Sugar Part 1

A bit of history for you today..........

Antigua, named and claimed by the Spanish, was actually inhabited periodically by amerindian people from about 2000 BC up until shortly before the Spanish arrived. Although the Spanish claimed ownership of the island, they never made any settlement whatsoever and it wasn't until nearly 150 years later that the British finally settled here. One of the things that steered the European people away from settling here was the fact that we had no streams, rivers or springs, and for a colony to prosper, a healthy supply of water was needed.
The islands nearby didn't have that problem and between 1500 and 1650 many of them became colonized by French, Dutch and even the British for various agricultural and mineral uses. Without the trade Caribbean in sugar, cotton and tobacco many wealthy countries today would not be considered "first world". Of course with the immense wealth that was being generated here from the Caribbean, there were disputes over various settlements, islands and trading routes as well and they all had to be protected. Port Royal in Jamaica, which was the main British Naval base, was too far from these Eastern Caribbean islands and their trading routes back in the mid 17th century, and the British needed somewhere closer in order to base their fleet. Antigua and its famous protected "hurricane holes" on the south of Antigua became very attractive to the Brits and the Nelson's Dockyard as it is known today replaced Port Royal as the main British naval base for the eastern side of British West Inides.
With a strong naval base, colonists felt secure enough to try agriculture, and with the introduction of African slaves to the area round about the same time the colony quickly grew to catch up St. Kitts and Barbados. Sugar was at the time becoming a drug like addiction in all of Europe and Britain was no different. Antigua's semi-dry climate seemed to work well for sugar cane, and large areas of land were cleared for plantations. Each plantation would have one or more wind mills. We'll speak more about sugar tomorrow.

Say hi to Junior

Junior has been working with us since just before Christmas and has proven to be a great guy on the boat. Junior's real name is way to long to repeat or even write down, so i wll just say that you should ask him to tell you what it is if you see him on one of the tours. He works on either boat depending on the day and seems to manage both very well. His roots are in antigua, but he's been living abroad since he was a little kid. Fist he lived in the USA and then he moved to the UK where he's been until recently. I didn't know him before but have known his brother "Blackie" for years and years from Dickenson Bay and The Beach. Blackie approached us to see if we needed any more crew around about the time that we were saying goodbye to Adam and Leslie, so it worked out well. Junior is a mild mannered young man who's passion seems to be reading, modeling, singing and school. He has two degrees too!

Anyway, he's working with us for the near future saving money to put towards fixing up a property he inherited in St. Johns. He's focussed and friendly and i think he will do well in life.

My other crew tease him a bit (as is the norm with our guys after work) about his posh accent which is a bit funny to hear coming from an Antiguan. Anyway, this is a pic taken by Lizzie who was on the boar for a 65th birthday party charter for her friend Anne Philpott with Louis, JD and Junior. I will speak about Louis soon in another blog entry, but say hi to Junior if you are on a tour with him. Ask him about his singing too. lol he he he

Saw my first whales for the season.

Yes, i saw whales yesterday for the first time this season on the way back up from St. Martin. I had been asked to fly down to St. Martin to collect a small boat for one of my Mechanics. Marine Power Services has done many favors for me over the past few years and collecting a boat for them wasn't a problem for me. According to Windguru the winds were forecast to be light and therefore the seas would be calm too. I was up for a little adventure anyway and the trip sounded like a some fun. I have sailed and powered from there to Antigua many times and the 100 miles can be pretty tough in bad weather, so i wanted to make sure that we had calm seas.
I called Liat "the caribbean airline" to check on flights and they had space on their 4:30 flight on Saturday. By chance on Saturday morning i spoke with the owner of Caribbean Real Estate who told me that he was on his way to St. Martin at mid day and had space for me if i wanted. Cool....a free flight in a nice place. Tomas Miller who is the son of the MPS owners came along with me and we ended up leaving Antigua at about one pm on the Caribbean Real Estate plane bound for St. Martin. The weather was amazing and as we took off from Antigua we could see Barbuda off to the North, Guadeloupe way in the South, Montserrat in the South West, St. Kitts and Nevis to the West. Antigua and its waters looked so beautiful in this perfect clear weather and the 45 minute flight down to St. Martin was lovely. We went straight to the massive marina where the boat was being kept. It was actually a tender (dinghy) for a huge yacht called Midlandia and was a little old looking for them. At about 20 feet long with no shade the trip back to Antigua wasn't going to be totally easy but as long as we had good weather it was doable. We asked on of Midlandia's crew what range the tender had and astonishingly they didn't know. These tenders are just topped up every day and they don't care about how much fuel they burn. This wasn't good because we needed to be sure that we had enough fuel. We spoke to the first mate who said that he thought we would need about 80 gallons of fuel which i thought was considerably more than enough. Off we went to buy supplies which included life jackets, a flare, 6 five gallon fuel cans and other bits and pieces. I also had brought along my EPIRB which my brother and i used on our Xtreme trip from Miami to Antigua.
We decided to leave the next morning (Sunday), and to go have a nice dinner and enjoy the famous St. Martin nightlife first. Anyway, Sunday morning came and we painfully got ready to take off on our 100 mile trip into the sea back to Antigua. As we collected the boat we realized that we had made a miscalculation on our fuel. All the fuel estimation had been done in liters and we should have purchased another two 5 gallon cans to make the total fuel on board 80 gallons. All the stores were not shut and we couldn't get more fuel. I made a few calls to Antigua before we set off and planned to stop in at Gustavia, St. Barts which was 14 miles up from where we started at Simpson Bay, St. Martin. We could then use the fuel cans to refuel the main tanks which would give us and exact fuel flow consumption rate. We did this and calculated as i had expected that we would have enough to do about 130 miles....enough fuel.
The trip was fairly easy with a few bumps here and there which made us limit our speed to between 15 and 20 knots. On the way we stopped several times to top up the main tanks just to make sure that our consumption was steady and accurate. About 60 miles up we ran into a massive school of frenzied feeding tuna. We could see a tennis court patch the water turn white with frantic splashing and tunas jumping through tiny bait fish. A few miles after that i saw some humpback whales spouting as exhaled on the surface. It was the first time i had seen them for the year and i have been anticipating seeing them. Always a nice feeling to see them back here. Almost all the way up we had countless numbers of flying fish leaping out of the dark blue water and gliding away from us. As the sun set the silver, dark green and blue colours on these amazing fish lit up as they glided off to our sides.

About 30 miles off Antigua, the island came into view and another ten miles later as i was looking back at Nevis in the setting sun, i saw a whale breach. I told Tom too keep and eye out and immediately we saw the baby try to breach too. The mom jumped several more times in the distance as we zoomed past. We didn't have time to stop as i knew we would be getting in just as it got dark. Antigua's coastline was so beautiful at sunset and even though we had been on land at lunchtime it was nice to get into port safe and sound. If you are coming to Antigua before May, then you will have to keep an eye out for the humpbacks which will be in these waters until then. These three photos were all taken in 2006 but will give you an idea of what i am speaking about. Enjoy!

amazing weather!!!!

Over the past two months we had to cancel two Xtreme tours and one Eco because of bad weather. January and Feb can have some very difficult weather with typically strong winds. It’s been a little less windy than normal so far and the past few days have actually been totally perfect for boating. I did the Xtreme tour yesterday almost without any pain to my bad knee so you know it was calm! We saw two dolphins in the morning on our way to St. Johns but still haven't seen any whales.

The humpbacks are here passing through with their calves and we should see them any minute. Caribbean Helicopters saw some a few weeks ago. Anyway, today is even calmer and sunnier than yesterday and it doesn't feel like Feb at all. The kitesurfers who are on the island are not happy since the winds are soo light but the fishermen are all delighted. My dad is off today to go and catch mahi mahi as soo many seem to be around at the moment. My skipper JD is also going out on his little boat to go catch some and i am gonna call him in a few hours to order some for dinner:)
I have been asked to go and collect a boat for Marine Power Services from St. Martin and will probably fly down at 4:30 today. The weather is perfect for that and the 100 mile run into the waves shouldn't be too bad. The boat is fairly small at just over 20 feet long, but it’s a pretty big boat for its size with inboard engines and jet propulsion. I took my EPIRB out of Xtreme just in case we have any problems. It is a single engine boat. Anyway, i know that many of you reading this post are sitting inside wishing that you could even think about being in the sunshine as you walked outside, and i hope i am not making you feel miserable. Winter will be over before you know it. I just was on MSN with my sister, Fran, who is in "uni" in the UK, and she said the weather was something called "shite"......I guess that's not good! Here are a few pics from yesterday’s tour and one of me taking my dogs for a walk (jump) on Thursday........Expect an account of our trip to collect this boat coming soon. Have a good weekend.

a little help goes a long way.

Everyone knows that we have been through a difficult time recently with problems on the boats and soo many people have offered help and words of encouragement. I expressed on this blog how desperately hard Tony had worked to get us ship shape in time for scheduled tours and he wasn't alone. One of our young new guys who just started working with us is Louis and I will write bit about him here soon. Anyway, he's into his cars and bikes and owns a quad bike which has had extra engine work done to make it faster I guess. Anyway, he helped Tony quite a bit over the past month and deserves a pat on the back too. It’s good to have people who understand how our equipment works.

I already mentioned how much we spend in terms of labor and parts, and obviously the people at the big mechanic shops have been paid well too. However, they have always gone the extra mile with Adventure Antigua. Companies like Antigua Marine Services (tom), Marine Power Services (the millers) out in English Harbour, and A-1 Marine (Carl, Joel, and glen) in Jolly Harbour all have stopped what they were doing to assist us during emergencies. They have each done favors for us too with Carl and glen at A-1 being soooooo generous.....thanks!!!!

What people from the "civilized" world don't realize is that doing business here is even more difficult because of shipping times and shipping mistakes. We always have problems getting parts. Sometimes they send the wrong parts, sometimes they don't send enough parts, sometimes they say "parts are on order". We can't just run down to the nearest store because we don't have them here on this tiny island. I will give you one of a million examples I have on this topic. Tom from AMS ordered a new "steering helm" which is the main mechanics of the steering wheel side of our steering system. He specifically asked in his email for a 90 degree helm and of course after paying for FEDEX to send it to us.....we get a 45 degree steering helm!!!! Now we need this thing badly so like in all "third world" countries where we cant just change the wrong part.....we modified and fabricated it. These islands and other under-developed countries have some of the best machine shops on the planet. I am sure you must have heard about Cuba’s 1950s cars right? When things break here we try to fix them before we just run out and buy new..as this usually isn't an option. Anyway, when we got this 45 degree helm station I knew we had no choice but to take it to the guys in jolly harbour. We needed to modify one part and completely make another. Woodwork and welding were going to be needed, and Jolly Harbour has the best of both. The photos today are of George from Jolly Harbour woodworks and Glen of A-1 Marine. Glen is actually welding a water tank for another boat just after he cut and welded the steering bracket to the proper size and angle that I needed, and George is making from scratch a new steering base. Both of these modifications ended up being stronger and better than if I had gotten them new even if they did take more time and effort. Both of these guys, by the way, were working on other jobs before they picked up my emergency project.

Anyway, that was Saturday and all went well the past few days on the boat until this morning when I was in jolly harbour about to set off Francis, Tony and Louis on the eco boat. They had a full boat of guests to go and collect and when Tony turned over the port engine we knew we had a problem. The starting motor was stuck!!!! Well we had to laugh because this just takes the cake......new engines shouldn’t have these problems!!!! Anyway, I was on the phone to Nell in seconds while Tony quickly, like a formula 1 mechanic...took off the starter. Nell was already picking up the spare starter from Tom and was on her way into St. Johns to meet the boat by the time the boat left jolly harbour. Tony and crew were quickly on their way into town on one engine to meet her and the main core of our guests....They ended up being twenty minutes late to pick up the guests with the spare starter. Within 5 minutes they were back up and running properly on the two engines going a little faster than normal to make up the time. pfffhheeww!

I guess its all about teamwork here with our associates, our family and crew and we all have one goal at the end of the day which is to make sure your day in Antigua is the best it possibly can be. We want you happy no matter what it takes.

kitesurfing

well if i am to be true to this part of my blog's description: "This is a blog set up by Eli Fuller (me) to help the company keep up with the times and to promote our little country to prospective guests.", then i must write about things that have nothing to do with Adventure Antigua as well.
Kitesurfing or kiteboarding is an interesting "extreme" sport that kinda is a fusion between traction-kite flying, windsurfing, surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding and any other sport that you ride a board. It really is kinda unique though, and has been getting quite popular over the past 10 years or so.
Steve Gray, who worked at Caribbean Helicopters as a pilot was the first person kitesurfing here using one of the early designs. It was pretty difficult to use but he managed to make it look cool. I was coming to the end of my professional windsurfing career and after my last big race, actually traded three of my sails for 2 big kites and a board. I kinda taught myself and in no time, i was teaching others this cool new sport. A few years later i taught Andre Phillip, who was one of the younger pro windsurfers from Antigua. He had been doing windsurfing competitions in the Caribbean and i knew he would pick up kitesurfing very quickly. Anyway, sure enough within two years he was ranked in the top 5 on the Professional Kitesurfing World Tour doing well in competitions all over the world. Andre, has been featured in dozens and dozens of magazines, internet articles and even sport TV shows. He is still one of the main figureheads in the sport of kitesurfing. Most Antiguans don't know about his fame out of Antigua, but he has given Antigua incredible recognition in areas where it would have been missed before. He spends about 1/3 of the year here in Antigua and the rest of the time traveling all over the world's best destinations for kitesurfing. What a lucky guy huh? Anyway, these photos i took on Saturday and today at Jabbawock which is on Antigua's North shore just below the islands of the North Sound which is where we do the Eco Tour. I hope you enjoy the pics, and pass by if you have a car for the day. there is usually good kitesurfing action at that beach. The first shot above is of Stevie, who also grew up with us windsurfing and fishing and now kitesurfing. He's a chef. The ones below are of Andre a.k.a. DRE. and the very last is of an old fart called Eli way back in the old days
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Francis is back

Francis Gobinet grew up fishing, snorkeling, boating and windsurfing in the North Sound just like i did. I first saw him jumping out of his dad's little boat on the beach where i live about 15 years ago. He was about 9 then i think. Anyway, from day one he has been full of action and personality. I took him to a windsurfing competition in the British Virgin Islands way back when he was 12 years old, and he did very well. We actually sailed down from Antigua on a yacht and as he was at home on the boat as he is today. Some of us just like being at sea more than on land. Anyway, years later after i had started my company, Adventure Antigua, he worked with me on my Scarab doing the "north sound eco-historical tour". He stayed with me long enough to gain enough experience to set off onto the big yachts which base themselves here each winter. Off he went to Europe working as crew on million dollar yachts and gaining not only experience but also "yacht master" certificates as well. On paper, he is now the most qualified member of Adventure Antigua and will be working with Tony on the Eco Tour for the season. When the big yachts leave Antigua at the end of the season in April, Francis will leave us to do more sailing with the big boys. By then, i hope, Tony will have enough coaching and experience to become a full time skipper on the Eco boat. Wish them both luck if you see them. The top photo is of Francis posing during a photo shoot recently. FUNNY! I am not sure who took the pic. The other photo is of the kind of yachts Francis works on in the summer.

blogging aint easy.....

Up until my last blog entry, I was managing to quite regularly write a few lines about my company and life in Antigua, but then as you can see I stopped.
I find that when trying to do anything "creative", I must be relaxed and in a positive mood, and over the past few weeks I haven’t been there. As you would have seen if you had been keeping up with the blog, boat troubles were taking their toll on the company, the crew and on me. After the 15th the problems didn't stop. Although we didn't have to cancel any tours, we did have to use the Xtreme boat a few times to do Eco tours. We also spent long hours after work on several days getting the eco boat ready for the next morning. We left there after midnight one day, and that was after doing a tour that day as well. Tony worked far too many hours over the past month, and I am grateful for the dedication and calmness which he showed when dealing with all the problems. Several eco-tours came back on one engine, and the crew that we have did a great job of making sure everyone was back on time. Actually I think many of the guests didn't even know that we were running on one engine. Our philosophy is "the show must go on" and more important than anything else is the dedication to making sure that our guests have a great time. I think from the reviews I have seen on the various forums that we accomplished this even in these difficult times.
Altogether I have probably had to fork out about US $18,000 in parts and labor and I still have more work to be done. For both boats we keep spare engines, and I have 2 extra ones for Xtreme and one for Arawak Odyssey (the eco boat). All three have been used and abused to get the boats up and running at 100%, so now they have to be fixed back up in order to be on standby for the next round of problems. And that is the thing that anyone in this business has to be prepared for and to accept. Problems on boats are as sure a thing as getting wet when you go snorkeling. Not everyone likes getting wet but you have to accept it and are prepared to deal with it. If you keep on swimming you won't feel the cold brought on by the wetness. "Keep on swimming" wasn’t that from "Finding Nemo"....I love that movie. It’s a prerequisite for my tours you know.
Anyways.......we are in the keep on swimming mode here at Adventure Antigua and there are some exciting new changes that I will mention in the coming days. I am going to have fun with this blog again and hopefully you can too. Since I haven't been posing lately...here are a few pics for ya.
(The first one at the top is of some friends on the front of the eco boat who came with us to give the engines a proper test when we had finally finished all our work last Saturday)
(The one below is of us running the boat hard to make sure she was 100%, and the last one I took while doing the Eco tour on the Xtreme boat. It was the first time I had done the eco tour in ages, and I enjoyed it.)

Eco Tour on for tomorrow.....

Well after working about 40 hours over the past three days, Tony just called me to say that the Arawak Odyssey is up and running again. On saturday we took managed to change the bad engine with our spare, but we had troubles Sunday afternoon last nite getting it running well. We left last nite at about 8 pm with plans to get at it early today. It hadn't been started in quite a while and the "injectors" on several of the cylinders were malfuctioning. Anyway, all day tony and a young mechanic called Joel worked in order to change injectors and then to change the power steering pump which had also failed while sitting for a year. Anyway, she seems to be running well at the moment and tomorrow the repairs of the engine we pulled out begin.....
They say boats are "holes in the ocean you throw money into" and i think they are totally correct with that one. Anyway, this has been a very costly few weeks with three mechanical failures, and i hope its over for the moment.
None of my equipment is old which is the crazy thing......people keep saying "i can't believe you have had these problems".....I guess i just havent been lucky with my engines. Oh well.....its over now!!!!!! All smooth sailing (powering) from now on. This photo is of Tony, the hero this weekend, doing what he loves best. In fact, its what we both love.....being on the water at sunset fishing for dinner.

trouble better only come in threes!

Well as i have already blogged, i had one of Xtreme's engines fail, and one of the Eco's propulsion system fail.....we got those problems fixed in a day each and were "back on the road again". A friend told me after the last problem that bad things come in threes. Jeez did she have to say that?!!!?? They call that "goat mouthing" here. Anyway, sure enough problem #3 came running along at 20+ MPH on Friday afternoon. JD, Junior, and Trevor were doing the Eco Tour and Tony, Francis and I were fixing our Pillars of Hercules mooring.

Tony had been doing some maintenance on Xtreme during the morning and in the afternoon we went off in Xtreme to fix the Pillars mooring which was getting a bit worn. We finished doing that quickly and decided to do a bit of exploring. I will save that for another blog tomorrow or something. Anyway, i get "the phone call" from JD just before sunset. When something is wrong JD has a pretty unique tone and i knew immediately that it wasn't good. He said he had just finished the tour and was coming into Jolly Harbour when he noticed some white smoke coming out of the exhaust. This has happened before and is never a good sign!!!

The last time it was a crack in the "exhaust manifold" which caused coolant to seep into and run through the exhaust system.

Tony went down early on Saturday morning and noticed that the oil dipstick had water beads on it! Great....even worse!

Essentially there was only one option in order to get up and running for the next trip which is scheduled for Monday: get the spare engine set up and replace the leaking one with it. Its easer and faster this way....kinda like what we did recently with the Xtreme's yamaha engine. All day yesterday, Tony spent his time disconnecting the bad engine which is a tough job, and in the afternoon we positioned the boat on the sea wall in the marina in order to have it pulled out. Tom from AMS sent one of his guys with a crane and in the rain, we pulled the bad one out....and put the rebuilt spare engine in. That took about 3 hours and was pretty nasty....we have done this quite a few times now but this was particularly difficult for some reason this time. Anyway, Tony has been down there at the boat all morning hooking this spare up and i am gonna go down to see if we can get it started now. It has about 8K worth of new parts and a new paint job so it looks great, but it hasn't been started in about 8 months so we are a bit nervous. We had maintained it well during the period so fingers crossed!!!!!

This is a pic i took when we were coming back from fixing the mooring. In my opinion its moments like this that make all these problems disappear. Know what i am sayin?

The other article this month....

Was on the Xtreme Circumnav again today in lovely calm weather for a change, but we did manage to get some rain before lunch which "wasn't in the brochure". Anyway, after lunch the weather was perfect and Rendezvous was more stunning than usual. One lady said it was the most beautiful beach she had ever seen. I feel the same way most days too.

Its kinda late and we have another early one tomorrow so i am just going to show the article from the Travel Guardian. I guess i should mention that in the winter Xtreme leaves an hour earlier that the Eco most days in order to get to the Stingray city park in between cruise ship arrivals. They have exclusive contracts with the cruise ships to do tours for them at 9 am, 11 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm. We have to get there at 10 am in order to make the tour work and this means super early starts for the boys (and me) on Xtreme. It is nice knowing that we miss groups of 150+ who arrive at 11 am though especially when its just us in the park at 10. Here is the very English and very nice Guardian article (http://travel.guardian.co.uk/article/2006/dec/05/cricketworldcup.caribbean#more-article) :

Cricket widows (and widowers) should be sighing with relief.
In March 2007 the game that has separated countless couples for days at a time is coming to the Caribbean in the form of the Cricket World Cup. For six weeks, a tropical smorgasbord of nine countries will be offering bountiful attractions to appeal to both parties.
On November 1, Antigua and Barbuda celebrated 25 years of independence from Britain, the former colonial master of the twin-island nation. The islands have produced some of the finest test match cricketers in the history of the game: from Sir Viv Richards, whose 20-year-old record, for the fastest test match century ever, still holds, to Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose.
International sporting success, fused with a lovely coastline and the gently undulating landscape of the interior, has propelled the islands into the Caribbean tourist super league.
Without a single private beach on the islands and a population of under 70,000, you can always find a secluded, palm-fringed stretch of powdery sand, lapped by cobalt-blue waters, on which to unwind with a local Wadadli beer. Windward, Galleon and Half-moon beaches are among the best.
Antigua is also blessed with some of the finest coral reefs in the Caribbean. Eli Fuller’s Eco-Tour runs a seven-hour trip around the craggy north-eastern coast, with the accent on the zoology, ecology and history of the reefs and mangrove stands.
The boat passes Georgio Armani’s palatial summer home before mooring off Great Bird Island and disembarking passengers to look at pelicans, ospreys, tropic birds, laughing gulls and herons. You will also see one of the world’s leading ornithological research stations and breeding grounds for endangered hawksbill turtles, at Jumby Bay.
But the highlight is snorkelling over a coral reef just off Hell’s Gate, a small, eroded, limestone island. Hardy souls can swim out to it and then climb through caves to a whirlpool and across a natural bridge to gaze down on blue parrot fish and rays.
Read the full article……
Donning flippers, face mask and snorkel and plunging into the insanely clear turquoise water transports you to a sub-aqueous wonderland. Coral clusters the size of a small village rise on either side of you. Schools of fish coded in hallucinogenic colours pass nonchalantly by while jelly fish pulse in rhythm to the current.
Back on land, you can jump aboard a jeep for a tour of the island and rain forest. Specially converted open top Land Rovers take you to inaccessible spots that a hire car could not cope with. Ask for the driver called “Kill Bill”. He is an entertaining and informed guide who will stop to pick indigenous fruits and point out everything from the cacti Rastafarians use to keep their dreadlocks natty to banks of wild, roadside lemon grass.
No Sunday in Antigua is complete without a barbecue “jump-up” party at Shirley Heights in the south. These take place in the crumbling ruins of Fort Shirley, a former 18th century garrison for British troops at nearby English Harbour. As the evening extends into night, live steel bands give way to reggae, dancing and concerted drinking.
Don’t be part of the foolish majority who fail to make time for Barbuda, the nation’s second, and much smaller, inhabited island 48km to the north. A day trip is easy – the island is just 90 minutes away by ferry from Heritage Quay, in St John’s, or 15 minutes by plane.
Once on Barbuda, walk some of the 13-miles of pink-tinted coral sand making up Palm Beach. Having worked up a hunger, you might stop off at the horizontally laidback Martello Beach Bar for grilled lobster, fresh from the adjacent Codrington Lagoon.
Next, perhaps hire a boat and a guide and head for Man of War Island, the mangrove-rich home of the Caribbean’s largest breeding ground of frigate birds. Watch amorous males, with their eight-foot wingspans, inflate their great, bright red neck pouches as they cruise nonchalantly on thermals attempting to attract a hen. The Barbuda Warbler is also to be found here - its only habitat on earth.
Back in Antigua, art lovers can head to Woods Gallery (001 462 2332) - an artist-run co-op on the island with keen prices. It has bi-monthly exhibitions and openings where you can mingle over wine with local artists and collectors.
If you want professional pampering, the island has limited spa options: try Carlisle Bay and Antigua Yacht Club Marina Resort.

Woods Art Gallery show all this month.

The Woods Art Gallery has an exhibition entitled "Young Artists", and somehow at 34 years old, i was invited to show some of my pics. I had them printed at Island Photo by my good friend Justin Nation, who is probably one of the most talented artists on Antigua. He did a fantastic job of printing them, and the show went very well. There was quite a variety of art on display and if you are going to be in antigua this month you should take a trip down to have a look. I was quite surprised by my photos because they look so different when blown up big and in frames.

I am gonna try to put the ones i used here. These were not the titles i used:

Maltese Falcon in The North sound on Jan 1st.

Portuguese Man of War i saw in Brazil

I put three photos of the frog i saw in Brazil together into one frame, but here is one.

Bahia, Brazil. Bike ride in the rain.

Redonda Boobie and Chick.

jolly harbour at nite

Evo - HDR

They look way better huge and rich. Anyway, you get the idea. Hope you enjoy em and go have a look at the other more professional artwork if you can get the chance. Woods Gallery is next to Carib Photo in the Woods Mall.

famous? who me?

On the Antigua message board i saw someone posted a thread letting me know about a new article they had read on Antigua which had a good plug for my tours. I will try to get a copy of that to put up here, but another one that came out this month was in Englands The Sunday Times Travel magazine. It was written by Nick Redman. This wasn't the final version and he may have edited it a bit. I can't find the final version online and didn't get it emailed to me. The photos are excellent too if you manage to get a copy i am sure you will enjoy. Anyway I hope you enjoy the read:

They"re very friendly, assures Eli, the guide, as we squint down from the floating jetty. "They"re just like the rest of the people on the island." The black shapes flapping in the Caribbean waters below don"t look much like the rest of the people on the island, unless those are rubber one-pieces they"re disguised in. Pretty unlikely, this far from a Berlin fetish bar.

I craved an adventure in coma-inducing paradise and now I"ve got one: half a mile off the coast of Antigua, I'm contemplating a marine eco-enclosure teeming with stingrays, and I have to say they"re rather unusual looking. Doubtless you"ll agree if you"ve ever seen one up close. If you haven"t, simply take a tadpole to your local service station, inflate it to the size of a Spacehopper, release all air, reverse over the result to really mess up the features, and you"ll get the picture.

I may have oversimplified things a little. In fact the stingray plays a crucial role in the waters of the Caribbean, for it is the vacuum cleaner of the deep - hence the spaniel-soft eyes high on top and an utterly unrelated mouth in its pale, soft underbelly. Sure, it looks a sight to anyone other than Picasso in his Cubist phase, but at least that way it can hoover the sea bed without too much fear of concussion.

What is more, stingrays possess unique powers to seduce humans. Our party of nervy Brits and overexcitable Americans discovered as much on Caribbean cruise with a difference: Eli Fuller"s extreme tour of Antigua using a 45 foot powerboat. Leaping from the jetty with snorkels and a splash, we were treated to one of the warmest welcomes in the West Indies as the inhabitants of Ray Park waltzed around us like camp, caped counts at an Austrian ball. A caresss here, a nuzzle there, even a love bite for the ladies - when the gang resurfaced after half an hour with the amorous beasties, one woman realised she"d have a bit of explaining to do to her boyfriend back on dry land.

On dry land, chances are you wouldn"t associate a holiday on Antigua with the call of the wild. This being the Caribbean, there are so many demands on your time - chief among them doing nothing whatsoever. Upon the palmy beaches, along the goat-grazed ways of bougainvillea and canary-yellow timber homes, the island affects indolence so convincingly you guess the authorities must add something to the drinking water.

There was certainly refreshingly little action at my designer-colonial hotel, Carlisle Bay. Unless, that is, you include casually devouring trios of dwarf bananas which arrived mysteriously in your room, artfully placed on oblong plates; or admiring at length the fashionable cream-and-darkwood interiors from the balcony daybed, or toasting sunsets with a(nother) martini. Some folks signed up with Sembi, a gentleman employed by the hotel to take guests power-walking in the village. Personally I found it better to let him do it for me while I exercised my iPod on a sunlounger.

That was two days sorted. But for all the allure of reclinable beach furniture, there comes that Caribbean moment when thoughts turn to What Lies Beyond. I was becalmed in a sea of rum punch when it happened to me. From nowhere a mountainous swell grew, out in the bay, the waters rising uncharacteristically into jellied heights that wobbled momentarily then sank, sending the horizon of moored boats into a clockwork rocking. The land and the sand paled into insignificance by comparison with the high-seas drama developing. It was exhilarating, enticing, like another Antigua beckoning. It was time to push the boat out.

And what a boat it turned out to be. I got the lowdown on Eli"s mean machine the following morning from a sympathetic hotel receptionist who understood my need to experience Antigua beyond bonsai bananas. (She duly plucked a leaflet from a drawer with long maroon talons.) The vessel was bobbing idly at anchor in Jolly Harbour when I first glimpsed it: a glorious 45 foot purpose built powerboat, sleek as a sabre, with the dazzling white looks - and the power - to cut a veritable Miami Vice dash across Antigua"s blue deeps. Eli had bought it mere weeks previously, in Florida, sailing it home in six heady days: down via Nassau, Turks & Caicos and St Martin, en route encountering some infamous Pirates of the Caribbean - Mackenzie Crook and the cast. Together they"d rummed it royally.

"This tour is called Xtreme," Eli announced, as he eased the powerboat out past million-dollar harbour villas painted butterscotch and pink, supported on concrete piles 30 feet deep, like a tropical Venice. The T-shirted human cargo of 15 or so shuffled, seeking to find comfy positions on banquettes, or in obliging partners" arms. "We"re going to be travelling at 40mph so watch out for hats and loose stuff." There were a few involuntary whoops, a few gently greener complexions and one lost hat as the boat rose and belly-slammed in a rollercoaster motion. We were off.

Antiguan born and bred, Eli Fuller has been showing visitors the hidden beauty of his home turf and surf for 20 years or more. The reefs, the mangrove forests and the wildlife. The insane blowholes in the eroded limestone rocks that spew the sea skywards, like whales do. The deserted white-sand beaches and all the other elements you might think incompatible with a major-league package-holiday destination.

Away from the sunlounger, seen from the choppy wilderness of the sea, a wilder world unfurled as we whipped along: looking to shore it was moody and forest-cloaked, huge and forbidding, any hotels too small and insignificant to compete. In places it was humped violently into coral lumps and volcanic peaks - pristine as it must have looked to the seamen who came here for construction timber in the 17th century, when it was one of the most densely wooded islands in the region.

Waves frothed and lunged like rabid dogs at crazily angled strata rising from the neon Caribbean. Pelicans rested in haughty silhouette, motionless on jagged outcrops. And when later we snorkelled 60ft over the sea-bed boulders that had tumbled into the blue from the dramatic rock Pillars of Hercules, it felt like a dream sequence. There were coral fans and darting grunts blue and yellow, trumpet fish down deep. And blue tang, seemingly lit from within. A colonial anchor lay far below, broken and barnacled. Another island altogether.

I say another island. In fact Antigua is a buried-treasure-map fantasy: so many tiny uninhabited outcrops where you can spring-clean your soul in the breezes along a bleached beach, no trace of man as far as the eye can see. In this respect it"s unique among the big Caribbean destinations, with a score or more barrier islands and reefs scattered off its northern shores.

Here turtles feed on grassy beds, bonefish and young barracuda breed, and stingrays do their housewife routine, cleaning up shells and cockles from the seabed and clucking at their lascivious husbands. Local wildlife is engaged in a constant battle for supremacy with more exotic species: Giorgio Armani, for instance, whose new villa slides by far above us, high on a bleak western headland. It"s a sleek giant composed of two edifices, one black, one grey, in the designer"s signature tones. They work rather well with their earthy surroundings. How very considerate. How very this season.

Eli displayed a healthy tan across his good-looking Caucasian features, heightened by the mystique of a baseball cap pulled low. And he displayed a healthy scorn for local powers that be and their apparent disregard for Antiguan concerns when big bucks are at stake. Swinging the boat in off bumpy waters to pick up more of the party at St John"s harbour, he indicated an innocuous-looking pale-blue storage depot. "Designed and built by the Japanese - it"s Japanese Fisheries," he yelled over the roaring breeze that yanked at the long hair of women holding on for dear life up front. "We vote alongside them when it comes to whaling and in returns Antiguans are conned into letting these things be built. But they"re designed for trawlers, which is not how we fish and so they"re actually useless to us."

On along the western coast the waters calmed to vast sheets of aquamarine and powder-blue, a waft of molasses from a rusty plant, glimpses of decrepit cannons as we bounced past distant St James Fort trailing a wedding train of foam. In the 18th century the British chose Antigua as the nerve centre of their local naval activities - pitted with indents and hidden coves it offered safety from storms and the savagery of pirates. Centuries on, weathered relics in iron and mossy basalt, distract you at every turn. It ain"t half Nelson.

Suddenly the sea was mad again, signalling the treacherous north of the island, boiling itself incessantly into molten troughs and peaks. After the drama of the stingray swim it was a touch too much for some as the PowerCat soared then hull-floppped ear-shatteringly. "We"re off to the chiropractor the minute we get back," one American (hopefully not too litigious) was heard to whimper, clambering in defeat back from the prow. My thoughts were turning for some reason to the Tupperwares of pasta-twist salad I"d seen Eli"s team stash aboard discreetly, back at Jolly Harbour.

I cannot recall a more beautiful picnic anywhere, ever, than that served by Eli on tiny Green Island. Black and red mangroves twisted up from waters now still and dark. Here was an eerie place of silent spreading acacia trees, coconut palms and thrusting finger cacti that emphasised the seductive strangeness. I hid around a tiny headland from the group (now pally and talkative). The trunks I"d packed weren"t fit for mass scrutiny, but more importantly, I wanted to be alone on the demerara sands. Squinting as I lay, wet from a swim, I saw at eye level only strewn coconut husks thrown up by the tide, conch shells pink and erotic, and cloud kingdoms bunched on the horizon. This, I decided, would give any mainland five-star a run for its money.

They"re fragile places, these islands - breeding grounds to osprey, turns, Red Billed Tropic Birds and such endangered species as brown pelicans and the (definitely lesser spotted) West Indian tree duck, but also ripe for development. "I grew up with the luxury of these places," says Eli. "If you"re going to protect tourism, you"ve got to keep them." He talked of Bond-movie-lair style developments in the vicinity, for which "the first thing the developers did was bulldoze all the red mangrove. You"d go to jail for that in Florida.

"A beach without a hotel can be an attraction. But to the powers-that-be, a beach without a hotel is a liability. If you want to lose an election simply don"t encourage construction. Ecologically we"re in the Stone Age." The boat rolled like a whale in the mouthwash swell as we made for port down the eastern side. The sea leapt and sprayed those at the back. Some of them sensibly wore goggles, protected against a Caribbean not about to be tamed. Not yet.

Back on the "road" again.....

Well after two drives to English Harbour, two to St. Johns, and one to Jolly Harbour the Eco Boat, "Arawak Odyssey", is back running with two propulsion systems. I think i must have spent 4 hours on the road today running around which is pretty hard to do in little Antigua, but it was worth it. Tony and Junior (one of the new guys) worked a very long, greasy, hot day in order to get everything taken apart and put back together once i got all the bits. It was dark by the time they finished putting back in the fixed propulsion system, but we are ready to do a private charter with the boat tomorrow. Today we had another private charter on Xtreme which JD said went very well.
The winds have calmed down a bit and the skies tonight are beautifully clear. It looks like it will be a busy weekend for us with some super weather though. Although i am not going to sit back and relax with my orange "crocs" up and think we won't have any more mechanical problems.........I think we are all happy at the moment:)

do boats ever have problems?

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They never stop having problems, and this is something I never get use to. It’s the same with all the boats in this business. One of the other boats in this business had worse problems this past week. Anyway, this past Saturday one of my 18 month old Yamaha engines on Xtreme had a major failure. We had a charter on Sunday and managed to do the whole thing with just two of the three engines. She still cruised at 30 mph easily but wouldn't go much faster. It was fine though because it was only a group of 6. I knew that with a full boat we would be challenged to get near 30, and the two remaining engines would be fighting to keep up. Anyway, I had prepared for this situation by buying the blue boat that you may have seen in recent blog entries which carried two of the same engines. On Tuesday, my mechanic, Tom, took off one of the blue boat's engines and swapped it with Xtreme's bad one. New ones are about 17 grand each in the USA!!!
Anyway, we were back in business today with a full boat. While we were out there though, I had a call from Captain JD saying that one of the Eco boat's drives (propulsion systems) had jammed. I had purchased two new ones 11 months ago too!!!!!!!! They are about 5 grand each landed here in Antigua. I have some old ones which may be able to be used to repair the jammed one tomorrow. Anyway, I cancelled tomorrow's eco tour unfortunately, but I am assured by the engineers in English Harbour that they can use the two old drives to fix the jammed one. They also said that they can do it quickly......We will see, and I will let you know tomorrow.
Someone told me that these things come in threes but that hasn't been my experience. I wish it were, but I am on like number 23 not 3!!!!

happy new year!!!!!

Well, i am sure that some of you who check this site from time to time thought that i have given t up, but i had just been taking a short time off. In fact last week was a very difficult week for me. One of my captain's, Adam, had his last day working with us just before Christmas and both boats have been extremely busy since then. We worked every day last week including sat and sunday. By the time i got home each nite i was sooooo tired that writing blogs wasn't possible. Anyway, i will try to be better from now on.

The holidays for me were good and it was nice seeing old friends and family. Work was tough but fun. We had many repeat guests which was nice and for a change we had quite a few private charters. Its been windy and fairly choppy and my old bad knee has been giving me some trouble. This year i hope to do something about it as driving the boat makes it worse immedeately. This shot is of my favorite boat in the world, The Maltese Falcon. I know i have mentioned her many times this past month, but i never get enough of her. Last night she was anchored between my home and Long Island's "Jumby Bay", and as the moon rose overhead, she was all lit up naturally and by her own lights. What a thing to see.......for dreamers like me.
Hope all of your dreams come true or get closer anyway in 2007. More later..............

Merry Christmas Everyone

i hope you have a wonderful day with family and friends wherever you are. It's a sunny and windy day here in Antigua and all my family are coming over to the house in a short while for b'fast and prezzies. So exciting:)

Later a massive party at my dad's house with extended family and friends. Hope your day will filled with joy and happiness. Will do a proper blog entry tomorrow. for now this is just a collection of images i had on my laptop. found a program that compiles them. Enjoy!

christmas cheer

This blog entry is gonna be a short one.......yesterdays got kinda long and last nite just kicked my butt. My mom decided to have a last minute get together, and i decided to invite my crew and some friends. In the end, we probably had about 60-70 people come and go throughout the night, and it was a lovely bit of "Christmas Cheer". We went through a vast amount of alcohol and lovely snacks made by my mom and a friend of mine. Apart from the regular Cavalier Rum i got two bottles of English Harbour Five Year Old rum which vanished very quickly. It is lovely and if you are here on holiday try to find a bottle to take home......yum!
Antiguans love any excuse to have a party and just like many places around the world, this is the time of year for parties.
We started up at around 7:30 and i think Chopper started "kicking" them out at about 12:30 am........
We all had a lovely time and it was lovely to spend an evening with my crew, friends and family. I hope that everyone enjoys the parties and cheer of this holiday time. Sounds corny, but the "Peace on Earth and Good Will to All Men and Women" is what i'd like to leave this blog entry with.

Antigua's Seasons

I always find it very funny when people say to me "I just couldn't live in Antigua because you don't have seasons". Although we don't get cold here we do have very specific and noticeable seasons.
Just yesterday, someone was saying that they couldn't wait until spring time when the Marlin come around in large numbers. I guess that's the biggest change you notice here with regard to seasonal changes....the change in species of migratory animals. Winter time sees many animals that are fleeing from the cold weather that is chilling out North America. When I got back from being away from Antigua for a month the first thing I noticed was the number of Osprey and other birds. I have also seen many kingfishers and Red billed Tropic Birds. There are so many species of birds that arrive here or pass through at this time of year. But its not just birds, the Humpback Whales will be here from about the end of January until April which is always something we boaters look foreword to. See these amazing creatures up close is something special indeed. Make sure that if you are here during that time you keep you eyes open because you may see them "breach" or spout out in the Atlantic. We tend to see more dolphins in the winter as well but they are here year round. Another species we get here in large numbers during the winter is the "tourist". Some fly all the way from Europe while others migrate by ships all the way from the US Mainland. Since we want to show them how cool our island is, we tend to get quite busy at this time of year. As the winter gets old and signs of spring show up we see other animals showing up. For me, it’s the time of year to get my fishing tackle set up. Mahi Mahi (the Hawaiian name for Dolphin FISH) school in large numbers here in the Caribbean at that time and apart from being great fish for sport fishermen, they are absolutely delicious. We often go camping in Barbuda for the Easter public holidays and will eat plenty of Mahi Mahi then. Yum I can't wait......then again there are some great things to eat coming up this month too...... Another funny thing that visitors to Antigua comment on is how surprised they are that we have Christmas Trees and eat turkey and ham for Christmas. Why not? I think i'd like to eat ham and turkey more often myself, but for sure at Christmas time. I know it's strange for people who are used to snow and freezing temps during the "holidays", but its still the same deal down here give or take 20 degrees. hehehe
Anyway, back to the seasons before my stomach makes too much noise with all the talk of ham and turkey.......
As spring turns into summer the big game fishing heats up with the massive Blue Marlin congregating off-shore in large numbers. They are very difficult to catch but can be a fisherman's dream "fight". Some of my crew and I am hooked on hooking marlin and you can read about it in the blog entry about Tony.

This is also the time of year when massive flocks of migratory birds show up in the islands to lay eggs and feed their chicks. To assure this all works out there are also even bigger schools of tiny pilchards and other small fish hatching out. These poor creatures almost at the bottom of the food chain are gobbled up by birds, dolphins and other fish. It’s a tough time of the year for them for sure.
For me these days, the summer is my favorite Season with all the cool things that started in spring reaching their full potential. It is also "hurricane season" but mostly the weather is best at that time of year. I just love the clear waters and calm seas of the summer and it is when we have the smallest number of migratory "tourist" species here, and because of the free time we end up playing more. Fishing, diving, camping, traveling to other islands, carnival,.....there is plenty to do with our freed up time in the summer and usually the weather makes it all worthwhile. The chicks are starting to leave their nests and are all getting fishing lessons from their parents. You should see the Laughing Gulls. I swear that they have designated teachers giving flying and fishing lessons. As we pass though Rabbit and Exchange islands in August we will see 20 little grey juvenile laughing gulls sitting in the water around one adult. I am not kidding either……it makes us laugh every year. Another bunch of animals that are nesting in the summer are the endangered Hawksbill Turtles. Do you know that one in 10,000 eggs will eventually become a mature adult. The rest just don’t make it. Anyway, these beautiful majestic reptiles nest between May and November and each female can lay over 400 eggs during that time. You will learn all about them on the Eco Tour.
Of course there is a chance that the weather will do the opposite and a destructive hurricane will cause trouble, but that just adds to the excitement of the summer. Remember that over the past 50 years we have been hit by 6 hurricanes, so the chances are pretty slim even though they are there.
As summer comes to an end, the winds calm down even more and the heat seems to slow you down a bit if you are one of the unlucky ones who has to work on land. For us, it means more swimming and snorkeling. The months of September and October can be very hot and still, and sailing can be tough. Powerboating is perfect then though, and it just happens to be the time of year when the Wahoo fish start showing up in large numbers. Wahoo are a delicious fish shaped very much like a muscle packed torpedo with stripes. They fight extremely hard and Tony, the self proclaimed “Wahoo King” longs for this time of year to catch and eat wahoo on all his days off. IT really is a beautiful thing to be out on the water with friends when the deep blue water is totally glass calm. We have been fishing many times where we caught so many fish that we had to come in early……so much fun and action. …..but there are other times as is the case with fishing when we have been out there all day and ended up with nothing. Those days are still fun because the people I go fishing with just love the sea. Late in the “Fall” the weather changes a bit with the sea chilling a bit down to the very low 80s and the air dropping a bit. American cold fronts can make it all the way down here too making it quite windy and for us…a bit chilly. Visitors laugh at us when we mention that we are getting cold (since for them 83 degrees is a dream come true), but you do feel and see the changes throughout the year. It’s just as interesting as anywhere else that you may call home.
I am sorry, but I know it sounds cheesy saying I love living here. I just can’t help it….......
The photo today is of a humpback whale we saw while doing the eco tour. The guests on board was awestruck....which always makes me happy. I added another of me releasing a blue marlin (most of the marlin caught here are released to figh again another day).

test drivin'

We the weekend went well with Saturday being filled with more Super Yacht excitement, parties, the traditional Half Moon Bay hangout as well as Shirley Heights. Monday it was back to reality though with setting up Eco Tour and trying to do a little work on the new little boat.
Chopper and I had tried to launch the boat to do a test run earlier last week and found both batteries to be flat. I had charged them properly at home and now we had to hook them back up and see if they were working. Getting to them wasn’t easy but putting the heavy marine batteries back in was “cake”. I had picked up Tony after dropping off the food for the Eco Tour, and we quickly managed to drop the batteries into their tight compartments. I wanted to swing the motors over before tailoring the boat all the way to the marina. The port engine turned over immediately, but the starboard one just clicked. We have a special marine battery isolator which showed that both batteries were fine, so it had to be something wrong with the connections or the engine itself. I checked all the engine fuses and tightened up the battery connections. Still no luck. The engines had worked well when I was up in Florida so I was sure that it was just a simple problem.
Finally, I broke down and called mechanic Tom who said that I had to clean the leads and connections to the battery and try it again. Something so simple, and yet that was the answer right there. The engine burst to life as soon as we turned the key.
Rudy, who lives down the beach from my home where we are storing the boat isn’t working at the moment and was helping Tony and me. When we were all set I asked him if he’d like to come and test drive it with us. He enthusiastically said yes. He had been working at The Lord Nelson Beach Hotel for nearly 20 years until it was handed over to new owners last week. I think I will dedicate a blog entry to that story another day.
We towed the boat up to Shell Beach Marina and launching pad and quickly backed her into the water. I wanted to run the engines for a few minutes before letting Tony reverse off the trailer. Another problem we had was that we had no anchor, no lines (ropes) and no fenders. If the engines cut out because of bad fuel that had been stored for months inside the tanks then they would drift up onto the coast or even reef. We ran them for a while, and they purred quietly without a problem at all. When Tony backed off he looked very happy and so was I. As soon as I had parked the truck and trailer, Tony picked me off the dock and we were off. Rudy had never been on such a fast boat and Tony was sure it was faster than Xtreme. He was excited and I could tell that he was convinced that we had to keep this new boat. I agreed too. She was stronger than I though and ran pretty well. It would be a perfect “run about” for us on days off or on holidays, and both Tony and I were sure that we could use her for small private charters. We raced up through the Long and Maiden Island channel passing the huge mega yacht Midlandia with its wealthy guests playing on the jet skies and kitesurfing equipment. We pulled into Bird Island channel a few moments later where JD and Trevor had just returned from a hike. After making sure our VHF radio worked we said goodbye to them and set off for Jolly Harbour where we could buy the things we needed for the boat. It was fairly choppy as we passed Prickly Pear Island and the bumps were exactly what we were looking for. The boat ran well through them and there didn’t seem to be any flexing in the hull.
I saw Rudy studying the coastline intently and I realized that he probably had never been down the coast of Antigua by boat. I asked him and sure enough he had no idea where we were passing. He came here to work from St. Lucia 20 years ago and had not been out boating further than the islands of the North Sound where the Eco Tour takes place. I explained to him all the places we were passing and this little test driving of the new boat became its first tour too
After a few hours and a nice lunch in Jolly Harbour we were off again back up the coast to pull the boat out of the water. I think that after a good cleaning and a small amount of fiberglass work she will be ready for action. I am still waiting on some quotes for these repairs now. The pic above is of the boat sitting next to Harriette’s house down the beach from where I live.