We all have sad stories of incompetence, corruption and other abuse of power that took place during the unbroken 28 year run of the ALP government up until five years ago when the UPP were swept into power. It seems so long ago that they were in power, and some of us wonder if much has changed within their leadership and party. I met with Max Fernandez recently and know for sure that he can’t be compared with Bernard Percival whose former constituency he took over as the ALP representative there. Just that one guy means the ALP is not the same party that it was five years ago, but he’s one guy. I haven’t met with any of the other new guys, but know that one is being sued for child support and one worked hand in hand with the Japanese and their support for whaling. I would have a very hard time voting for either of them. Another of the ALP lineup waved a gun in my face after the security guards at the club I was running told him that I didn’t allow weapons of any sort on the property. He was so upset that we wouldn’t let him come into the club with his licensed pistol that after screaming abuse at me for 25 minutes in my office he finally stormed out of the club. I don’t think I can forget the gun being waved in my face by a mad man screaming and frothing any time soon. Probably the reason I can’t forget that is that later that night in the wee hours of the morning it was alleged that he sexually molested a youth that he picked up at another club. The charges were later dropped by the under aged boys mother. He’s running for his second term as leader for his constituency and is probably seen as the Achilles heel of the party. As I said, we all have disgusting stories about events and people from the time before the last election. When a party is allowed to be in power for 28 years people almost accept and expect bad things happening. I suppose most of the bad stories were to do with corruption, and I personally think that the leading UPP party won the election based on the now famous promise to make “what was wrong..right” and to stamp out corruption. There are still calls everyday to “lock up” the former corrupt politicians from the last administration. Many of us have asked why none of them were charged and there have been some interesting excuses. Some say that the Attorney General for the leading UPP administration, Justin Simon, is a “Bird Man” meaning he is secretly a supporter of Lester Bird and his ALP party. Kinda crazy in my opinion but what do I know? Others say that if the ruling UPP party starts locking up the former ALP leaders they will be unable to stop some of their own from being tarred by the same brush. One often hears Errol Cort’s name being thrown about in those types of discussions. It is felt by many that Lester Bird’s ALP made Errol Cort their Attorney General because of the extremely close relationship they had with him. There have always been allegations of corruption thrown at Mr. Cort which were alleged to have happened while he was a Bird associate. He held several key government positions while working for the Bird Government while at the same time running his legal firm Cort and Cort. The most famous bit of allegations and finger pointing took place during the medical benefits hearings where he publically parted company with the ALP. Whatever you believe or don’t believe you would have to agree that if most of the allegations of corruption were coming from the political party that is now in power it is strange that none of the allegations have even been turned into charges. I don’t believe that the former Bird party was free from corruption and equally I can’t believe that the now ruling UPP party hasn’t found any information on this corruption. It’s very strange indeed.
Anyway, here we are a few days before the general election here in Antigua and millions of dollars have been spent by both parties on their campaigns. Many church leaders and regular people like me have commented on the extravagant waste of money that this campaign has shown. If the communities that needed real help received a small fraction of the moneys spent there on blue and red plastic sheeting, signs, posters, flags, hats, key rings, inflatable hammers, t-shirts, billboards, TV and radio commercials, vinyl lettering and signs, gifts and the like, this island would have been helped tremendously. This election campaign was like a mini US election campaign and we are a poor country. Of course many of the poorest people here thought it was great, but many like me think this has been disgusting. If I were running the country I would try to pass laws very quickly to ban all political posters, banners and billboards from ever showing their ugly faces (I am not speaking about the people on the billboards) on our streets. I would also make sure that any party make public the funding for their election campaigns and also the budgets for these campaigns. This was way way out of hand.
Like I said to start this blog post, we all have stories about the old ALP party. We as a nation voted them out and as a result can speak about those stories without fear. Fear is a strange motivational emotion here on this small island. I keep hearing about poll findings and predictions and often think to myself that if a pollster called me I would find it hard to tell them exactly how I felt. I don’t think any poll can predict who will win this election on Thursday. It seems that if you are thought to be a supporter of one party or another then the party you don’t support is bound to take it personally. So much so sometimes that you can lose your job and much worse. We all know this to be true because after the last election the UPP immediately started firing what they called “Bird People” who worked in government positions. It didn’t matter how well you did your job in the police force or in tourism because as long as people thought you were a “bird person” you were given walking papers. In fact, some of the shortcomings of the UPP are now being blamed on “Bird People” who are still working as “sleeper cells” in government institutions. I guess this is normal all over the world, but when your world is a tiny little island your political affiliation is much more scrutinized. Many of us have to go to our political representatives from time to time requesting help and often we have to go to the various ministries to get things done. It’s here that your perceived political affiliation is even more under scrutiny. “He ah wan Bird man?” is a question I have heard many times. Unlike Errol Cort, who did plenty of work for the ALP government, my Dad John Fuller did a small amount of legal work for Lester Bird. As a result, all of the Fuller family were labeled “Bird People” whoever we voted for. I read the UPP manifesto five years ago and knew I had to vote for change. I publically congratulated the UPP after voting for them and hoped that “what was wrong would be made right” as they had promised. Working almost daily up in the Guiana Island mangrove habitat I was delighted before the election back then to see them say they would turn it into a marine park. That was pre election promise number one to me that they broke by almost immediately giving Allen Stanford the now famous “Green Light”. After they won the election the “green light” to develop the area in what they described as a low impact eco friendly US $700 million dollar project was given. I lost quite a bit of hope at that point as did many others who had voted for them. This was wrong wrong wrong no matter which way you spun it. Anyway, there is so much more history to that story, and what I want to speak about tomorrow is not so much that story or any more horrible ALP stories. Tomorrow I want to speak first hand about UPP stories. The purpose of this blog entry and the one tomorrow isn’t to try to get you to vote one way or another, but to shed some more “sunlight” on things that have been happening here in Antigua over the past five years. I will speak about a labour problem that faces many Antiguans in my business sector and the meeting I had with the Minister of Labour about it. I will speak about the problems that we faced in our sector to do with tourism regulations and the countless meetings that we have had with the former Junior Minister of Tourism and the current Minister of Tourism. I will speak about the unfair business practices and competitive advantages of foreign businesses operating in Antigua and the fraud and tax evasion that are rampant in my sector that I spoke with the Minister of Finance about. I will remind the readers about my dealings with the Minister of Health, my representative, and the sand mining issue. The list goes on an on and on of “wrongs” that were brought to the attention of the various ministries by me and my associates in the tours and excursions sector, and to be honest those wrongs haven’t been made right. More to come on that tomorrow.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
a ground swell is coming
Weather in Antigua like in most places can be interesting and difficult to figure out. Thankfully with the right experience and right set of websites a person these days can have a very good idea about what weather to expect.
I get calls and emails from people each week asking what weather to expect. Most people want to know about rain and as my regular blog readers know, I have written for years on the forums and on this blog about the silly animated forecasts that incorrectly predict rain in Antigua almost 365 days a year. You can read all about these stupid forecasts here in this blog as well as a reasonable idea about how much rain you can expect to find during your vacation to the very dry rain starved island of Antigua. Antigua is one of the driest islands in the Caribbean for a reason: we get very little rain!
Anyway, another common question i get asked is about cloud cover as i have many friends who are photographers and video people. With a live view of both satellite maps and radar imaging for the area around Antigua a person can get an up to the hour picture of what both cloud cover and actual rainfall is doing. Here is an example of the satellite image for today showing Antigua and Barbuda in Red with little cloud cover. Guadeloupe is green and Dominica pink both to the south. St. Kitts and Nevis yellow to the west north west. Most satellite image maps can be put into motion to show a sped up collection
of recent images. This movie of images gives you a great idea about what direction the cloud cover is moving. The same things can be done for rainfall by using the radar images. This image below shows the same set of islands with small clusters of rainfall showing up in shades of blue. 
Again when put into motion you can see which direction the rainfall is moving. Usually they match up with the satellite images and give you an idea about what clouds are producing rainfall. For my snorkeling and sight seeing trips, tours and charters this is all very important because it gives us an idea of what to expect every day before we leave port in the morning. In fact, we at Adventure Antigua get phone calls from the other tours and even some hotels asking for similar information.
of recent images. This movie of images gives you a great idea about what direction the cloud cover is moving. The same things can be done for rainfall by using the radar images. This image below shows the same set of islands with small clusters of rainfall showing up in shades of blue. Again when put into motion you can see which direction the rainfall is moving. Usually they match up with the satellite images and give you an idea about what clouds are producing rainfall. For my snorkeling and sight seeing trips, tours and charters this is all very important because it gives us an idea of what to expect every day before we leave port in the morning. In fact, we at Adventure Antigua get phone calls from the other tours and even some hotels asking for similar information. Another call I get is from people wanting to know about the wave forecast also known as the surf forecast. Waves and surf often have little to do with the local weather and many times you can have no winds blowing and beautifully sunny skies with huge waves pounding the shores. Sometimes you have moderate winds coming out of the east and huge waves coming from the opposite direction. Ground swell as these long period waves are called are generally generated by windy conditions and storms far from the Caribbean. This is especially the case in the winter when huge cold fronts push off the east coast of North America. Whenever you see super cold nasty conditions on the East Coast we usually can expect ground swell hitting the Caribbean a few days later. The nor-easters as they call those storms way up north push off the coast in cold fronts and churn in the Atlantic sometimes 1500 miles from the Caribbean, but the storms are strong enough to send waves all the way down to the Caribbean and South America. Apart from looking at kids playing in snow on the TV up in the States surfers and mariners have other ways of knowing that a swell is coming. Windguru.com is one of my main weather sites because it has all the info on there for a week's weather including cloud cover, winds and waves. They are usually accurate enough for the heads up on most weather events and they have been forecasting north winds and ground swell all week. The waves and winds were forecast to start coming today and peaking over the weekend into early next week. JD on Xtreme and Tony on the Eco boat called me a while ago to let me know that as expected the swells have started to pick up coming in from the North and wrapping around on to the west coast. For us, ground swells are something that we have to be very careful of because beaches along the normally calm leeward side without the protection of barrier reefs are susceptible to rolling waves. This means we can not collect guests from beaches like Hawksbill, Galley Bay, Jolly Beach, Cocobay and often times Dickenson Bay. Expecting these swells we usually shuttle guests over to St. Johns, Deep Bay and Jolly Harbour where picking them up is very easy. The funny thing about ground swells is that during the "winter" they are only bothersome on these unprotected leeward beaches. Once you get off the shore you barely notice them and as soon as you get past Dickenson Bay going north inside the North Sound you stop seeing them. The barrier islands and reefs keeps that area protected which is perfect for our tours. This ground swell looks big enough to cause beach erosion and other problems with it peaking on Monday, but the surfers have been extremely excited. Most have their boards all ready for the waves and a bunch of my friends have purchased tickets to other islands where the surf is even better during these events. Apart from windguru.com there are many other sites online forecasting waves. The most famous is surfline.com with forecasts for specific areas. It's where i got this image showing the swell arriving from the north into the Caribbean today:
Their forecasts are the most detailed and most accurate.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Please be on time for our tours.
We had an strange set of problems with yesterday's Xtreme trip.
The first thing that happened is that after business hours the day before we had a call saying that a party of 8 wouldn't be coming on Xtreme because they were sick. They were from the cruise ship coming into Antigua the next day, and with Adventure Antigua manager, Nell, having turned people away all week for the fully booked tour the cancellation of 8 at the last minute was not great news. All day we had been getting calls from people wanting to go out the next day. For some reason we had nothing booked for Thursday or Friday but were turning away people for wed. We require 24 hours notice on cancellations which i think is very generous as we only take a small deposit. The group of 8 people said they were all sick and wanted the deposit back.
Then with the smaller group booked on Xtreme JD and Trevor left Jolly Harbour on time at 8:15 bound for the St. Johns pickup at 8:35 am. (Whenever there is a cruise ship in town the Xtreme tour leaves an hour earlier so that we can be accommodated at Stingray City in between their cruise ship arrivals which sometimes are groups of 200+. We are the only outside tour that stops there and it's always worth doing the tour early in order to be at Stingray City by ourselves.)
JD called us at 8:45 am saying that he had collected four people from the cruise ship as per normal but that two were missing. He had walked the docks looking for them before calling the office. Nell asked JD to wait a bit longer and JD went and spoke to the skipper of Excellence, the other large boat on the dock telling him to keep an eye out for the guests. At 9:05 after another call to the office, JD pulled out of St. Johns bound for the last (and now late) pickup at the Sandals resort. The worst complaint we have ever had on Cruise Critic was that our tour was rushed because so much time was spent waiting for some Sandals guests who didn't turn up. Here we were doing the same thing to them. This sort of thing happens several times a year and the we have to make decisions to leave people who don't turn up every now and then. Actually every week we get no shows and sometimes after a phone call to their hotel room we find out that they don't want to come anymore which saves time and off we go. In the case of cruise ship passengers who booked online and paid deposits we give them the benefit of the doubt and wait around for them for as long as possible.
The Eco Tour boat skippered by Tony comes into St. Johns usually at 9:50 for a 10 am pickup. Yesterday Tony pulled up to find his guests as well as JD's two missing guests. He quickly called JD and then Nell. The guests complained to Nell saying that they were "left". Nell apologised and ordered a cab to take them to Stingray City at our expense (one way US $30). They arrived late there after all of Xtreme's guests had finished swimming in the park. JD took them in and swam with the rays helping them take photos and all the usual stuff they would have done had they been on the boat when it arrived there.
The tour went on as usual with the lunch stop at Green Island, the historical tour of Nelson's Dockyard, the snorkeling at Pillars of Hercules, and the deserted beach stop at Rendezvous Bay.
At some time during the day JD overheard the couple saying that they had missed the tour on the island the day before and wondered if they had made mistakes with Caribbean time vs Eastern Time. Anyway, at the end of the tour the guests demanded a discount because they missed two hours of the tour. Jd explained that he was there in St. John's on time and delayed the departure of the tour by 30 minutes which on our tours is almost unheard of. She said this was untrue and that JD must have left when they were in the Exotic Antigua shop thinking they were no shows. JD reminded her that the shop didn't open until 9 am. With that she demanded to speak to the office once again and proceeded to rant and rave (for the second time). I won't mention the things she said, but what i will say is that her bitter complaints were not the only ones we had that day. After she got her additional discounts and left we had complaints from the crew and from the other guests who were disappointed that we paid for her cab fare, disappointed that we gave her $60 in additional discounts to the 10% they received for booking online, disappointed that we permitted her to create such a scene on what would have been an excellent cruise, disappointed that her rants and lateness caused delays in the tour's schedule. Nell and JD both say that in all the years she has been working in this industry yesterday was the most difficult.
As far as the Xtreme tour went yesterday everyone would agree that it could have been better. I am sure that the guests who cancelled last minute want their US $25 deposits back, I am sure that the people who came late want all their money back. I'm sure that JD, Trevor, Nell and Jill would rather not work for me on days like that, and I am sure that the guests who had to endure the saga would have preferred not to have had it happen on their day as well. What do I do to make sure this doesn't happen again?
We have clear instructions of pick up time and place on the emails that go out to our cruise passengers (who rarely have problems). We have boats and crew that arrive on time unless there are problems like this one. I just don't know what to do to avoid this kind of thing from ever happening again. All the guests who were on the boat in St. Johns that morning commented on the fact that Jd's story was legit. We know his story is legit because he called us while he was looking for the guests. Other passengers later commented on this fact too saying they would email their side of the story. What's upsetting is that the unhappy lady actively told Nell on the phone that she would go on the internet and tell her side of the story to do harm. I'd rather not have written this particular blog, but I know that her story will do us harm. That story is that we left her at the dock without a second thought (we were down from 21 people to just 11) and that we were rude, called her a liar, and didn't want to give her any money back after shafting her out of a portion of the tour.
I think if you are planning on coming on one of my tours or any other tour in Antigua please assume that we will be on time and that we may not wait for you if you are late. Please email Nell again if you are unsure of the directions and keep the number which she gives you in your confirmation email as a just in case backup.
The first thing that happened is that after business hours the day before we had a call saying that a party of 8 wouldn't be coming on Xtreme because they were sick. They were from the cruise ship coming into Antigua the next day, and with Adventure Antigua manager, Nell, having turned people away all week for the fully booked tour the cancellation of 8 at the last minute was not great news. All day we had been getting calls from people wanting to go out the next day. For some reason we had nothing booked for Thursday or Friday but were turning away people for wed. We require 24 hours notice on cancellations which i think is very generous as we only take a small deposit. The group of 8 people said they were all sick and wanted the deposit back.
Then with the smaller group booked on Xtreme JD and Trevor left Jolly Harbour on time at 8:15 bound for the St. Johns pickup at 8:35 am. (Whenever there is a cruise ship in town the Xtreme tour leaves an hour earlier so that we can be accommodated at Stingray City in between their cruise ship arrivals which sometimes are groups of 200+. We are the only outside tour that stops there and it's always worth doing the tour early in order to be at Stingray City by ourselves.)
JD called us at 8:45 am saying that he had collected four people from the cruise ship as per normal but that two were missing. He had walked the docks looking for them before calling the office. Nell asked JD to wait a bit longer and JD went and spoke to the skipper of Excellence, the other large boat on the dock telling him to keep an eye out for the guests. At 9:05 after another call to the office, JD pulled out of St. Johns bound for the last (and now late) pickup at the Sandals resort. The worst complaint we have ever had on Cruise Critic was that our tour was rushed because so much time was spent waiting for some Sandals guests who didn't turn up. Here we were doing the same thing to them. This sort of thing happens several times a year and the we have to make decisions to leave people who don't turn up every now and then. Actually every week we get no shows and sometimes after a phone call to their hotel room we find out that they don't want to come anymore which saves time and off we go. In the case of cruise ship passengers who booked online and paid deposits we give them the benefit of the doubt and wait around for them for as long as possible.
The Eco Tour boat skippered by Tony comes into St. Johns usually at 9:50 for a 10 am pickup. Yesterday Tony pulled up to find his guests as well as JD's two missing guests. He quickly called JD and then Nell. The guests complained to Nell saying that they were "left". Nell apologised and ordered a cab to take them to Stingray City at our expense (one way US $30). They arrived late there after all of Xtreme's guests had finished swimming in the park. JD took them in and swam with the rays helping them take photos and all the usual stuff they would have done had they been on the boat when it arrived there.
The tour went on as usual with the lunch stop at Green Island, the historical tour of Nelson's Dockyard, the snorkeling at Pillars of Hercules, and the deserted beach stop at Rendezvous Bay.
At some time during the day JD overheard the couple saying that they had missed the tour on the island the day before and wondered if they had made mistakes with Caribbean time vs Eastern Time. Anyway, at the end of the tour the guests demanded a discount because they missed two hours of the tour. Jd explained that he was there in St. John's on time and delayed the departure of the tour by 30 minutes which on our tours is almost unheard of. She said this was untrue and that JD must have left when they were in the Exotic Antigua shop thinking they were no shows. JD reminded her that the shop didn't open until 9 am. With that she demanded to speak to the office once again and proceeded to rant and rave (for the second time). I won't mention the things she said, but what i will say is that her bitter complaints were not the only ones we had that day. After she got her additional discounts and left we had complaints from the crew and from the other guests who were disappointed that we paid for her cab fare, disappointed that we gave her $60 in additional discounts to the 10% they received for booking online, disappointed that we permitted her to create such a scene on what would have been an excellent cruise, disappointed that her rants and lateness caused delays in the tour's schedule. Nell and JD both say that in all the years she has been working in this industry yesterday was the most difficult.
As far as the Xtreme tour went yesterday everyone would agree that it could have been better. I am sure that the guests who cancelled last minute want their US $25 deposits back, I am sure that the people who came late want all their money back. I'm sure that JD, Trevor, Nell and Jill would rather not work for me on days like that, and I am sure that the guests who had to endure the saga would have preferred not to have had it happen on their day as well. What do I do to make sure this doesn't happen again?
We have clear instructions of pick up time and place on the emails that go out to our cruise passengers (who rarely have problems). We have boats and crew that arrive on time unless there are problems like this one. I just don't know what to do to avoid this kind of thing from ever happening again. All the guests who were on the boat in St. Johns that morning commented on the fact that Jd's story was legit. We know his story is legit because he called us while he was looking for the guests. Other passengers later commented on this fact too saying they would email their side of the story. What's upsetting is that the unhappy lady actively told Nell on the phone that she would go on the internet and tell her side of the story to do harm. I'd rather not have written this particular blog, but I know that her story will do us harm. That story is that we left her at the dock without a second thought (we were down from 21 people to just 11) and that we were rude, called her a liar, and didn't want to give her any money back after shafting her out of a portion of the tour.
I think if you are planning on coming on one of my tours or any other tour in Antigua please assume that we will be on time and that we may not wait for you if you are late. Please email Nell again if you are unsure of the directions and keep the number which she gives you in your confirmation email as a just in case backup.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
blue skies and warm winds
With the madness that is going on here just the week before the the huge general election coupled with the madness still going on with the Stanford saga it's easy to forget how beautiful it is here in Antigua. We all take so much for granted at times like this, and it's important to step back and look around us. The amazing weather we are having at the moment should help you see that despite everything life still is beautiful here on the island. I think it's important to do that just for a short while each day. So many people at the moment are emotionally charged in this politically crazy time that they lose track of what is really important. Each day i get asked who i am voting for and I have such a hard time deciding myself that i don't know what to tell them. I think I will have to make up my mind soon. We have to vote next week! I think i will do some thinking at the beach this weekend!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Shocking news to Antiguans
Today history was made here in Antigua when parliament was recalled after being dissolved just weeks before a massive general election. They were recalled to debate the compulsory purchase (a.k.a. eminent domain) of R Allen Stanford's lands here in Antigua. The arguments for the purchase were presented and debated, and at the end of it all the "I's had it" and the act was passed. Some 250+ acres of land were taken away from him in order to protect investors claims against those assets and to protect over 800 jobs. I have spent the past two days trying to understand it all and think i have a better idea of why it was done. I spoke to both ALP and UPP lawyers on this. It seems like it may have been the best move to make at this point, and i can explain more about it later. The fact that our government had no legal right under our laws to put a lien or caution on his lands forced them to do the only other thing they could do to protect these assets and that was to compulsory purchase them.
Anyway, that was not the shocking news. What was shocking was the info that came out in the criminal complaint filed in Texas against Allen Stanford's right hand woman, Laura Pendergest-Holt. If you are Antiguan or have any interest in Stanford or his banks then you should read the complaint here. Apart from further providing evidence for this "8 billion dollar fraud" which is of interest to us all, it shows an email between Stanford top execs where they speak about a land purchase. The email shows that Stanford International Bank purchased Pelican Island (which we knew about) and Guiana Island Farms (!!!!) back in 2008. If this email is legit and these two top execs knew what they were talking about then this is the more shocking to many Antiguans than anything so far in the Stanford saga. Again IF this is all true then....this means that apart from the 250+ acres of land that our parliament was recalled to take away from Standford, he also owns about another 2000 acres here which nobody here seemed to know about. In parliament yesterday it was alleged that the Cort and Cort legal firm was on a US $25k retainer monthly from the Stanford group. Mr. Cort did not say this was untrue, and there seems to be quite a bit of talk locally about this connection. I find it very hard to believe this allegation because most retainers here locally are a fraction of that. What i do find strange though is this... There was a legal measure taken by our government against the owners of Guiana Island and the surrounding land preventing them from selling it pending the outcome of a court case where some US $200 million in unpaid taxes (undeveloped land tax) is at stake. I think this is public knowledge, and I would have imagined that if Stanford was going to buy the company owning the land that had this massive figure liened against it, he would have spoken to his lawyers or someone in our Gov. about the problems he would face. Weird that nobody on the island of Antigua knew about Stanford's purchase. I am sure that if the Government knew about this recent purchase then, when for the first time in history as the parliament was called back, they would have taken those 2000 acres too. All super weird.
What is also strange is that SIB has to give monthly and quarterly statements to Antiguan banking authorities here. According to the criminal complaint SIB listed those lands mentioned above as assets on these statements. How did our local off shore banking authorities miss this and fail to let the AG know if this is actually a fact. If i were the Prime Minister or even worse the Attorney General I would be asking some questions about now.
Anyway, that was not the shocking news. What was shocking was the info that came out in the criminal complaint filed in Texas against Allen Stanford's right hand woman, Laura Pendergest-Holt. If you are Antiguan or have any interest in Stanford or his banks then you should read the complaint here. Apart from further providing evidence for this "8 billion dollar fraud" which is of interest to us all, it shows an email between Stanford top execs where they speak about a land purchase. The email shows that Stanford International Bank purchased Pelican Island (which we knew about) and Guiana Island Farms (!!!!) back in 2008. If this email is legit and these two top execs knew what they were talking about then this is the more shocking to many Antiguans than anything so far in the Stanford saga. Again IF this is all true then....this means that apart from the 250+ acres of land that our parliament was recalled to take away from Standford, he also owns about another 2000 acres here which nobody here seemed to know about. In parliament yesterday it was alleged that the Cort and Cort legal firm was on a US $25k retainer monthly from the Stanford group. Mr. Cort did not say this was untrue, and there seems to be quite a bit of talk locally about this connection. I find it very hard to believe this allegation because most retainers here locally are a fraction of that. What i do find strange though is this... There was a legal measure taken by our government against the owners of Guiana Island and the surrounding land preventing them from selling it pending the outcome of a court case where some US $200 million in unpaid taxes (undeveloped land tax) is at stake. I think this is public knowledge, and I would have imagined that if Stanford was going to buy the company owning the land that had this massive figure liened against it, he would have spoken to his lawyers or someone in our Gov. about the problems he would face. Weird that nobody on the island of Antigua knew about Stanford's purchase. I am sure that if the Government knew about this recent purchase then, when for the first time in history as the parliament was called back, they would have taken those 2000 acres too. All super weird.
What is also strange is that SIB has to give monthly and quarterly statements to Antiguan banking authorities here. According to the criminal complaint SIB listed those lands mentioned above as assets on these statements. How did our local off shore banking authorities miss this and fail to let the AG know if this is actually a fact. If i were the Prime Minister or even worse the Attorney General I would be asking some questions about now.
Whales being spotted daily here at the moment
It's that time of year again when humpback whales are passing through these islands with their young ones.
JD and his full Xtreme charter last week saw a nice pod off Pillars of Hercules and yesterday I saw a mother and her calf breaching and tail slapping off Indian Creek.
As my regular blog followers know from my last whale blog, I am like most Antiguans very much against our government's stance on international whaling and I hope that someday we have leadership that stands up to the Japanese and says no to their blood money. Both the former ALP government and the current UPP government support Japanese whaling.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Poor Antigua and Barbuda
First, let me just thank the thousands of people who have viewed my blog entries over the past week. It's been a crazy time for LA (little Antigua) and I wish i could have spent more time keeping you up to date. Anyway, the good news is that the "run" on Bank of Antigua (owned by Allen Stanford) seemed to slow down before the weekend close, and with word that the ECCB is taking over control of the Bank starting today we can further be assured that some needed control will be gained out of this move. Stanford International Bank is another story though. The Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer says he will cooperate fully with the SEC on their probe into the Antiguan registered off shore bank. His attorney general didn't sound so optimistic echoing some of the issues mentioned in my last blog entry.
Found in this damning New York Times piece, AG Justin Simon, said "I’m sure various other offshore companies are going to worry exactly how far S.E.C. control will go.” YUP!
Anyway, while all of this tangled web of organized chaos continues there can be no doubt that people all over the world will be touched in some way. There are depositors at SIB from over 100 countries according to Allen Stanford who boasted about that sort of thing in the past, and there are about as many countries involved with off shore banking who are as worried with the new SEC as the depositors at SIB. According to Melford Nicholas (leader of the OND political party here in Antigua) writing about this story on my facebook page, "I think we are at Act 1 Scene 1".
In related news, my company got a private charter from a journalist who wanted to do a private version of the Eco Tour. As we usually do on the Eco Tour, i took them into the North Sound to teach them about the history (ancient and modern) as well as the ecology of the area. Of course, like all of our Eco Tour guests this week, he was extremely interested in what we had to say Allen Stanford's interests in the area and especially about Maiden Island and Guiana Islands. While we were up there he asked me about the big white building to our south. I told him that it was Mr. Stanford's boat house and his new EC $67 million dollar (US $26 mil) boat yard which is just being finished up. As it was a private charter I went where he asked me to go and over we went. The marina is like all of Mr. Stanfords buildings.... top notch. Unlike most of his colonial type architecture here on the island this marina was an ultra modern (James Bond) sort of thing, and I assume that his huge boat was inside the NASA style hanger or boathouse.
The last bit of dredging was taking place and there was a huge cloud of dredged up silt in front of us. I didn't get too close, but what caught my eye was something that had nothing to do with Stanford. Crabs Peninsular is a key commercial port in Antigua with the Antigua Brewery, the desalination plant, Antigua Power Company, Stanfords Marina, a cement loading and off loading facility and other commercial type operations. What caught my eye was a huge sand barge filled to the brim with well over 200 truck loads of pure white Barbuda sand. I know they had over 200 truck loads because for the past 15 years Barbuda sand has been coming from Barbuda to the condemned High Point jetty where i grew up. This jetty was built by the US government in the 1930s i think. Anyway sometime in the mid 1990s sand from Barbuda started arriving there. Up until that point Barbuda sand has been shipped all over the Caribbean and was always imported into Antigua at other commercial ports. Back in the 1990s the opposition accused many within the ALP ruling party of profiting from the mining of sand calling it just another corrupt way for the ALP leaders to get rich. The Lord Nelson Beach Hotel which was owned by my grandparents tried to get the new landing place for sand into Antigua moved complaining that it was damaging their business. Sand trucks raced up and down past the hotel after collecting sand from the massive barges and guests checked out time after time complaining about the noise and dust. Petitions from guests and residents nearby was ignored. With the UPP opposition complaining about corruption and the residents and hotel complaining about noise, dust, and speeding heavy machinery nothing changed. All this time poor little Barbuda was getting scraped clean of it's land. There can be no place on our nation where "Land is sold off" in a more barbaric way than in Barbuda.
Their water table was destroyed and erosion of the beaches closest to the mining started. Local Barbudan environmentalist, John Mussington, confirmed what i thought i was seeing at Palmetto Point. According to John, the erosion on the lee side is different from the seasonal shift in the sandy shoreline, and the vegetation now falling into the sea was signs of something far more sinister. Scientists and other experts testified in court cases introduced by the Barbuda Council during the 80s telling judges that terrible damage was being done. Injunctions after injunctions were issued forcing the mining to stay within a specified boundary. Time and time again the injunctions were ignored and new boundaries were set. On once such occurrence Minister Humphreys was charged with contempt of court. That didn't stop the mining and it continued around the clock. I am told that what the mining interests would do was to change the company names each time an injunction was issued giving the new company permission to get right back to work. In their manifesto five years ago, the UPP said all sorts of nice things for the environment including turning the Guiana Island area into a park. We know from my blogs that they ended up giving Stanford the "green light". When the ALP was in power the UPP had fought against the corruption that they said was happening with Barbuda sand mining. All people concerned about environmental damage and corruption associated with Barbuda mining were hopeful that "What was wrong would be made right". How wrong we were. By the time the UPP took over leadership of Antigua's government, the Barbuda council had been running the Barbuda mining operation for about eight years. Even though the Council were the ones who originally complained about the corruption and negative environmental impact of the mining, they had gone against everything they stood for on the issue, and management of the sand mining had stayed the same. The council was now being lead by Trevor Walker who had aligned himself with the new UPP government in Antigua.
Something happened shortly after Mr. Walker got into power over in Barbuda with environmentalists like John Mussington and many others complaining once again about the sand mining operation, and it was temporarily stopped. I don't know the specifics, but our government stepped in and asked the good old Environment Division to step in. Dian Black Lane who at the time was chief officer within the division helped sort the conflict out by doing some sort of detailed study. According to the politicians, World Cup Cricket was coming to Antigua and a construction boom was taking place, increasing the need for sand used in concrete. They had to continue mining sand otherwise there would be big problems with hosting World Cup Cricket. Using GPS and all sorts of technical mapping equipment, the Environment Division suggested that 103 acres of land in Barbuda be put aside for sand mining, and after that area was mined then sand mining would stop forever in Barbuda. Confused about how much sand was going to be mined in the 103 acres of land which mostly sits a few feet above sea level, Mr. Mussington asked how much sand was actually needed for World Cup cricket and was told by the ministers in charge that it was approximately 800 tons. He then said "ok so about two or thee barge loads". According to John who i called today, he said he didn't get a confirmation on that calculation.
John Mussington says that depending on the barge being used you can have between 200, 400 and even sometimes 800 tons of sand being exported from Barbuda each time one of the many barges pulls out. Anyway, this decision was made back in may 2006, and the mining never stopped. In fact, I always felt that the frequency of barges arriving at High Point increased at that time. To tell you the truth it was the first time that sand started being off loaded through the night. I called my local representative one night and woke him out of his bed. I told the Hon. John Maginley that i was very sorry to wake him up, but i was unable to sleep with all the noise the trucks were making off loading sand. I told him that the house i was living in was covered in a find layer of sand dust. I was surprised at his reply "they still mining sand? I thought they stopped that." Mr. Maginley assured me he would do something about it. He told me later that he had spoken to Wilmouth Daniel about it and was assured that it had been a mistake and wouldn't happen again. Like the sand mining from Barbuda, the offloading of sand at night didn't stop at all. In fact in continued with sometimes several barges arriving at the same time at High Point Jetty. You could see how frenzied they rushed to get the sand loaded, and transported. Many people would call into the radio stations complaining about the speed of the sand trucks. Sand was spilled all over the roads in their rush to drop off sand and quickly return to collect more. Mr. Maginley got tired of me calling and texting his mobile phone and finally stopped replying. As reckless as the sand trucks here in Antigua, the ones in Barbuda were more so. A bus containing small children was hit by one of the trucks ending the lives of several of them from what i remember. (this link was sent to me by "adam" showing a black and white photo of the bus in Barbuda) Sand barges ran onto reefs here in Antigua and Barbuda in their rush to get to and forth, and one even ended up on a beach in Barbuda where it rests today in a pile of rotting metal. When i wrote to the Daily Observer paper about this barge owned by Council member Knackbill Nedd, I was later ridiculed saying that the barge would be moved easily. I wonder if looking at that rotting barge on the beach if Princess Dianna would still think the beach so beautiful?
According to the recommendations from the Environment division back in May of 2006, sand from Barbuda was only to be delivered to Antigua and to nowhere else. I work on boats and travel to islands like St. Martin and St. Barts. If you read my blogs then you know i spend considerable time at sea fishing too. I can say without a shadow of doubt that sand from Barbuda has gone down to St. Martin and passed Antigua heading south as well many times since 2006. This export of sand is not legal in any way shape or form. Many allege that other goods have arrived back in Barbuda from places other than Antigua. The very flimsy controls on the sand mining operation are laughable. One person is employed by the Barbuda council to count truck loads of sand. That is how they know how much sand leaves Barbuda and how much "levy" is due to the Barbuda council. A person doing this job makes between EC $300 and $400 (US $111 and $148) a week doing this job. The operation is 24 hours a day. We have more control here in Antigua at our garbage dump! Apart from the simple math you can do your own calculations. A ton of sand delivered to you is worth EC $90 (US $33) and there are 20 tons of sand in an average sand truck here in Antigua.
From this photo I took late last week at Crabs Peninsular, you can imagine how much sand is packed on. I imagine you could make a pretty nice beach with this sand alone, but as i said earlier sand isn't used for making beaches here in Antigua although many other areas around the Caribbean have used Barbuda sand to help their beaches. The sand here is used primarily for construction just like the sand that has been dug up from Pinchin Beach, Farley Bay, McKinnons Swamp, Darkwood Swamp and recenlty Ffryes (a.k.a Fry's). While many have gotten rich the beaches and their fragile and related ecosystems have suffered. Biodiversity in Barbuda has been hit as well and little is known about how badly the island's ecology is being effected. No one involved in any of the mentioned atrocities have ever been punished in any way. According to several people i have spoken with close to the Barbuda sand mining operation, it is alleged that sand from Barbuda is often traded instead of being sold. These people say that persons or companies in Antigua sometimes do business in Barbuda for the Barbuda Council in exchange for sand or barge loads of sand.
According to John Mussington, the 103 acres of land offered that were set aside in the recommendations from the Ministry of Environment has long ago been mined. He says that according to his GPS calculations on the ground, the borders of that 103 acres of land were long ago passed and dug up. John agrees with me that since 2006 there has been a dramatic increase in mining in Barbuda. The more things change in Antigua and Barbuda the more they seem to stay the same. I know that Mr. Maginley will be reading my blog later today so I will ask him once again to consider something:
John, if you say you have no control at all over what happens with the sand mining operation over in Barbuda where between 10 and 15 people are employed then so be it, but don't tell me that there is no other place for sand to come into our country. Notice i didn't mention anything about the even larger barges of gravel that since 2006 have been arriving at High Point almost as regularly as the sand.
My photos show sand arriving at the Crabs industrial port. Please tell the people you are asking to vote for you that you will work harder to get all the sand and gravel barges to go there. The restaurants, hotels and residents who exist right next to the condemned high point jetty and along the path of the speeding trucks want you to do something about that at least if nothing about sand mining.
If anyone thinks that something i have written here is untrue or if you feel you would like to add more that i missed please email me at elifuller @ hotmail . com and let me know. You are all free to comment here as well.
Found in this damning New York Times piece, AG Justin Simon, said "I’m sure various other offshore companies are going to worry exactly how far S.E.C. control will go.” YUP!
Anyway, while all of this tangled web of organized chaos continues there can be no doubt that people all over the world will be touched in some way. There are depositors at SIB from over 100 countries according to Allen Stanford who boasted about that sort of thing in the past, and there are about as many countries involved with off shore banking who are as worried with the new SEC as the depositors at SIB. According to Melford Nicholas (leader of the OND political party here in Antigua) writing about this story on my facebook page, "I think we are at Act 1 Scene 1".
In related news, my company got a private charter from a journalist who wanted to do a private version of the Eco Tour. As we usually do on the Eco Tour, i took them into the North Sound to teach them about the history (ancient and modern) as well as the ecology of the area. Of course, like all of our Eco Tour guests this week, he was extremely interested in what we had to say Allen Stanford's interests in the area and especially about Maiden Island and Guiana Islands. While we were up there he asked me about the big white building to our south. I told him that it was Mr. Stanford's boat house and his new EC $67 million dollar (US $26 mil) boat yard which is just being finished up. As it was a private charter I went where he asked me to go and over we went. The marina is like all of Mr. Stanfords buildings.... top notch. Unlike most of his colonial type architecture here on the island this marina was an ultra modern (James Bond) sort of thing, and I assume that his huge boat was inside the NASA style hanger or boathouse.
The last bit of dredging was taking place and there was a huge cloud of dredged up silt in front of us. I didn't get too close, but what caught my eye was something that had nothing to do with Stanford. Crabs Peninsular is a key commercial port in Antigua with the Antigua Brewery, the desalination plant, Antigua Power Company, Stanfords Marina, a cement loading and off loading facility and other commercial type operations. What caught my eye was a huge sand barge filled to the brim with well over 200 truck loads of pure white Barbuda sand. I know they had over 200 truck loads because for the past 15 years Barbuda sand has been coming from Barbuda to the condemned High Point jetty where i grew up. This jetty was built by the US government in the 1930s i think. Anyway sometime in the mid 1990s sand from Barbuda started arriving there. Up until that point Barbuda sand has been shipped all over the Caribbean and was always imported into Antigua at other commercial ports. Back in the 1990s the opposition accused many within the ALP ruling party of profiting from the mining of sand calling it just another corrupt way for the ALP leaders to get rich. The Lord Nelson Beach Hotel which was owned by my grandparents tried to get the new landing place for sand into Antigua moved complaining that it was damaging their business. Sand trucks raced up and down past the hotel after collecting sand from the massive barges and guests checked out time after time complaining about the noise and dust. Petitions from guests and residents nearby was ignored. With the UPP opposition complaining about corruption and the residents and hotel complaining about noise, dust, and speeding heavy machinery nothing changed. All this time poor little Barbuda was getting scraped clean of it's land. There can be no place on our nation where "Land is sold off" in a more barbaric way than in Barbuda.
Their water table was destroyed and erosion of the beaches closest to the mining started. Local Barbudan environmentalist, John Mussington, confirmed what i thought i was seeing at Palmetto Point. According to John, the erosion on the lee side is different from the seasonal shift in the sandy shoreline, and the vegetation now falling into the sea was signs of something far more sinister. Scientists and other experts testified in court cases introduced by the Barbuda Council during the 80s telling judges that terrible damage was being done. Injunctions after injunctions were issued forcing the mining to stay within a specified boundary. Time and time again the injunctions were ignored and new boundaries were set. On once such occurrence Minister Humphreys was charged with contempt of court. That didn't stop the mining and it continued around the clock. I am told that what the mining interests would do was to change the company names each time an injunction was issued giving the new company permission to get right back to work. In their manifesto five years ago, the UPP said all sorts of nice things for the environment including turning the Guiana Island area into a park. We know from my blogs that they ended up giving Stanford the "green light". When the ALP was in power the UPP had fought against the corruption that they said was happening with Barbuda sand mining. All people concerned about environmental damage and corruption associated with Barbuda mining were hopeful that "What was wrong would be made right". How wrong we were. By the time the UPP took over leadership of Antigua's government, the Barbuda council had been running the Barbuda mining operation for about eight years. Even though the Council were the ones who originally complained about the corruption and negative environmental impact of the mining, they had gone against everything they stood for on the issue, and management of the sand mining had stayed the same. The council was now being lead by Trevor Walker who had aligned himself with the new UPP government in Antigua.Something happened shortly after Mr. Walker got into power over in Barbuda with environmentalists like John Mussington and many others complaining once again about the sand mining operation, and it was temporarily stopped. I don't know the specifics, but our government stepped in and asked the good old Environment Division to step in. Dian Black Lane who at the time was chief officer within the division helped sort the conflict out by doing some sort of detailed study. According to the politicians, World Cup Cricket was coming to Antigua and a construction boom was taking place, increasing the need for sand used in concrete. They had to continue mining sand otherwise there would be big problems with hosting World Cup Cricket. Using GPS and all sorts of technical mapping equipment, the Environment Division suggested that 103 acres of land in Barbuda be put aside for sand mining, and after that area was mined then sand mining would stop forever in Barbuda. Confused about how much sand was going to be mined in the 103 acres of land which mostly sits a few feet above sea level, Mr. Mussington asked how much sand was actually needed for World Cup cricket and was told by the ministers in charge that it was approximately 800 tons. He then said "ok so about two or thee barge loads". According to John who i called today, he said he didn't get a confirmation on that calculation.
John Mussington says that depending on the barge being used you can have between 200, 400 and even sometimes 800 tons of sand being exported from Barbuda each time one of the many barges pulls out. Anyway, this decision was made back in may 2006, and the mining never stopped. In fact, I always felt that the frequency of barges arriving at High Point increased at that time. To tell you the truth it was the first time that sand started being off loaded through the night. I called my local representative one night and woke him out of his bed. I told the Hon. John Maginley that i was very sorry to wake him up, but i was unable to sleep with all the noise the trucks were making off loading sand. I told him that the house i was living in was covered in a find layer of sand dust. I was surprised at his reply "they still mining sand? I thought they stopped that." Mr. Maginley assured me he would do something about it. He told me later that he had spoken to Wilmouth Daniel about it and was assured that it had been a mistake and wouldn't happen again. Like the sand mining from Barbuda, the offloading of sand at night didn't stop at all. In fact in continued with sometimes several barges arriving at the same time at High Point Jetty. You could see how frenzied they rushed to get the sand loaded, and transported. Many people would call into the radio stations complaining about the speed of the sand trucks. Sand was spilled all over the roads in their rush to drop off sand and quickly return to collect more. Mr. Maginley got tired of me calling and texting his mobile phone and finally stopped replying. As reckless as the sand trucks here in Antigua, the ones in Barbuda were more so. A bus containing small children was hit by one of the trucks ending the lives of several of them from what i remember. (this link was sent to me by "adam" showing a black and white photo of the bus in Barbuda) Sand barges ran onto reefs here in Antigua and Barbuda in their rush to get to and forth, and one even ended up on a beach in Barbuda where it rests today in a pile of rotting metal. When i wrote to the Daily Observer paper about this barge owned by Council member Knackbill Nedd, I was later ridiculed saying that the barge would be moved easily. I wonder if looking at that rotting barge on the beach if Princess Dianna would still think the beach so beautiful?
According to the recommendations from the Environment division back in May of 2006, sand from Barbuda was only to be delivered to Antigua and to nowhere else. I work on boats and travel to islands like St. Martin and St. Barts. If you read my blogs then you know i spend considerable time at sea fishing too. I can say without a shadow of doubt that sand from Barbuda has gone down to St. Martin and passed Antigua heading south as well many times since 2006. This export of sand is not legal in any way shape or form. Many allege that other goods have arrived back in Barbuda from places other than Antigua. The very flimsy controls on the sand mining operation are laughable. One person is employed by the Barbuda council to count truck loads of sand. That is how they know how much sand leaves Barbuda and how much "levy" is due to the Barbuda council. A person doing this job makes between EC $300 and $400 (US $111 and $148) a week doing this job. The operation is 24 hours a day. We have more control here in Antigua at our garbage dump! Apart from the simple math you can do your own calculations. A ton of sand delivered to you is worth EC $90 (US $33) and there are 20 tons of sand in an average sand truck here in Antigua.
From this photo I took late last week at Crabs Peninsular, you can imagine how much sand is packed on. I imagine you could make a pretty nice beach with this sand alone, but as i said earlier sand isn't used for making beaches here in Antigua although many other areas around the Caribbean have used Barbuda sand to help their beaches. The sand here is used primarily for construction just like the sand that has been dug up from Pinchin Beach, Farley Bay, McKinnons Swamp, Darkwood Swamp and recenlty Ffryes (a.k.a Fry's). While many have gotten rich the beaches and their fragile and related ecosystems have suffered. Biodiversity in Barbuda has been hit as well and little is known about how badly the island's ecology is being effected. No one involved in any of the mentioned atrocities have ever been punished in any way. According to several people i have spoken with close to the Barbuda sand mining operation, it is alleged that sand from Barbuda is often traded instead of being sold. These people say that persons or companies in Antigua sometimes do business in Barbuda for the Barbuda Council in exchange for sand or barge loads of sand.According to John Mussington, the 103 acres of land offered that were set aside in the recommendations from the Ministry of Environment has long ago been mined. He says that according to his GPS calculations on the ground, the borders of that 103 acres of land were long ago passed and dug up. John agrees with me that since 2006 there has been a dramatic increase in mining in Barbuda. The more things change in Antigua and Barbuda the more they seem to stay the same. I know that Mr. Maginley will be reading my blog later today so I will ask him once again to consider something:
John, if you say you have no control at all over what happens with the sand mining operation over in Barbuda where between 10 and 15 people are employed then so be it, but don't tell me that there is no other place for sand to come into our country. Notice i didn't mention anything about the even larger barges of gravel that since 2006 have been arriving at High Point almost as regularly as the sand.
My photos show sand arriving at the Crabs industrial port. Please tell the people you are asking to vote for you that you will work harder to get all the sand and gravel barges to go there. The restaurants, hotels and residents who exist right next to the condemned high point jetty and along the path of the speeding trucks want you to do something about that at least if nothing about sand mining.If anyone thinks that something i have written here is untrue or if you feel you would like to add more that i missed please email me at elifuller @ hotmail . com and let me know. You are all free to comment here as well.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
More on the Stanford saga here in Antigua and around the Caribbean.
First i would just like anyone interested in the Stanford saga to read something which many of us have been saying for some time. In fact much of the article seems like it was pulled from my blog :) but the rest of it is just stuff we have been saying here on the island for some time. It's a New York Times piece.
A more more enlightening and interesting article reprinted in the Trinidad Express from the Jamaica Observer is as follows. Ron Saunders used to be our island's representative in the UK.
This article came out long before the Stanford Meltdown here in Antigua, and while today the Levin - Coleman - Obama Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act is being emailed all around the Caribbean it does make the title of the article a bit more poignant. If you would like to see a copy of the act i can email it to you. IT is a clear attack on one of the last things that is holding the weak economies of the Caribbean afloat. Bananas, sugar, off shore gaming, and now banking have all come under attack from foreign policy. This is all very scary for the future of the Eastern Caribbean. (just a side note Allen Stanford never permitted any Internet gaming money to enter his banks and he was very strict about this).
Is the Caribbean financial services sector asleep?
Ronald sanders
Tuesday, February 10th 2009
THE threat to the financial services sector of the Caribbean is growing every day and is becoming more evident in reports by media who have swallowed hook, line and sinker that so-called "tax havens" are helping US, European and Japanese nationals, both persons and companies, to evade taxation in their home countries.There is no hard evidence to support this allegation about Caribbean jurisdictions. Yet it persists from governments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
A recent BBC report claims that the British government "is broke-a record £44b in the red-and yet one estimate is that the taxman loses £18.5b a year thanks to tax haven abuse''.
The reports specifically identify British protectorates which are described in derogatory terms.
Dramatically, the report also states that "one man has targeted tax haven abuse in the Caymans-and his name is Barack Obama. So change for the world's tax havens seems on the way-whether the leaders of the micro-states like it or not''.
When the OECD first raised its so-called "Harmful Tax Competition Initiative'' aimed at closing down the financial services sector of 41 small jurisdictions around the world which were giving serious competition to the financial institutions of the OECD countries, Caribbean countries were slow to move on the issue.
It was not until it was raised by Antigua and Barbuda at the 21st meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community at Canouan in St Vincent and the Grenadines, in July 2000, that Caricom countries began to take the issue seriously.
A committee was established headed by then Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur and present Barbados Chief Justice, Sir David Simmons, and of which I was a part, to engage the OECD in a serious dialogue on this issue. Eventually, the OECD dropped a blacklist of countries that they had produced but only after coercing almost all of the jurisdictions to adopt many of the rules that the OECD had set unilaterally. A so-called "Global Tax Forum'' was also established to set rules for a level playing field for all jurisdictions. But, a report two years ago showed that the main culprits ignoring these rules are the big players in the OECD countries themselves. Poor regulation and supervision in the US and UK, which contributed to the present financial crisis in both countries, is ample evidence of that fact.
President Obama, when he was the senator from Illinois, joined two other senators in introducing the "Stop Tax Havens Abuse Act'' in the US Congress. Fortunately, the Act never became law. But it names 34 jurisdictions as "secrecy'' jurisdictions and among them are all the British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, all the members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, The Bahamas and Barbados.
The fact that the Bill did not become law does not mean it has been dropped from the Obama administration's agenda. Every indication is that the legislation will be enacted this year, and while the blacklist will be removed, it will be replaced by broad empowerment of the US Treasury Secretary to impose sanctions. The belief persists that "the total loss to the US Treasury from offshore tax evasion alone approaches US$100 billion per year, including US$40 to US$70 billion from individuals and another US$30 billion from corporations engaging in offshore tax evasion''.
Caribbean jurisdictions are regularly examined by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and the International Monetary Fund to ensure that they are compliant with the requirements set by the OECD. Many, if not all of them, have Tax Information Exchange Agreements with the US. Banks are required by law, and on pain of the toughest penalties, to make suspicious activity reports and to follow "know your customer'' procedures. Persons trying either to open a second account with a bank they have dealt with for years or transfer money anywhere are well aware of the scrutiny to which they are subjected, the paper they have to sign and the identification they have to provide.
Now, some of the OECD jurisdictions are luring customers away from Caribbean countries on the basis that they will give them better tax breaks and, of course, they are "safe'' jurisdictions. One of the latest companies to shift is the giant engineering and construction company Foster Wheeler Ltd, which is moving its place of incorporation to Switzerland from Bermuda for "tax and other reasons''.
So far there has been no public indication that Caribbean governments are ready to jointly engage the OECD and the US government in particular on these new threats to their financial services sector. Yet they are all at risk, including Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago-all of whom have passed legislation to offer international financial services.
Similarly, the Caribbean private sector which provides financial services and are in the best position to marshal the arguments and evidence to refute the charges of OECD governments are saying nothing.
When the crunch comes, therefore, those in the private sector, who seem to be sleeping instead of lobbying their governments for joint action should wake up and start pressing the issue fast. The wolf is already at the door.
Sir Ronald Sanders is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat.
- Courtesy Jamaica Observer
A more more enlightening and interesting article reprinted in the Trinidad Express from the Jamaica Observer is as follows. Ron Saunders used to be our island's representative in the UK.
This article came out long before the Stanford Meltdown here in Antigua, and while today the Levin - Coleman - Obama Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act is being emailed all around the Caribbean it does make the title of the article a bit more poignant. If you would like to see a copy of the act i can email it to you. IT is a clear attack on one of the last things that is holding the weak economies of the Caribbean afloat. Bananas, sugar, off shore gaming, and now banking have all come under attack from foreign policy. This is all very scary for the future of the Eastern Caribbean. (just a side note Allen Stanford never permitted any Internet gaming money to enter his banks and he was very strict about this).
Is the Caribbean financial services sector asleep?
Ronald sanders
Tuesday, February 10th 2009
THE threat to the financial services sector of the Caribbean is growing every day and is becoming more evident in reports by media who have swallowed hook, line and sinker that so-called "tax havens" are helping US, European and Japanese nationals, both persons and companies, to evade taxation in their home countries.There is no hard evidence to support this allegation about Caribbean jurisdictions. Yet it persists from governments of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
A recent BBC report claims that the British government "is broke-a record £44b in the red-and yet one estimate is that the taxman loses £18.5b a year thanks to tax haven abuse''.
The reports specifically identify British protectorates which are described in derogatory terms.
Dramatically, the report also states that "one man has targeted tax haven abuse in the Caymans-and his name is Barack Obama. So change for the world's tax havens seems on the way-whether the leaders of the micro-states like it or not''.
When the OECD first raised its so-called "Harmful Tax Competition Initiative'' aimed at closing down the financial services sector of 41 small jurisdictions around the world which were giving serious competition to the financial institutions of the OECD countries, Caribbean countries were slow to move on the issue.
It was not until it was raised by Antigua and Barbuda at the 21st meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community at Canouan in St Vincent and the Grenadines, in July 2000, that Caricom countries began to take the issue seriously.
A committee was established headed by then Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur and present Barbados Chief Justice, Sir David Simmons, and of which I was a part, to engage the OECD in a serious dialogue on this issue. Eventually, the OECD dropped a blacklist of countries that they had produced but only after coercing almost all of the jurisdictions to adopt many of the rules that the OECD had set unilaterally. A so-called "Global Tax Forum'' was also established to set rules for a level playing field for all jurisdictions. But, a report two years ago showed that the main culprits ignoring these rules are the big players in the OECD countries themselves. Poor regulation and supervision in the US and UK, which contributed to the present financial crisis in both countries, is ample evidence of that fact.
President Obama, when he was the senator from Illinois, joined two other senators in introducing the "Stop Tax Havens Abuse Act'' in the US Congress. Fortunately, the Act never became law. But it names 34 jurisdictions as "secrecy'' jurisdictions and among them are all the British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, all the members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, The Bahamas and Barbados.
The fact that the Bill did not become law does not mean it has been dropped from the Obama administration's agenda. Every indication is that the legislation will be enacted this year, and while the blacklist will be removed, it will be replaced by broad empowerment of the US Treasury Secretary to impose sanctions. The belief persists that "the total loss to the US Treasury from offshore tax evasion alone approaches US$100 billion per year, including US$40 to US$70 billion from individuals and another US$30 billion from corporations engaging in offshore tax evasion''.
Caribbean jurisdictions are regularly examined by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and the International Monetary Fund to ensure that they are compliant with the requirements set by the OECD. Many, if not all of them, have Tax Information Exchange Agreements with the US. Banks are required by law, and on pain of the toughest penalties, to make suspicious activity reports and to follow "know your customer'' procedures. Persons trying either to open a second account with a bank they have dealt with for years or transfer money anywhere are well aware of the scrutiny to which they are subjected, the paper they have to sign and the identification they have to provide.
Now, some of the OECD jurisdictions are luring customers away from Caribbean countries on the basis that they will give them better tax breaks and, of course, they are "safe'' jurisdictions. One of the latest companies to shift is the giant engineering and construction company Foster Wheeler Ltd, which is moving its place of incorporation to Switzerland from Bermuda for "tax and other reasons''.
So far there has been no public indication that Caribbean governments are ready to jointly engage the OECD and the US government in particular on these new threats to their financial services sector. Yet they are all at risk, including Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago-all of whom have passed legislation to offer international financial services.
Similarly, the Caribbean private sector which provides financial services and are in the best position to marshal the arguments and evidence to refute the charges of OECD governments are saying nothing.
When the crunch comes, therefore, those in the private sector, who seem to be sleeping instead of lobbying their governments for joint action should wake up and start pressing the issue fast. The wolf is already at the door.
Sir Ronald Sanders is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat.
- Courtesy Jamaica Observer
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
R. Allen Stanford in Antigua...hindsight is 20 20
I run the eco tour in Antigua. I started doing the tour on a little open boat back in late 1999 when the North Sound of Antigua seen above had a different look. Click here for a large view. Our tour was a eco-historical tour of the area where we spoke about the interesting ecology and history (both ancient and modern). Every day i would mention Mr. Stanford in my talks, and over the years i found it hard not to speak too much. He was changing the way i felt about Antigua and especially about the North Sound, and in the end I hard a hard time accepting the changes. Alan Stanford who had purchased the little Antiguan bank (Bank of Antigua) nearly twenty years earlier was just starting to make big money with his off shore business on the island back in 99, but hadn't made huge expansions in the area at that time. Within five years much changed with huge amounts of construction around the airport and even into the almost virgin North Sound with it's 22 little islands and rocks. By 2003 he was well on his way to having a huge health club for the elite of Antigua and his special clients, he had two airlines as well as a fleet of private jets. He owned most of the land around the airport including the main parking lot and a huge restaurant called the Sticky Wicket. That restaurant was part of the Stanford Cricket Grounds which was probably the most expensive cricket ground in the world. Here you can see happy fans at the final match of the first Stanford 20 20:
He owned the largest newspaper on the island http://www.antiguasun.com/ which essentially was his own little PR machine. He owned a large private jet hanger and landing facility which helped him bring in his new mega clients. He owned a massive private yacht, and he was on his way to building marina for his yacht. This marina, "Barnacle Point", would also serve the purpose of getting people to and from his private island which he just purchased. Maiden Island which sits directly in front of the airport was one that I had been using since i started my tour as a shelling and bird watching spot. More to come on that in a while. He had also purchased one of the largest and most beautiful houses on the exclusive Jumby Bay (then tore it down). He purchased another there for one of his executives. He had a printing company which did all sorts of stuff including printing Adventure Antigua brochures! He had a development company which constructed everything he built at the time and had a huge plant nursery. He was by far the largest employer on the island next to the Government. Plans for hotels mega yacht marinas, golf courses marine research centers and all sorts of stuff were in the pipelines. There were many other businesses that i am forgetting but for many of us it all seemed to be too much too soon. When he arrived in Antigua he flew commercial like the rest of us and in no time he had a fleet of jets and started calling himself a billionaire. Ads in Spanish promoting his off shore bank appeared in US magazines and his banking empire grew to several different areas in South America including Panama, Colombia and Venezuela. He gave massive loans to the Government to fund projects like the new hospital for example. IT was alleged that he helped individual local politicians too. Apart from helping the local guys, Mr. Stanford entertained many US congressmen (from both parties) in Antigua at hotels like Curtain Bluff and Jumby Bay and even on mega yachts which spend most winters here on island. By 2005 he stepped up his US lobby campaign by purchasing a lobby research branch of Charles Schwab called the Washington Research Group to help protect his off shore business. "In 2008 he spent US$2.8 million through the lobbying firm Ben Barnes Group, according to records accessed through the Centre for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions and lobbying." That quote was from this site. His empire was massive and world wide with little Antigua being his main base of operations. He was knighted here and became Sir Allen......!
I didn't bank with Stanford and encouraged my immediate family not to either, so the banking situation was never a worry for me directly. What was always a worry was that this day when the US government finally (for whatever reason) decided to clamp down on his operation would come. As i am sure you have seen, Stanford and a few of his partners have been charged by the SEC with a massive 8 billion dollar fraud based on the allegation that he sold high yielding CD's that provide unsubstantiated returns. Whatever that all means i am not sure, but there has since been a run on his local bank and his off shore banks here, in the US, in Panama, in Colombia, and in Venezuela. For long I worried that the massive empire he grew here in Antigua would come crumbling down, and they have never been as shaky as they are today. Thankfully many of the local Stanford businesses mentioned above have closed down over the past few years and the ripple effect of what is happening now may not be as drastic had he been in control of it all now. What would have been worse would have been if he had been half way through tearing up the North Sound as were his plans. The Antigua general election is gonna be on March 12th and the opposition had been banking on Allen Stanford's money for their campaign as well as his massive $700+ million dollar development of the North Sound at Guiana Island. The ALP website is still talking about bringing the much anticipated Stanford projects online stimulating jobs and growth. Stanford's "I believe" campaign to develop the area came to a stop after a fight with the current PM last year. Since then he's been fairly quiet on that concept. Of course he was anything but quiet with his international Cricket 20 20 competitions. In fact he got plenty of bad press in the UK. I wrote about that in this blog here. Anyway, his development of Maiden Island stopped my regular Eco Tour stops there and only some of my first guests will remember us stopping every day there. I got tired of his personal security guards telling me to get off the island, and it made the tour look bad too. As mentioned in the end we stopped going there.
In fact this image is probably the last one of an official tour stop there some time back in 2003. 
Maiden was taken over by the Stanford Development Company around that time and it quickly became a construction project. 
He manipulated many by telling them he was helping repair damaged coral reefs while in reality he was dredging up healthy mangroves and delicate flats systems covered in coral species that live in turtle grass systems. 
I spoke quite a bit about that and included photos in an article i wrote back then. The papers here were not that interested in talking about that side of things back then. Here is the article i wrote that was only published in the end on my blog. These mangroves seen in this pic that i took before he took over maiden island lasted about a week and then were pushed down to make way for the landing craft carrying heavy machinery.
A place that i had visited all my life enjoying the incredible and complex ecosystems that it supported was very quickly turned into a construction project, and we were asked not to get off our boats whenever we got too close. My Eco Tour just picked a different spot to stop and the tour went on as normal, but this time with a little more info about Stanford and his dealings. I can't imagine anyone back then investing money into his banks after listening to my "rant" as one tourist described it on an internet forum. I may have talked too much back then, but i am sure that some people may have ended up saving money as a result. There are hundreds of stories that will surface about his dealings here locally and internationally and i am sure there are as many positive stories as their are negative ones. We here in Antigua were fortunate that he did many good things for our country and like many i was never really sure if having him here doing all that he did was better for the country or worse. There were many positive things created by him and I'm sure that although the immideate future of all his assets are up in the air, his footprint here will be around for some time. We don't even know where he is at this time, so there will be much more to this story.
At the moment there is a run still going on at his local bank and i think all the off shore accounts are frozen. I spent a few hours at the Airport branch of the Bank of Antigua today waiting to pick up a friend who was closing his account there. 
These images show people who had been waiting for hours and hours. My friend got there long before they opened at 8 am and didn't get his money until 1 PM. He was only able to get a fraction of his money in cash and the rest in the form of a draft. Businesses in Antigua have started telling customers that they will not accept Bank of Antigua checks. The implications are huge and i will try to keep you up to date with more. For now you can also goto www.caribarena.com. Forget trying to get info from Stanford's Paper. They had nothing about it today!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Dolphins in Antigua and Barbuda
Both Cruise Ship passengers and Hotel guests often want to know if they will see dolphins on one of our cruises. Many people ask if you can swim with dolphins in Antigua too. What i tell them is that seeing dolphins is very likely while on a cruise or while saying in Antigua. We have several types of dolphins cruising off Antigua, but thankfully we don't have any dolphin parks here anymore. You can read why i don't like Dolphin parks here or here. Anyway, swimming with dolphins happens several times a year on our tours and one group of guests who private chartered out of Jumby Bay have jumped in with dolphins on two different charters with us which i can tell you is very very rare. The chances of seeing them are way higher than being able to swim with them and the chances of doing it twice over two tours that you would take with us are extremely low.
Dolphins don't usually like to stick around for that long unless you are out in the deep Atlantic and are moving fairly quickly. When you stop they usually just swim off fairly quickly just like the humpback whales usually do here. There are those rare occasions when for whatever reason they are just super curious and want to check you out. What i find most amazing when this happens is how carefully they look at you. You see their heads move up and down or side to side as they examine your body and face. I remember being surprised the first time i was in the water with them how much their heads could move. You don't see a "neck" but they sure have them. In deeper waters where sometimes there are big schools of bait fish you can come across hundreds of dolphins at a time. I have seen massive pods of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins (read more) while out fishing. This old vid my brother took shows a calm day of fishing interrupted by a group of about 20 (it was about 5 miles from land and we were in about 1200 feet of water. I didn't feel like swimming far from the boat for good reasons which materialized after a while):
This little movie i made last night shows a bunch of still images I have taken over the past two years as well as some video I took while out fishing on a day off with JD and Tony:
Hope you enjoyed today's dolphin blog. Made me feel like going boating. This weekend looks good. It's been rough for the past two days. Yesterday was the first day in three months that we had to cancel a tour because of weather. Two cruise ships didn't even bother to come into port which is something i had never heard of before.
Monday, February 09, 2009
regular people for change in antigua
There is a meeting tomorrow night from 7 pm at the St. Anthony's school on the Blue Waters Main Road just down from North Shore corner. The purpose of the meeting will be to come up with ideas that we as individuals or as a group can turn into action that will help the youth of the nation. I strongly feel that many of our island's problems can be traced back to the misguided youth. Anyway there are many programs here in Antigua that were set up to help the youth. I heard over the weekend about the a group that was set up in Clair Hall. I think it was called HOPE or something like that. Maybe someone knows more about that. The Antigua Yacht Club and the Jolly Harbour Yacht Club both have youth sailing programs which aim to teach kids how to sail and eventually how to race. Anyway, you get the idea. Youth Skills (the site) is a government program which was set up to help kids learn skills like carpentry, masonry and other similar things. If you know of other programs here in Antigua please come to the meeting and share them. If you cant make the meeting but know of some programs here in Antigua let me know here. If you know of other good programs that exist outside of the country that would work well here to give the youth some direction please come to the meeting or speak about them here. Last night on CNN i was watching something about Hank Aaron's foundation. I tried to find out more online but didn't get a great site. This one was connected in some way and looks great. It should be a good place to search for ideas. That page was the mission statement but you can navigate around the site. Anyway, come to the meeting or let us know about existing programs that we as regular people here in Antigua can join and help.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Cutting lead again
Yesterday we cut nearly 1800 lbs of lead and loaded it into the back of my truck.
Actually my good friend Martin Dudley who has a tree trimming business here cut the lead this time with one of his chainsaws.
He also has purchased and refurbished a Carriacou Sloop down in the Grenadines. His will be here in time for the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta this year.
Anyway, if you follow this blog regularly then you will have seen this video of our second boat being built which was shot back in the summer.
It's still slowly being built and we are getting the lead ballast ready for her at the moment. We will have to sail the lead down to Carriacou soon. Off to cut and collect some more lead now from the 23 ton keel we have been salvaging.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
A beautiful Beach stop on the Xtreme Round Antigua Tour
For more info on this beautiful beach in Antigua go check our website www.adventureantigua.com and click on the Xtreme Tour. With a very fast boat you spend less time getting to a spot and more time enjoying it. There are five stops on this tour with Rendezvous Bay seen here being the last one and the best tour beach stop on Antigua by far.
Monday, February 02, 2009
RCL Serenade Cruise: Southern Caribbean video
Today i got an email from a friend who saw a youtube video done by some recent Eco Tour guests of ours. They were on a Royal Caribbean Line cruise from Puerto Rico through the Caribbean with stops in St. Thomas. St. Marteen (St. Martin), Antigua, St. Lucia and Barbados. The three part video done by "Bill" is like a proper travel show of a Caribbean cruise with great info on each island. I suggest you look at all of the videos if you are taking a cruise to these islands. The ship he was on was the Serenade of the Seas which is a lovely one and we get many passengers on our tours from that ship who book through our website.
Anyway, if you are only interested in the Antigua part go two thirds towards the end of Part one and then watch the first third of Part two. Either way it's something that will help you on your cruise to the Caribbean. Thanks Bill!
Here is part one:
and here is part two:
and part three:
Anyway, if you are only interested in the Antigua part go two thirds towards the end of Part one and then watch the first third of Part two. Either way it's something that will help you on your cruise to the Caribbean. Thanks Bill!
Here is part one:
and here is part two:
and part three:
Friday, January 30, 2009
Happy Cruise Ship Passengers
Read a lovely review that some of our recent sailing guests wrote on the Cruise Critic site. Here it is:
We just returned from a visit to Antigua last week. We too love snorkeling. We've heard lots of excellent reports from others re: Adventure Antigua eco-tours (Eli and company). We elected instead to try his Classic Sail tour. In a word -- outstanding! My wife had a less than good experience with a dive tour the previous day and was reluctant to go out. After motoring out to Cades Reef, we snorkeled. It was fabulous! Eli skippered the boat. His two crew, Jason and Serge were in the water with us (one other couple besides us) and kept an eye on things. The reef is offshore and is great. The boat is a traditional wooden boat built in island tradition. Heavy construction so it doesn't have the bobing motion of more modern sailboats. After reef, motor into a nice little harbor for lunch and more snorkeling. Then change location and more snorkeling. Then the sail for home. Yes, real sailing as in shut the motor off, put up the sails and go. Not as fast as a catamaran (9 knots surfing downwind) but a great solid sail back to the ship.Of all the tours (7) on last weeks cruise in the southern Caribbean, this is the one we'd do again (probably more than once even).
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Xtreme round the island.
JD called in sick today with a bad flu, so last minute i was on Xtreme with Chris and Serge. The winds had been blowing super hard all day and into the night and the seas were pretty rough. We had 18 people on board and we all had a nice time. Seems like Greedy Bob isn't there at Stingray city anymore and the rays are free to come and go as they please. Green Island was lovely as usual and the people on board got more sight seeing than normal when we passed alongside a large yacht that had several nude female crew members enjoying themselves. Needless to say my crew members were slightly thrown off :)
Despite all the doom and gloom withing the yachting industry, Nelson's Dockyard and Falmouth Harbour seemed to have plenty of yachts. Rendezvous Bay was rougher than normal and was crowded today with three people! They didn't seem to like clothes either. Anyway, it was a great day on the water and fun was had by all. Here is the old vid of the Xtreme tour done by Iain of http://www.acquafilms.com/ I love the music!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Antigua leaders involved in "Blood Money"
Once again the Japanese Government have succeeded in influencing our government, press and our people. Like in the past this manipulation comes in the form of (free $) fisheries grants. We have had several large fisheries plants designed and built by Japanese here in Antigua. With no proper study done on the type of fishing that would be sustainable and profitable these Japanese plants were quickly errected after feeding the politicians a pile of propaganda about how good they would be for the people of Antigua. Since the ones here in Antigua have been finished there has not been in increase in production. In fact our depleated fishery with it's terrible lack of funding for proper management has suffered as a result of these things. If a fraction of the money was spent on careful management then Antigua would be be better off. Ask our fisheried why the protected area within the NEMA have not been protected. Simply because they don't have the money to get it done. Meanwhile Japan calls the shots and tells our leaders simply that the construction of these plants will help the fishermen. People rent stoor rooms in the fisheries plant at Urlings to stoor household items and little boats tie up there to do the same type of non sustainable fishing that they have been doing for generations. There is no fish exported properly from there. Gill nets still are set in the reefs and in the mangrove habitats, fish traps are dumped wherever the fishemen want with no proper monitering of their movements. "Protected areas" are not protected and generally our fishery suffers. The areas where sustainable fishing is possible are not promoted to our fishermen and at the end of the day the only people winning are the Japanese. Why are they winning?
All of the support Japan gives to Antigua financially and otherwise is purely done to buy our country's vote on international whaling at the IWC. The IWC (international whaling convention) was set up as an international body to regulate international whaling (whale killing). Antigua was always against the killing of whales until the Japanese government started giving the Government millions of dollars for its vote. Tens of millions of US dollars (over 50 million) have been given to Antigua's governments (both ALP and UPP) in the forms of fisheries related "grants". I wasn't able to dig up clear stats but you can read more from their site here. And more here. Some of that official info is a total fabrication too in order to fool their own people. The Japanese government has also been involved with a propaganda war using the media both printed, web and televised to almost brain wash the people of these islands. You sometimes see full page ads where they speak about whales killing the fish that local people make money from. PURE BS! I hate seeing educated people (nations in this case) manipulate people because of their lack of education. They always use the arguement that we have to protect the right of our people to use their fisheries how they see fit. I agree with that notion, but my idea is based on facts and not on profit making manipulation. Education is the key like in most cases i guess.
Most Antiguans don't know much about any of this in the same way that most don't know we have whales passing through our waters each year. Propaganda is a tried and true way of fooling uneducated people. Speaking of Japanese propaganda check this site. To really learn why it is crazy that our leaders talk about being "Green" and speak about sustainable development and sustainable fishing check this very interesting article that tries to put some of these issues into perspective. One of groups they speak about out there trying to stop the Japanese slaughter of whales is Sea Shepherd. Two people here in Antigua that i know very well worked on that boat. It's very upsetting to know that our government is out there taking money from Japan so that they can kill more whales. I think we should send money (if we have a bit extra) to that mad man on Sea Shepherd to counter the efforts of our Government. Don't get me wrong I do think Sea Shepherd is a crazy organization, but I am glad that there is such a bunch of crazies out there taking photos and videos of this dark and horrific practice of whale slaughter. I'm also glad that the Animal Planet network is doing the terrible things the Japanese Government says its doing by showing Whale Wars on TV. It's a shame that Greenpeace pulled out this year. 
Dominica took the bold stance recently to abstain from voting at the IWC in what appeared to be a change in their policy which had been one of accepting Japanese money to vote with them. Some call that practice taking blood money some call it taking bribes. Call it what you want. Dominca didn't want to take part anymore. They after all are called the "nature island" and do many whale watching tours. The images below were taken by me here in Antigua. How can we be involved in tourism and be helping Japan to kill whales at the same time?
Our leaders (now the UPP government) like the photo ops and the record of "development" and don't think like the Dominicans. Yesterday Japanese leaders here met with ours for a back slapping photo op where they spoke about the new "mega fisheries complex" to be built in Barbuda. The media reported it but never mentioned anything about whales or our support for the Japanese hunt for whales...... the same whales we see here in Antigua. Sometimes i get so frustrated at how easily our press is manipulated in the same manner at the political leaders and in turn our people. To me, this article is so sad because it isn't even slightly balanced. I guess it helps when the person writing it is employed by the Government and works in the Ministy of Agriculture. To me the article is propaganda, and f you think so too then please comment there. I don't know if it will influence many readers but it's worth a try.
Our leaders (now the UPP government) like the photo ops and the record of "development" and don't think like the Dominicans. Yesterday Japanese leaders here met with ours for a back slapping photo op where they spoke about the new "mega fisheries complex" to be built in Barbuda. The media reported it but never mentioned anything about whales or our support for the Japanese hunt for whales...... the same whales we see here in Antigua. Sometimes i get so frustrated at how easily our press is manipulated in the same manner at the political leaders and in turn our people. To me, this article is so sad because it isn't even slightly balanced. I guess it helps when the person writing it is employed by the Government and works in the Ministy of Agriculture. To me the article is propaganda, and f you think so too then please comment there. I don't know if it will influence many readers but it's worth a try. Monday, January 26, 2009
Letters and comments of support for Adventure Antigua
The reason I wrote the blog entry before this one was to try to show some concerned cruise passengers what it was that we offer. The post has helped some people understand more clearly what happens on the Eco Tour. Anyway, I don't want to assume that it is impossible for someone to have a bad experience on any of our tours as i know anything is possible on any given day. What i pledge to my customers and to the prospective ones is that what sets Adventure Antigua apart from the rest is that we aim to treat our guest like old friends or long lost family. You are not just another number when you are with us. We never have signed a contract with a cruise director and every single cruise ship passenger we have taken out has come to us through our website. Most of them got to our site after reading customer reviews on Tripadvisor, Cruise Critic, or from the Antigua Forum. All my crew know this and know very well that doing a good job is the key to our survival. There are many tours who get passengers because they have contracts with the ships and whatever happens on the tour that day the ship will send them guests the next week. We don't operate like this and this totally unusual bad review hurt us not just in terms of people cancelling but it upset my crew and upset me. We hate (that extreme word) hearing that people didn't enjoy themselves. It makes Tony and JD sulk and depressed when i tell them. We have talked about the review and have discussed ways to make our tour even better. Thanks to the person who sent it in and thanks even more to all the people who have emailed us with support and posted on the forums. This especially nice one came in today:
Hi Eli, I hope you are well. I was astounded by the recent problems you've had with comments made by some cruise ship clients - I thought the email you sent was very restrained and hopefully should avoid you losing any more business. But the PM is really to voice support for your company. We (Tracey & I) took one of your trips back in 1999 when we first visited the island (with Sunsail). (A few years after that first visit we bought on the south finger, overlooking the marina channel.) We took that first tour based on the recommendation of Sunsail and other guests - it was brilliant and far exceeded our expectations. Since then we have been on many of your trips - both Eco and xTreme and have never been other than pleased - you and your staff are always warm, friendly, well informed and very considerate of the needs and expectations of your clients. Even though we've gone on trips a second (or more!) time we always seem to find out something new! We have recommended your trips to family and friends of all ages and they have always been very pleased they took our advice. In fact in all the years since we took that first trip we have never ever heard anything other than praise about you or your company. I think you were very unfortunate with those cruise ship clients - they seem to be in the minority that doesn’t want what you’re delivering. So hang on in there you're all doing a great job! We would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending your trips and you are free to publish/post any or all of the above. Kind regards Anton & Tracey Szklarek
Hi Eli, I hope you are well. I was astounded by the recent problems you've had with comments made by some cruise ship clients - I thought the email you sent was very restrained and hopefully should avoid you losing any more business. But the PM is really to voice support for your company. We (Tracey & I) took one of your trips back in 1999 when we first visited the island (with Sunsail). (A few years after that first visit we bought on the south finger, overlooking the marina channel.) We took that first tour based on the recommendation of Sunsail and other guests - it was brilliant and far exceeded our expectations. Since then we have been on many of your trips - both Eco and xTreme and have never been other than pleased - you and your staff are always warm, friendly, well informed and very considerate of the needs and expectations of your clients. Even though we've gone on trips a second (or more!) time we always seem to find out something new! We have recommended your trips to family and friends of all ages and they have always been very pleased they took our advice. In fact in all the years since we took that first trip we have never ever heard anything other than praise about you or your company. I think you were very unfortunate with those cruise ship clients - they seem to be in the minority that doesn’t want what you’re delivering. So hang on in there you're all doing a great job! We would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending your trips and you are free to publish/post any or all of the above. Kind regards Anton & Tracey Szklarek
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Cruise Passenger assurance package....
Instead of worrying about the financial meltdown or the crime situation in Antigua and the Caribbean, we at Adventure Antigua are worrying today about the fallout from a very harsh review of the Eco Tour on Cruise Critic. I guess on my blog tomorrow I will deal with stuff that went down in Falmouth. Anyway, we have offered the guests below a complete refund but that won't help us out much. Here is the review that is hurting our business today:
Okay I'm going to be real honest here because your husband seems to have some concerns. Everyone raves about Eli's tours because if it's what you're looking for it's great. We were on the tour with several families with teenagers and many people hated it, especially the kids. I enjoyed the tour, but my husband absolutely hated it except for Hell's Gate which is awesome by anybody's standards. Our problem was we were on a boat surrounded by the most gorgeous clear water you could ever imagine and we couldn't get in it! It was over 3 hours from the time we left dock until we were able to get off the boat and swim. These 3 hours were spent hearing about every luxury hotel on the island, the famous guests that stayed there etc. For some people, this is important but we could care less and we wanted to snorkel or hike or something!
We did get to see some neat things-a mangrove area with interesting things in the water and an island where many pelicans where nesting in the trees. The babies were sticking their heads out of the nests which was really cute. Hell's Gate was great fun too. The second snorkel spot was incredibly rough because it was later in the day and the waves were whipping up so don't plan the tour based on snorkeling.
On the positive side, the guys on the boat were nice and worked hard. The lunch was also good. If you're someone wanting to basically sit on a boat most of the time or take a walk up Great Bird Island then this is a great tour. If you're leaning toward a more active tour you may want to look at his extreme tour which is more expensive.
I would love to do this tour again if they skipped all the hotel lectures which basically took up the first 2 hours or so of the tour. I would've liked to have had more time at Hell's Gate and done the snorkeling first instead of last when the waves were so rough.
Here are a few photos of the tour:
http://www.familytravelfun.com/antiguapicture.html
And of Hell's Gate:
http://www.familytravelfun.com/hellsgatephoto.html
Okay I'm going to be real honest here because your husband seems to have some concerns. Everyone raves about Eli's tours because if it's what you're looking for it's great. We were on the tour with several families with teenagers and many people hated it, especially the kids. I enjoyed the tour, but my husband absolutely hated it except for Hell's Gate which is awesome by anybody's standards. Our problem was we were on a boat surrounded by the most gorgeous clear water you could ever imagine and we couldn't get in it! It was over 3 hours from the time we left dock until we were able to get off the boat and swim. These 3 hours were spent hearing about every luxury hotel on the island, the famous guests that stayed there etc. For some people, this is important but we could care less and we wanted to snorkel or hike or something!
We did get to see some neat things-a mangrove area with interesting things in the water and an island where many pelicans where nesting in the trees. The babies were sticking their heads out of the nests which was really cute. Hell's Gate was great fun too. The second snorkel spot was incredibly rough because it was later in the day and the waves were whipping up so don't plan the tour based on snorkeling.
On the positive side, the guys on the boat were nice and worked hard. The lunch was also good. If you're someone wanting to basically sit on a boat most of the time or take a walk up Great Bird Island then this is a great tour. If you're leaning toward a more active tour you may want to look at his extreme tour which is more expensive.
I would love to do this tour again if they skipped all the hotel lectures which basically took up the first 2 hours or so of the tour. I would've liked to have had more time at Hell's Gate and done the snorkeling first instead of last when the waves were so rough.
Here are a few photos of the tour:
http://www.familytravelfun.com/antiguapicture.html
And of Hell's Gate:
http://www.familytravelfun.com/hellsgatephoto.html
Almost immideately after that review appeared on Cruise Critic we have had people cancel their trips and more have emailed their concerns. One such email is here:
Hello Nell,
We are a group of 7 people booked on Friday February 6. The email you sent us describing your tour is very different from the thread on cruise critic, http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=910813
They said they spent time collecting other people and it was 3 hours riding around before they were able to swim.
You told us in your email: “After we collect you from the ships dock, you would spend about one hour doing the tour and talk of Long20Island, Maiden Island, Guiana Island and then you head to Bird Island where you get off the boat and do a short walk/hike up to the top of the island, where the views are absolutely stunning of both the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea and your guide will be pointing interesting things out to you on the way. When you come back from the hike, which lasts from start to finish about 35mins, there is a short snorkeling lesson to those persons that are not up to date with their snorkeling.
So how exactly will our tour be run? We like to snorkel and hike. On the way to these places we would enjoy hearing about flora and fauna. We signed up for the tour as you described it. If it is more like this participant’s description, we do not want it. We are an active group and thought we were choosing an active, intellectual tour, not a laid-back “cruise.”
Please let us know the itinerary and timeframes of the tour, which is what I asked you for in my first email to you. I will discuss it with the others in my group (we booked individually).
Thank you,
%$#@@ #$$^^@
Here is my email reply:
Louise, the review was warped and damaging in its misleading and untrue descriptions. We collect passengers at the cruise ship dock at minutes to 10 am. At the very latest (even if we do have to pick up any other guests, which sometimes happens), we will be stopped for drinks at Long Island (Jumby Bay) by 11:15 am. Here (since it's an eco tour) we speak about the ecological aspects of the island including the turtles, reef, flats... etc.
Then, as we pass the interesting Maiden Island we speak about its ecology and history, then we’re off to Guiana Island’s mangroves to speak about the habitats and history there Following our exploration of the mangroves, we cruise through the myriad other islands pointing out anything of interest as we pass and arriving at Great Bird Island at noon or very shortly after. This is where we get off the boat to do the nature walk. That wasn't and will never be 3 hours. 10 until 12 in my book is two hours of sight-seeing and education which are some of the things that have made our Eco Tour the #1 selling tour on Antigua. After the nature walk or "hike" as some call it, we come back down to the shore where people are encouraged to take part in the snorkeling lessons. That's probably at about 12:30-12:45 pm. Those who don't want to take part sit on the boat and have drinks, swim, snorkel from the boat, chill on the beach or explore the island some more. This only takes 15-20 minutes. Then we are back on the boat to have lunch. At 1:50 pm, after lunch, we do the short trip to Hells Gate where at 2 pm there are 5 choices every day as follows:
1) Go snorkeling with a guide
2) Go and chill in the "jacuzzi" (tidal pool) at hells gate
3) Follow the guide into the caves of Hells Gate
4) Swim around the boat
5) Chill on the boat.
For 8 years those have been the choices at 2 pm on the Eco tour. Many have their mind so set on checking the caves that they don’t hear the skipper’s instructions about the other things but they are read out every time at 2 pm.
At 2:30 pm we shoot back over to Welch Rock for the final guided snorkeling. Here you have two choices: snorkel with the guides or stay on the boat. Most of the time it is calm there but we haven't figured out how to control the weather and occasionally it can be choppy in Antigua. The review made it sound as if it is rough in Antigua every afternoon and we punish our guests by only snorkeling in the rough afternoons. So strange! Anyway, after a good 30 to 40 mins of snorkeling (if you get in the water with the guides instead of taking a while to get in the water) then we pull the anchor and start heading back into the ship area in St. Johns where we get in at the very latest at 4:15 pm. On the way back there is no stopping for turtles dolphins or other points of interest. We just cruise straight back enjoying traditional rum punch and other drinks.
Our tour is very rigidly structured according to this timeline because we have to fit everything in and be back at the cruise ship dock for 4:15 pm. We have never been late and we try to do it without ever appearing to be in a rush. As I said earlier, this tour is #1 for a reason and we are not going to change much. The vast majority of people love this tour because it has a good mix of both ecological and historical info mixed with the usual suspects like snorkeling, swimming, beaching and sight-seeing. There are some people who couldn't give a dam about the turtle nesting season or about the US Army base stationed here during World War 2. Some people just want to snorkel and nothing else, some people just want to sit on a beach and nothing else, some people don't hear enough about the mangrove habitat, some people don't get to drink enough booze since we only serve alcohol on the way home, some people would like to hear music (we don't usually play any at all). We aim to please everyone who comes out with us and I personally think we do an excellent job of accomplishing that goal. It is never a 100% and there are some people who are not happy. Those people who "hated" it recently were the first I have heard of since I started running the tour.
I am sorry if I sound upset, but I have to admit that I am slightly annoyed with the review. I had a feeling we would be getting emails like yours, and I hope you have a better idea now of what to expect. Please email this to the other people in your party or to anyone else who is concerned. Thanks again for booking with us and for taking the time to email us instead of cancelling, Eli.
If anyone out there is worried about their booked tour. Please email me on elifuller @ hotmail. com or call me on +1 268 725 7263. I am available most of the time to speak about Antigua and my company and assure you that you will not "hate" the eco tour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)