understand the people, their culture, what is unique to them.

This year I visited Guadeloupe three times. Each time I discovered something interesting and different that showed me who they are, what is important to them, what their values are (none of them were on a beach).

The Reality as I see it 

The truth is that here, we are a melting pot. (Matter of fact, I think they should just go back to that idea "melting pot of the caribbean"). We have assimilated everyone else's culture in a plethora of ways. If that's what it is, work some aspect of that, if that is not the way we would like to be perceived, then we have to actually find some way to promote the remaining "things Antiguan" that we still hold some pride for.

Why for example can we not have a mini excursion that takes people through the process of making Cavalier Rum..with a culinary experience involving the use of cavalier at the end of the trip. How about the pineapple farm tour and again the same experience at the end...? How about actually creating an event that gives visitors an experience and education of our "culture" and history even including the melting pot reality and leaves them feeling like they learned something and had a great time doing it? Add some food and drink to that too...

I do not claim to have all the ideas but seriously...up to now we don't know who we are? We can't decide, plan, get creative with how we present ourselves? Cha man! :-) Our toursim product needs to wheel and come again...and not just for the caribbean tourists either. The beach for North American and European visitors is no longer a novelty...its stale.

When speaking to my students about presenting themselves through a resume and cover letter, I remind them that if you choose to used played out shit (well not in those words..) like "i'm dedicated and willing to perform for the best of the company" that they have just cast themselves on top of the pile of others because they have presented no unique selling point about themselves. They've got to look for that unique selling point or points and sell away!

So...after the beach, What??

And by the way...let me not even start on this thing we call "culture". As far as I'm concerned, they can just close the department of culture and put out tenders for people with real creativity, talent, organisation and ideas to run it.

My name is Marcella A. Andre and I approved this message! :-) Remember, the Beach is just the beginning.... This is the beginning....so what's in the middle and the end?

A very interesting video on the Sargasso problem in the Caribbean

More and more islands have had problems with Sargasso (sargassum) weed washing ashore in unusual amounts. If it's the first you are hearing about it, you can read this blog. Click here and Click here for an update to the first blog.
Here is a video out of Barbados which does a pretty good job of explaining further.

www.adventureantigua.com

Tropical Storm Maria misses Antigua despite forecasts.

In all my years I have never seen Antigua and Barbuda prepare like they did for this tropical storm. Tropical Storm Maria was forecast to come over the top of Antigua on Friday night and Saturday morning but the storm which had not been behaving as forecast from the start, veered north and didn't give us much of anything. On Friday which was a lovely sunny day, the schools, banks and many other businesses closed early. JD and I decided that we better go and firm up the boats in the afternoon and spent a few hours putting out extra anchors and extra lines. We prepared for a Cat 1 hurricane even though we knew that we would probably not even see 50 mph squalls. Nothing happened on Friday night and again on Saturday it was a lovely day for the most part. On Saturday night when the storm was well north of Barbuda we saw quite a bit of lightning. Then late in the night the winds switched to the south and we started getting some squalls. According to the facebook group "Antigua Weather" we received a few gust around the island in the 35 mph range and quite a bit of rain. Sunday it rained on and off the entire day which was perfect for those of us who love to chill on Sundays.

Why did Antigua prep so much for this storm and almost miss hearing about the last one? Well the answer is simple and should be a lesson to the authorities. This storm turned into a Depression and was given a forecast track by the National Hurricane Center quite far east of the Caribbean. This gave the weather people and the media time to speak about it for days and days before it "arrived". It was never forecast to become a hurricane anywhere near us and yet you would have imagined a category 5 was bearing down on us. People were scrambling to take their boats out of the water and board of their homes. I even heard nails being driven in the dark on Friday night. All in all I guess it was good for people to go through a drill. We even found some areas that we need to work on with our boats, but I just hope people and the media can be as energized when the storm goes from a tropical wave to a hurricane just off shore. Let's hope we don't see one of them.

www.adventureantigua.com

Facebook group "Save Antigua's Turtles" launched.

Sometimes things happen in your life which just make you shake your head and smile. Yesterday I wrote a blog about the big problem we are facing with our sea turtles here in Antigua thanks to badly informed politicians mixed with manipulative Chinese gifts. Check the blog(s) by clicking here
and a video on the Antigua Sea Turtle Conservation Project blog by clicking here.
Anyway, last night on my way to a weekly semi political BBQ with friends that they call "Cabinet" I kept an eye out for more hatchlings on the Jabberwock main road. As described in the blog linked above these lights and others along nesting beaches are wiping out thousands of little endangered species this summer. As soon as i got onto the beach road I saw several "splatted" hatchlings that had been run over by cars and immediately in front of me I saw a little one crawling toward me. I called my sister Nell and started picking up others. We spent three hours there and saved 30 that were wondering away from the beach underneath the brillian chinese lights.
Many more were not so lucky. Remember that there were over 100 eggs in the nest. I actually found some tiny tracks on the beach which lead me to their nest, and I excavated it finding one more straggler inside. I also found another nest nearby that had recently hatched out.

Today I will be on Observer Radio 91.1 FM speaking about this problem and others that face our endangered sea turtles. You can listen on a live feed on their website. Click here for that.

I also just started the facebook group "Save Antigua's Turtles". Please join and lets show the politicians that we care about these creatures. It's decisions that you and I make that will ultimately save them for future generations. Go to facebook and type in "Save Antigua's Turtles" in the search bar. You will find the site and once you join I will authorize you to be a member. Thanks!

More and more endangered species dead because the lack of care among officials.

The hawksbill turtle is one of three marine sea turtles that nests along the shores of Antigua and Barbuda. Green and Leatherback turtles also nest here. We have turtle pictures on the pages of our Antigua and Barbuda passports and also on our currency notes. They are what many tourists dream about seeing on their holidays. When tourists are lucky enough to see them it's a thrilling memory that lasts a lifetime. The World Conservation Union. classifies the Hawksbill as critically endangered which is why my wife who runs the Antigua Sea Turtle Project spends plenty of her time trying to get info about these important species to the decision makers here in Antigua. This dead baby turtle has a very interesting story which speaks volumes about how well our government cares about these endangered species that are so important to the people and the nation. It also shows how well they listen to solid science presented to them when it comes to the deadly problem of lighting along the nesting beaches. It's mother was nearly killed about 60 days ago when it came to lay the eggs which produced this endangered and now dead baby turtle. (it takes 60 days for eggs to hatch) Read all about that here. CLICK HERE
IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE PLEASE CLICK THE LINK ABOVE AND READ THAT BLOG.

Someone on my facebook wall told me yesterday that on nesting beaches in the USA you are fined during nesting season if you leave your porch lights on. Here we try to put as much light as possible on the beaches. Antigua seems to have drifted backward when it comes to environmental protection and this shouldn't be the case in this day and age when there is so much information available to us all. Of course the main reason that politicians and policy makers say they can't do anything about the lights on the beaches is that they feel that we are safer with blazing lights along the beaches. I think it needs to be pointed out that time and time again the crimes along these nesting beaches have happened this year in broad daylight. Lights didn't stop this car from having it's window smashed and things stolen from it.

Neither did it stop a family of three people from being stuck up at gun point on the beach at sunset earlier this year. Lights are not saving people along that beach but they are killing many turtles. The sad reality is that that problem of turtles being killed is way worse over in the Minister of Environment's constituency on beaches like Crab Hill Beach and Turners, Dark Wood Beach and Fryes Beach.
The Antigua Conservation Society is going to speak with the Environmental Awareness Group about this later today and I think it's time we show the people in charge that some of us care enough about this problem. In the meantime you can always call the Environment Division and The Fisheries Division and The Ministry of Tourism and even the PM's office. Baldwin Spencer knew since 2008 about the problems associated with lights and the solutions and said so in a meeting with the Environmental Awareness Group just before the lights were turned on. My wife's letter got to him in 2008 long before the Chinese gift of street lights arrived in Antigua. Why have the problems with these lights and the solutions to these problems all been ignored?

We get some Hurricane Katia waves

While conducting a special Eco Tour right around Antigua by boat for the Environmental Awareness Group some friends of mine got me to take out my other powerboat for a surfing adventure. Hurricane Katia was passing a few hundred miles off to our north and was giving us some nice big east coast ground swell. The winds were light and waves were breaking in places that normally are calm. All of the Caribbean's surfers wait for days like this when the winds go light as a hurricane passes to the north. As you can see I had a few fun rides too. The gopro camera captured the action well.
 
  The photos below were taken with my phone from the boat which we had to anchor far away to be safe. You can see Nikolai B on a big wave. It got bigger and cleaner later in the day.

Bigger and bigger and then one set of waves came through which broke outside where we were lining up. The "cleanup set" washed us all over the reef leaving our gear in various stages of disrepair. This video shows the waves pounding the heck out of me. Nik's leash broke and you see his board which is 9'6" long coming toward me and actually hitting my board. Later after "going over the falls" I collected his paddle and then his board. That was the end of our day adventure on the water.

www.adventureantigua.com

French fishermen threaten us while we fished in our own waters.

Before I explain what happened yesterday I want to point the readers attention to several blogs I have written about the ongoing problem of French commercial fishing in our waters. Specifically on FADs. I have been speaking and writing about this for years and Antigua's deep sea fishermen have been complaining to the authorities for considerably longer.
Click here and click here for info on the problem of St. Barts and Guadeloupe's commercial fishing industry in our waters (includes video and photos). 

Recently during an Antigua Sport Fishing Association tournament we met some commercial fishermen from St. Barts who owned FADS that we had found 12 miles off Barbuda's north coast. They explained to us that they were not doing anything illegal because they were permitted to fish in "International Waters" and that their DCP's, as they call FADs, were anchored 12 miles off. Their argument rested on what is known all around the world as Territorial vs. International Waters. Here is a very good definition of Territorial Waters and I think the problem is that the French Government is not telling their commerical fishermen the difference between Territorial Zones and Exclusive Economic Zones. It seems as though commercial fishermen from St. Barts and Guadeloupe either don't know about Exclusive Economic Zones or know that our Government doesn't care if they fish illegally in our waters. Here is a good definition of the Exclusive Economic Zone. Remember the zone is calculated around Antigua Barbuda and Redonda going out 200 miles unless it borders with another country's EEZ. This very crude drawing below done by me gives a very very very rough estimate of what our Exclusive Economic Zone could look like.

(edit: I just found an actual map of Antigua and Barbuda's EEZ which is very close to my guestimate: Click Here)
I am sure that our Fisheries Department has a proper map but generally this area which starts along the triangular borders of Antigua Barbuda and Redonda is quite unique in its size. We are blessed to have so much of it but we are permitting the French to use it for the betterment of their economy while ours declines.
Anyway, yesterday we went looking for tuna twenty five miles East North East of Antigua and found a French FAD. There are many up there and you just have to either look for big flocks of birds or find small French fishing boats and you will then find FADS. We found a FAD in our waters and started fishing. Shortly afterwards we spotted a boat on the horizon coming in from the North East (deeper into our Economic Zone). The boat was about 34 feet long and had twin 300hp Suzuki engines and two fishermen on board. The PP registration numbers told of a Guadeloupe registration. In a very threatening maneuver it raced full speed towards us as if on a collision course. We had our engines off and had three lines in the water and had to scramble to start engines and move just as the other boat slowed just feet from our windward port side. We believe they intended to run over our lines thinking we were fishing using a similar method that they use. We were not and our lines were not cut. Anyway, they started yelling and screaming at us. I maneuvered my boat so that I could better defend myself if need be and tried to explain that they were fishing illegally in our waters and that I was calling the coast guard. Of course, our VHF radio couldn't make contact with Antigua's coast guard probably because of the distance from shore. They kept on yelling and screaming at us out in the open ocean 25 miles from land where there was no one to witness what would happen if things got physical. One of our crew reminded us that many of these commercial guys carry guns and that guns are even more easy to find in GP than they are here in Antigua. We had one crew who understood some French and explained that they were saying that they were much further than 12 miles off Antigua and well within their rights to fish in these waters.
In the end I decided that this wasn't my battle to win or lose on this day and we retreated to another location taking these images as we left.

On the way to another fishing ground we spotted another even smaller Guadeloupean fishing boat drifting in the distance some 8 miles further east. We knew he would be fishing on a FAD and marked a course to intercept. As he spotted us coming he quickly moved away hoping we would not find his FAD. It was too late and we went over to it saving the GPS numbers to fish it at another time when they were not around. They didn't bother us as we didn't stop. We didn't want another fight out there at sea, so took some photos and moved on.

We continued another three miles to the north and found another FAD which we had seen a few months before. We fished there for a few hours and then passed the other two FADs on the way in. We spotted one other boat in the afternoon which to me was clearly was a different one than the other two.
By the end of the day we had caught over 300 lbs of fish using rods only.

On the way back to Antigua we saw Antiguan boats of similar sizes. One which was bigger than any of the French boats was pulling fish traps not too far east of Bird Island. Another not too far away was "hand lining" for snapper and hinds in about 150 feet of water, and the third boat was setting a huge gill net just off bird island at an area where most of the excursion boats snorkel during the day.
We here in Antigua have got to wake up. We need some politicians with guts and the gumption to do something about Antigua's fishery. We are sucking our reef fish dry and letting foreign fishermen do the same to our off shore fishery. By the time our local fishermen figure out that they can make more money out to sea using the same boats they are using now, it will be fished out by Guadeloupean and St. Barts fishermen. I think if two or three of these boats are confiscated out there and their crews thrown in the slammer, the free for all mentality will change. One of these days an Antiguan boat is going to be sunk out there and we will never know what happened to it. When that happens I think the blood will be on the hands of the Antigua and Barbuda government who has been told about all of this and does nothing at all about it.

Caribbean Sargasso Sea Weed Mystery - Solved (sort of)

Thousands of people have been trying to figure out why this weed is coming ashore and where it's coming from. New evidence spotted on Thursday here in Antigua provides the smoking gun scientists have been looking for.

As mentioned in my Sargasso blog from a few weeks ago (click here), huge amounts of Sargasso weed have been coming ashore from one end of the Caribbean to the other. My sister in law, Tanya Clovis-Howie, who runs the SOS turtle project in Tobago was quoted in a recent article about the unusual sargasso situation here: “It is common for a pile of it to wash up once a year for a relatively short period, but we have never in recent memory had so much of it for so long and seen such huge mats or lines of it from the air.”
Here in Antigua we have no historical mention of the weed coming ashore in these quantities either. Of course it could have happened before but we can't find any evidence of this sort of thing ever happening. As mentioned in the blog, Sargassum supports a massive eco system of wild life both under the water and above, and we have seen many of these species out on the water and along the windward coasts as the weed comes ashore. While out snorkeling recently, our Eco Tour spotted Sea Horses and the Sargasso Fish among other interesting things. One of the many species found in the Sargasso Sea's sargassum is the European Eel. The scientific name of this eel is Anguilla Anguilla and for hundreds of years Europeans tried to figure out where the eels reproduced. Aristotle was the first scientist who studied them making the incorrect hypothesis that they originated from the soil. You see, only adult species of the eel were observed in their fresh water habitats within the rivers of Europe, and it wasn't until 1922 when a Danish professor found tiny eel larvae in the Sargasso Sea off Bermuda. For more on the history of this eel check this wiki. And for a more recent study on the amazing life cycle of these eels click here to view a BBC report. 
Ever since sargasso weed started coming ashore this summer scientists have been trying to find this eel so that they could figure out where this weed was coming from. Aparently this eel doesn't live in the sargassum that is found in the Gulf of Mexico or in the sargassum that is found off the North East coast of Brazil. Anguilla Anguilla is only found in the Sargasso Sea north of the Caribbean and East of Bermuda. On thursday a friend of mine observed quite a few of these eels being captured by birds as they slithered through a fresh batch of sargassum that had drifted into Mamora Bay.

 

 

 

This was the "smoking gun" and many think proves where the weed originates. The Sargasso Sea is such an important and large eco system and we have no idea what all of this means for it. In fact, one of the many groups of marine animals that we worry about is turtles. We have had reports of young turtles being washed ashore within the weed too. Of course we know that after turtle hatchlings make it to the sea, they try to get into currents which will help to steer them North towards the Sargasso Sea which is where they live for a few years. This photo was taken by my friends Perri and Mark Nyquist way out to sea off Florida:

It sounds like instead of spending two years feeding and hiding in the Sargasso Sea, many are finding themselves off course back here in the Caribbean. We have no real clue about what all of this means for this habitat and all the life cycles that it supports.
I recently was lucky enough to speak with David Freestone who is one of the world's most famous environmental lawyers and now chairman of the Sargasso Sea Alliance. His organization is trying to get international support for the creation of The Sargassso Sea as Marine Protected Area. This is easier said than done as the area floats in the open ocean without "belonging" to any particular country.  Read more about the Alliance here. Mr. Freestone was here on holiday taking time off from his duties at the Alliance!! The irony is just amazing! Anyway, he felt as did many of the experts that this weed was originating from Brazil but said that if we found the European Eel then we would know for sure that the weed was from the Sargasso Sea. In a recent paper by Jim Gower, Erika Young and Stephanie King of Institute of Ocean Sciences (IOS) Canada, very good evidence was given suggesting that all of this weed originated off Brazil. Some of this evidence came in the form of various satellite images, but they did mention that they couldn't definitively prove it was from Brazil. I am interested to hear what they all say now that we have photos of the Anguilla Anguilla.

Whatever happens, the story is a dynamic one and this historical event is still developing. It will be some time before we know what it all means and why it happened. I am sure however, as i mentioned in my last blog on the issue, that what triggered the event we are now seeing here was the strange south currents we saw in May and June. What caused them is another story!
EDIT: Reports just relayed from the Sargasso Sea Alliance show massive amounts of weed floating up on the (West African) Sierra Leone coast too. This seems to be something totally usual too and people are also scratching their heads there too. Here is a photo that I received today:

As a side note, the beautiful St. James Club resort made the terribly saddening decision to close the hotel for a month on the same day the eel was found. It wasn't because of the eel but because of the smell of the rotting weed. Hydrogen Sulphide is released when the weed rots in the water and the smell is terrible. Just by chance Hurricane Irene was passing Antigua before it became a hurricane and caused a change in wind direction. This made what was normally the protected harbour of Mamora Bay a on shore deposit spot for a massive amount of weed. These dramatic photos taken by my friend Max Freeling during the passage of Irene show what we are speaking about:

Max then took these photos a few days later:

As you can see, this was nothing like any of us had seen before or could possibly prepare for. There was no warning and while it seems as though the weed arrivals are slowing down, the hotel will remain closed for a month while it is all cleared up and the smell goes away. All other resorts on Antigua seem to have been spared and it's business as usual. In fact, guests from St. James Club are being sent to Verandah Resort and Spa and Galley Bay which are other Elite Island Resorts.

www.adventureantigua.com

Sustainable seafood - a look at eco friendly fish dinners.

This was taken from my column in Enjoy Magazine which comes out here in Antigua every two weeks. There are copies all over the island. ENJOY!

These days choosing what seafood you will order from the menu can have as much to do with your morals as your taste buds, and having good info about what's on offer will help you enjoy your meal that much more. I remember taking Environmental Science as an elective in University back in 1989 and hearing about why certain fish stocks had plummeted. It all had to do with supply and demand as is the case with most things i guess, but the main message was that historically, seafood was only eaten by people who lived close to the sea. Now with modern supply chains, refrigerated storage and other technological advances even people in Allen, South Dakota (1024 miles from the nearest shore) can have fresh seafood whenever they want. The demand outweighs the supply quite often.
There are many different types of seafood that you will find here on the menu in Antigua, some more "eco-friendly" or sustainable than others.
What makes a seafood sustainable? Seafood that is caught in a way that will not jeopardize the survival of the species or the eco system from where it is taken is considered sustainable, but there are other considerations that have to do with the ecological footprint of that seafood. The ecological footprint would partially have to do with whether the seafood was imported, how far it had to be shipped from, and the methods of harvesting. This is very hard to figure out for imported seafood as we don't usually have that information when it arrives in Antigua. 
For people living in the USA there are some great guides on sustainable fish and seafood. There has been considerable research done on the status of different fish species and what harvesting methods should be used in order to catch that species sustainably. We here in the Caribbean can use some of this research to help us decide what to eat and what to avoid. The Environmental Defense Fund has a great seafood guide on the internet and there are even similar apps these days for your smart phone.

Mahi Mahi or Dolphin Fish above. Read more about them here.

Although imports such as salmon, US caught shrimp, and squid can be labeled eco friendly, I think that it's best to eat locally caught "pelagic" or open ocean species that reproduce quickly. Such species are Atlantic yellowfin tuna, blackfin tuna, wahoo, Dolphin Fish (a.k.a Mahi Mahi), Rainbow Runner, and some Mackerel species.  While most of these fish are available here on the menu much of what you will find in restaurants is imported to meet demand.

If you really want to eat responsibly ask your chef where the fish comes from and ask if they know if the fish were caught by rod and reel. If these species were caught locally on rod and reel then the chances that there was by-catch is almost nil. One of the big problems with eating tuna these days is that most tuna is caught in nets or on long lines.

It's almost impossible to catch fish in nets without killing others species in the nets as "by-catch". Often this by-catch happens to be endangered animals. There is quite a big community of fishermen here in Antigua that catch pelagic fish with rod and reel and some restaurants try to purchase only from these fresh sources.

If you support these eateries then you will be helping the environment too.
It is the opinion of most local marine biologists and environmentalists here in Antigua that shelf and inshore fish are not currently being caught in a sustainable way. These species include all reef fish and could possibly include deep water snapper and grouper.

At the moment lobster and conch also commonly fall into the unsustainable category as there are no closed seasons and poorly monitored and enforced size limits. Their diminishing numbers attest to this.

Setting up well managed Marine Protected Areas (like the NEMMA that I have blogged about) as well as open and closed seasons with carefully managed size limits will help create sustainable fisheries and make some of the species mentioned above "eco friendly", but for now if you want sustainable seafood your best choice would be the pelagic species caught by rod and reel.
(edit: This blog was posted on the Sustain T&T facebook page. Click here) Someone then posted a link to a very good Trinidad and Tobago sustainable seafood paper. Click here for that one.)  

 

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Adventure Antigua's facebook page gets edited

Before facebook had "pages" for companies I set up an Adventure Antigua "group" which is where people shared photos comments and videos. Then one day I had a message from facebook saying that groups would be phased out and that if we wanted to have our company on facebook, then we needed to start a "page". We did that and you can get to it by clicking here
It should look something like this:

Anyway, I figured that we would then start to see people using that more than our facebook group which was still up. That happened but very slowly. There were several updates and messages from facebook and I sort of just ignored them. Anyway, yesterday I finally found out a few things about facebook pages. The first terrible thing I found out about their pages is that they can sometimes make the page limited to geographic locations. I don't know why or how but our Adventure Antigua facebook page wasn't being seen all over the world. I fixed that. Then I noticed that many people who I would have expected to be on there were not on there. Reason: Well it seems as though facebook only permits people who have proved to facebook that they are over 13 years old. In your profile your birth date visible to the general public or not must have a proper date of birth including the year which shows that you are over 13 otherwise you won't be able to see facebook "pages". If you are one of the many people on facebook that doesn't have a real date of birth then you are missing out on many "pages". If you would like to see regular photos from our tours, tag yourself if you were in one of them then you better have a date of birth in your profile. It's not my rules but it's the way FB wants things. Thanks for joining or facebook page. Look for regular photos from our tours.

www.facebook.com/adventureantigua 

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Good info on hurricane season and Antigua

Writen for Antigua's Enjoy magazine:


Few things create as much emotion and nervous tension during the summer months as the massive storms we call hurricanes. The word originated from either the ancient Mayan storm god, "Hurakan", or from the Carib word "huracn" meaning god of evil. Either way this word has been scaring people for possibly thousands of years. In recent times science has given us a better understanding of how they form and most importantly how to forecast their strength and track as they come across from Africa. "Hurricane Season" is between June and November with the middle of August to the Middle of September being most active.


A hurricane is a low pressure storm with winds of above 74 mph close to the low pressure center. Hurricanes are classed in categories from 1 to 5 with a cat 1 storm having sustained winds of above 74 mph and a cat 5 having sustained winds of above 155 mph. There are so many variables coming together which scientists are still leaning about that create the necessary conditions for a hurricane to form. All summer long small rain storms make the journey from the West Coast of Africa traveling due west across to the Caribbean.They can give us the occasional rainy day, but for the most part the summer has lovely weather. These "tropical waves" pass through about once a week, and some bring little or no rain at all with just a tiny surge in trade winds. Some have a low enough pressure and strong enough winds and associated rain storms or squalls that they become upgraded to "tropical depressions". Tropical Depressions have winds between 25 and 38 mph. With the right conditions they can strengthen into a "Tropical Storm" and this named system is usually a tighter group of squalls and thunderstorms that are spinning. Tropical Storms must have a sustained wind speed of above 39 mph near the center. Again if conditions are right they can strengthen into a Hurricane. Remember that this would mean there's sustained winds of above 74 mph.



I keep mentioning that ideal conditions are needed and while some are extremely complex, others are not so technical. Almost all of these storms form over the sea, and the sea surface temperature must be above 80 degrees. These warm waters mean there is enough water being evaporated into the atmosphere that thunderstorms are kept alive with the associated energy. Another factor that needed for a storm to form or remain powerful is a light jet stream. Strong jet stream or upper level winds mean the associated wind shear will attack the tops of the thunderstorms breaking them apart. When the jet stream isn't strong and the water temperatures are high, the weather people start paying attention. There are many more variables that need to line up in order for a simple Tropical Wave to develop on its way along the chain towards a hurricane, and because of this the Atlantic only sees about 6 hurricanes a year.



Six sounds bad enough but remember that many hurricanes start and finish in the Atlantic without ever making landfall. Several do make landfall but hurricane force winds usually don't go further than 50 miles from the center which means that if a hurricane goes over Dominica 100 miles to our South it may not give us any hurricane conditions at all. In fact the chances of being hit are so low that records show that in the past 60 years Antigua has had only 6 direct hits. One other thing to remember is that a hurricane is usually averaging about 12mph as it tracks north west in the vicinity of the Caribbean which means that even if it does hit an island the conditions are only felt for a day or less on average. Six days of hurricane conditions in 60 years are not that bad, but you never know which year will be the one when that storm comes your way. The rule of thumb is that during hurricane season you must prepare for the worst and hope for the best. For reports and forecasts from people on the ground here in Antigua visit www.stormcarib.com or search for "antigua weather" on facebook.

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