Justin Wassouf Hadeed turns nine

This past weekend it was another Adventure Antigua party and this time Justin was the main man who was boss. Justin told me he was 7, his cake said 9 but i think he was acutally 29. He is a very mature charismatic 9 year old and told his parents that he wanted to go out on our boat again, but this time he wanted it to be different to his sister's party. The lovely Rax seen with her Dad above had a real adventure several weeks before and this birthday party was equally enjoyable for all guests and crew alike. Big Justin invited a bunch of his friends from school as well as some "older" family and friends for a long cruise up the coast from Jolly Harbour all the way up to Green Island. First we had to stop at Stingray City park to visit the rays as well as Greedy Bob the hawksbill turtle who hangs out nearby. Some of us were lucky enough to see him on this day too. The rays were swimming by and Justin seen in the pic above and below was the first to say hi. After everyone had drinks and had seen the rays we were off to Green Island. Tony, JD, Ross and Olly took the Arawak Odyssey up past Devils Bridge and into Green Island's Non Such Sound while i followed in the boston whaler. We had JD's whaler so that we could pull the Jumbo Dog once again which was a favorite in the last party. The kids then felt that they didn't get enough and if you remember i took some heat from one of the young ladies who thought i was a bit "evil". hehehe

We set up two lunches. One for the kids and one for the grown ups. My crew decided that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot dogs, tuna, patties and cheese sandwiches were better than the adult food. I guess this happens when you eat the same thing every day. That being said the adults loved our regular buffet.

After playing on the beach for a while picking on the biggest kid there (Elias) and making enough noise to wake the dead it was time for the Jumbo Dog. Who comes up with these names?

Anyway, Justin, being the main man, invited 4 of his best pals to come on with him on the first ride, and once they had belts on, Captain JD took off. We could hear the screams for the whole ride even though JD kept the speed limit to a very low pace the thrill was still big enough. Each child had several turns and then all of a sudden i heard screams from all directions. It was Justin's last ride with his friends and they managed to flip the dog over. I counted 5 little heads swimming quickly towards JD and Tony who were already back alongside them. When they got back to the boat they were talking all at once recounting the adventure from all different angles of bravery.

IT was now time for a bonfire! Ross and Olly had been in the forrest looking for dead wood and within minutes of the last Jumbo Dog rider coming back to shore the first marshmellows were getting roasted. In fact we had to let the little fire cool down a bit before the kids were allowed to get close enough, but they were amazingly patient. One and a half bags of sticky gooey marshmallows later and we had some hyper kids on our hands. They also had marshmallows on their hands and on their faces. Cameron Hadeed was covered in the stuff, but i think that's because this tiny skinny little kid had managed to consume about 10 marshmallows. He's too cute! I think he would have kept on going too but we told him we had to out the fire. Olly took careful care of that before coming back to the boat just in time for the cake. ....and what a cake it was! With all the sugar in the systems of those kids it was time for me and JD to abandon ship with the Boston Whaler. Tony, Olly and Ross managed to take Justin, his family and friends all the way back to Jolly Harbour. The day had been a 50 mile round trip of fun in the sun, and i hope enjoys many more such birthdays to come. The crew and i enjoyed the day out too. I went to elementary and high school with some of the adults on the trip and it was good to hang with them again. Thanks to Laila for asking Adventure Antigua to be involved once again and thanks to her also for all of these great photos. Well done! OK now since i know there are some smart kids reading this. Please make notes and comment on all my spelling mistakes so that i can correct them. My spell checker doesn't work after 11pm. hehehehe

Adventure Antigua - Sailing Part 3

It would have been way easier to move Sailing into the Adventure Antigua business by buying a fiberglass yacht just like everyone else, but this way is way more interesting. While in the car on my way to Windward which is where families in Carriacou have been building boats for hundreds of years, master boat builder Alwyn Enoe told me that he was excited. I had met him before and didn’t think that he could be so happy. He was finally going to get some work done. On the phone from Grenada the night before, I had asked him to find me a guest house or little hotel for me. He said “I don’t know if you would appreciate this, but I didn’t get a hotel for you……You will be saying with my nephew.” That was cool with me as I knew this gesture meant I would be with friends. I was excited too. When we arrived in windward and went to see his sons Chris and Terry, I was starving. We sat and ate in an enclosed but vacant lot right on the water. It was fenced off with old galvanized roofing and with coconut trees and some other bush scattered around. Outside was the beach and a huge ancient vessle lay beached as if washed up in a storm to die where it had come to life all those years before. This was the place my new boat was going to come to life. I could see some basic tools resting around which had been in use up until I walked into the “boat yard”. Scattered around were bits of cut wood and some lovely pieces of shaped wood I imagined were frames still to be assembled. While Alwyn ate his salt-fish and bake lunch he explained the process. They had taken the ferry over to Grenada where a local family was about to clear some land for development. The family allowed them to go into the forest and take the trees that they needed. He said it was very difficult as the terrain was steep. Getting the cut trees out was the most difficult part though, but the land owner had graciously helped them. Once a boat had finally dropped off the last trunks onto the beach on Windward, Carriacou, the men had to start picking the best ones for the construction of eight frames. He said that he had always assembled the frames onto the keel using only five frames, but that this time he wanted to do it with eight to speed up the process and make the whole process more accurate later down the line. He told me with shining eyes how these were the best trees for making frames that he ever got out of the “bush”. They were large and had the best shape for making the skeleton of the boat. You see, a simple keel is made in Grenada out of greenheart hard wood according to his design. While that is being made he and his sons make the ribs or “frames” as he calls them. When the greenheart keel arrives they then attach the frames so that they have a skeleton of the boat assembled. All of this is done with exact accuracy in accordance with the model which is kept in the boat yard as seen above. The assembled frames in the photo above are from another fishing boat being made, but the model is mine. IT is the model which he is most proud of. He boasts that most boat builders don’t use a model and just build a boat as they go. The model is a blueprint of the boat to be built and is done exactly to scale. On the model each three quarters of an inch represents a foot on the real boat. He explains over his salt-fish lunch that on a ruler, three quarters of an inch has twelve sixteenths. This means that for every 1/16th of an inch on the model the measurement on the life size boat will be an inch. ¾ of an inch on the model is a foot on the real boat. As you can see in this photo of the model there are careful measurements all over the thing which all are strictly transferred into inches and feet on the life size timbers they are working with. Although we sit in the one of the most primitive boat yards on the planet, the rules of boat building are the same as if we were in a naval boat yard in the USA or Great Britain. He gets very technical and most of it is way beyond me, but i trust him. During Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta I have seen his boats fly past classic shaped boats built recenlty using the most modern materials. I am impressed with Alwyn’s drive and determination to not let this tradition fade away. After lunch when we walk over to the other boat, he explains that his sons are only a few of the men their age that are working in this ancient craft. Many of the young men of Carriacou sit on the corner and do little of anything he says. Many have to leave the island to look for work in Grenada and further. The art and life that is boat building has been slowly fading away. He is proud of his sons and of the work that they do together. I am proud to be part of it. With the resurgence of Wooden boat racing in the Caribbean I think that many more people will come to Windward in search of a traditionally built boat. After having a good look at what work was going to be needed on the almost finished “Ocean Nomad” we walked back to the boys working on my boat.
Chris and Terry were looking for two tree trunks. One would be for another beam and one would be for the stem. The stem is one of the most important pieces of wood on the boat. It is the forward most piece which the rig is attached to. It goes from the very front of the boat down below the waterline and attaches to the wooden keel. With no big wood working machinery on the island it was time for the most high tech and biggest tool they had. A chain saw. I am sure that most international boat builders would laugh at the thought of making the stem of a yacht using a chainsaw, and I must admit I wondered how well it would turn out. To my amazement the process was as done as smoothly and carefully as any of the alternatives. Of course it took longer and took more care, but Chris was a master at using the saw. Using a bit of chalk to give the rough outline they cut into the tree trunk to get the shape. Then using a chalk line they used the chain saw to get the shape much closer to the finished product. Using a few more tools to mark the exact lines they used a electrical planer to get it perfect. The finished stem was so perfect that I was just totally blown away. It never appeared as though they were having a hard time and experience was what made it perfect. While Chris was making the stem, Alwyn and Terry worked at attaching port and starboard sides of the frames. Alwyn called me over at one point and said “you see beauty?” I smiled and said “yes”!
With no roof over their heads and without many tools they were creating a beautiful yacht. As the sun started to set it was time to clean up and make plans for the morning. Work would stop on my boat that afternoon, and with a shake of hands and the passing of some money another job would be re-started. “Ocean Nomad” would be brought back to life in the morning when work resumed after far too long. Sure enough at 9am once they had collected some lumber from town, work started up on Ocean Nomad and after sitting there for over a year she was back in business on her way to being the latest boat launched from Windward, Carriacou.

sailing antigua

Adventure Antigua - Sailing Part 2

After paying my deposit to have a Carriacou Sloop built back in November I haven't been back until recently. If you hae not read any of my other blog entries i must tell you that a Carriacou Sloop is a single masted wooden yacht built on the island of Carriacou in the Grenadines. They are filled with history, tradition and passion. About 10 days ago I got on a flight to Grenada from Antigua late in the afternoon. We stopped in St. Vincent and again in St. Lucia before finally landing in Grenada. David "Choppa" Mendes who usually works for Adventure Antigua on school holidays picked me up from the airport and took me back to his place for some dinner. He's the one on the far right in this crew shot:

He is in medical school there and his mom, Judy, was visiting for her 50th birthday. Anyway, I had a great meal and early the next morning David put me on a bus to the Osprey Ferry which would be a straight shot to Carriacou. It was extremely rough and there were quite a few people on board the ferry who were very sick. I was going to meet with Alwyn, the boat builder, for two reasons. Recently I made a deal with someone who had been building a boat very slowly there to take over production of it and launch it myself. He had encountered quite a few problems while building it, was in a stalemate and needed some help. In an interesting deal, I am going to control the boat for five years doing day sailing and then return it to the original owner at the end. It’s a bit of a funny deal, but all three parties are happy with it and Adventure Antigua will end up doing sailing charters and tours earlier than expected. Here you see Alwyn reading the new contract inside the hull of the boat. We are shooting to have her ready by the end of April 2008. Meeting with the boat builder and paying him some money to finish "Ocean Nomad" as it was called by the original owner was first at hand mainly because we wanted to have it ready for the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta this April. The second reason for meeting with Alwyn was that I wanted to see how my yacht was coming along. I don't have a name for it yet, but have been wanting an indigenous name. We have a French to Carib dictionary from 1666 and with some interesting sounding words and I was happy to confirm that Carriacou is actually derived from a Carib word "Kayryouacou", meaning "the land of reefs." "Spirit of Carriacou" may be the name of my yacht or maybe just "Carriacou". We'll see.
Alwyn met me at the dock in Carriacou and took me to pick up some local food on our way to Windward which is where boats have been made for centuries. He was very excited about the prospect of finally finishing Ocean Nomad which hadn't been worked on in over a year. He was also very excited about progress on my boat which is where we were going to meet his sons, Chris and Terry. The three of them had been making "frames" which are the ribs or skeleton of the boat. As I said in my last blog, they had been into the jungle to get a few trees and had finally gotten them to the beach some time in January. They had been turning these big logs into beautiful carefully crafted ribs. I was about to see how it was all done.........

sailing antigua

Adventure Antigua - Sailing Part 1

Some of my earliest memories as a child are of a time when my mom and dad were living in the Bucket of Blood Apartments on the other end of Dutchman’s Bay here in Antigua. Our neighbor was Eddie Barreto who my cousins and I called “Eddie spaghetti with the meatball eyes”. I loved Eddie for two reasons: the first was because he has lots of little tortoises which we would feed hibiscus leaves and flowers to. They just loved those flowers. The other reason I loved Eddie was that he had a yacht. I was 5 years old when I joined him with my Dad on a 90 mile sail down to St. Barth. It was my first big crossing, and I remember that it was so much fun being out in the big ocean swells. Although going out on powerboats with my dad (see family pic above) was what we did almost every week, I think I have been sailing fairly regularly since then. My grandfather (seen in the pic above with my grandmother and all 7 of their kids somewhere here in Antigua in the 60's) had several yachts when I was very young as did my uncle Jim. In fact I was just speaking with Jim about St. Martin’s Heineken Regatta which he won on “First Run” back in the early 80s. We can’t remember the year but I do remember that it was very windy and rough. We sailed around the island beating everyone easily on that super fast Beneteau racing machine. I also sailed with Jim in many of the Antigua Sailing Week regattas here as well. I think he sailed in almost every Antigua Sailing Week until a few years ago winning cruising class on the classic English yacht “Torridge” about 5 times. I also sailed a few sailing weeks with Carlo Falcone, owner of the Antigua Yacht Club Marina, on his Caccia Alla Volpe. I would have raced more of these regattas as well as more of Antigua Classic Yacht Regattas held the week before, but ever since I started Adventure Antigua we have been driving boats for the press. Antigua Sailing Week hired me to drive the press boat for the first three years that I was in operation and we have done several private charters for press and others in the following years as well. I took this photo: during a regatta where Michael Kahn, a famous Classic Yacht photographer hired me to drive for him during Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta. I drove for him several times, and in more recent times my friends Iain and Roddy of Acqua Films hired me to drive for them while they did the official videos of Antigua Classic Yacht regatta. This year wasnt as good as 06 when there was more wind. Here is a clip of that years vid:

This helped educate me on the more traditional side of sailing as well as spark interest in the whole classic yacht movement which gets more and more popular every year. Of course, my grandfather (Nick Fuller Sr.), Uncle Jim and Eddie Barreto all have been into Classic Yachts since the years when they may have not been considered classic, but my interest and the interest of the general public in these traditional beauties has taken some time to catch on. I would have never thought about hiring a classic yacht and sailing down the islands to windsurfing regattas that I attended for all those years, but the next time I sail down to the BVI will be on a classic for sure. I think I have chartered and skippered yachts back and forth to the BVI about 7 times and although most of my yachting experience has been here in the Caribbean on “plastic” (fiberglass) yachts I think those days are coming to an end. Here you see my bro Ali, after we arrived at the Bitter End in Virgin Gorda just before windsurfing the 100 mile week long HIHO regatta. They were all nice and shiny but none had character or a soulful feeling of tradition. Sailing on a classic and just being next to one is a whole different feel. For me it’s even more interesting when the classic has been traditionally built right here in the Caribbean. Every single piece of wood has a story to tell and the process if filled with amazing history and tradition.

The Grenadines are a group of islands belonging to both St. Vincent and Grenada and are situated between the two larger islands. The history of boat building there is incredibly interesting and I will have to blog about it another time, but Eddie was the first person to get a boat from there that I remember. He and my uncle had raced there in the old days against boats from Bequia and Carriacou. Bob Dylan had a boat built from there and Uncle Jim raced against him there. Anyway, Eddie sold his boat to Alexis Andrews who I have spoken about in my blogs before. I would see Alexis on his Caribbean sloop racing against the other Carriacou, Bequia and Petit Martinique boats during classic yacht regatta each year.

The yachts were so colourful and the crews all seemed to enjoy themselves so much. A few years ago Alexis turned up with a new yacht, Genesis and not only won his class in the regatta but won the title that year of most beautiful classic yacht. Genesis was build traditionally by Alwyn Enoe seen in this image below.

He and his sons had build several boats now calling Antigua their home, and Alexis had spend months each summer in the Grenadines with them and with other traditional boat building families taking photos and learning about this ancient trade. Alexis wanted a larger and faster boat than the one he got from Eddie and Alwyn built Genesis to be the fastest of them all. Back on dock having a drink at Skulldugery with all the Grenadine boats stern to, Alexis sat there glowing with pride after just winning the first race convincingly. Two of Alwyn’s sons who had built the boat were there racing as well. Alexis said “you should get one of these”. I am sure he has said that to about 5000 people so far, but I immediately took up the offer to have a closer look. Sitting on the floor down below while Alexis explained a bit about the process involved I dreamed about sailing around the Caribbean on one of these boats. I told the boys that I would get one but not for a few years. It took a few years before I saw them again down in Carriacou last November, but to my surprise they remembered me and it seemed as though they had been expecting me. As I said in my “Tide is changing” blog back then, I paid Alwyn and his family a deposit for my own Carriacou classic sloop, before Christmas they had already made the journey into the forest to find the perfect trees. This first stage of the boat building process hasn’t changed in thousands of years here in the Caribbean and although the tradition has all but died out, I am as delighted to be part of it as were Bob Dylan, Eddie Barreto, and Alexis Andrews and many more before me. I am going to write a whole bunch more about it in the future, and I have to tell you that I haven’t been this excited in years. The photos taken in the jungle above were shot by Alexis Andrews who has two books coming out soon about the whole process including loads of photos and info on these lovely caribbean classic yachts. Check here for more info on that. We are collecting White Cedar saplings to replant in Carriacou which has never been done in this process before which i think will add another element to these boats built from a precious but renuable resource. On another note, I haven’t raced on my windsurfing board since I limped back to the beach after the 2007 HIHO regatta, but Sunsail is having a little regatta tonight and I think I may enter. Speak tomorrow if I make it back to the beach. Eli

sailing antigua