A simple Video done for a Facebook "Fly Free to Antigua" competition

Yes the Antigua and Barbuda Tourism group on facebook (go join them) is offering a free trip to Antigua and Barbuda. All you have to do is make a little video no longer than two minutes saying that you love Antigua and want to be flown there for Free and presto you are on your way to being entered into the competition. On facebook twenty five people have to click the "like" button on your video to get you into the competition. Once that's done you have to try to get people commenting and "liking" your video. I can't remember how they pick the winner, but hey you can win a trip here for two so check it out!
Antiguans can enter like i did, but we will only be able to give the prize to someone coming in from abroad. I was the only entrant before the original deadline so they extended it to give others a chance. Anyway, now my video is at the bottom and not getting as many views as the ones at the top. Go have a look and enter a vid of your own. If not have a look at mine click the "like" button and comment on it too. Thanks! If that all sounds like too much you can always check it here too:

http://www.adventureantigua.com/

Two short dives

Hi all, I'm Roddy Grimes - Graeme. I'm a photographer and filmaker from Antigua. I just got a little waterproof camera, the GoPro hero. It shoots stills and video and is tiny enough to take anywhere. The video is low resolution but honestly its a relief to shoot without the burden of quality sometimes!!!! Haha.

Anyway here is a look at a couple of spots on our coast. Sunken rock is below Shirley's Heights - its the closest thing we have to a seamount here. It goes from 120 feet to about 8 feet and is home to lots of soft coral, jacks, mackerel, a huge octopus, some eels and more. On this dive Nico had a reef shark come and visit at about 60 feet. He just got a hero cam too so maybe he'll put his footage up one day. The water was very green and dark with plankton this day.

The reef outside of seatons is very old and massive. It has some of the biggest caves and channels in Antigua but has been in really poor shape since the Hurricanes in the '90s. It is heavily fished with spear, pots and old nets have washed all over it. The fish life is a fraction of what it was and I no longer see huge monsters in the holes there. I've seen big Cubera snappers, huge groupers, Jack crevalle, tarpon and African pompano here in the past. Just seeing live Staghorn coral nowadays is to be celebrated!

This dive shows the balance between live coral and algae. They compete for space on the shallow seabed. When algae eating species are held down by fishing pressure as parrotfish are in Antigua, it makes it that much harder for coral to reestablish in a storm damaged area. I saw no large parrotfish on this dive. They are one of the best algae cleaning species and they also make much of our sand by grinding bits of coral skeleton up and pooping it out. The algae bubbles at the end should be oxygen as that algae has been photosynthesising all day in the sun. I should take a sample and test it next time, back to the high school chem lab!

Phosphorescence in Jolly Harbour, Antigua

On our way into Jolly Harbour last week Friday the blue glow of phosphorescence ignited the wake. Here is a brief description from encyclopedia. October 13th 2006 i posted this shot on flickr.

baby hawksbill turtle photo

This tiny hawksbill was one of about 145 turtles that hatched out the night before the photo was taken. Unfortunately four of the little turtles didn't make it out of the nest and were stuck 18 inches below the sandy surface. This is fairly normal, and together with several spoiled eggs they usually perish inside the nest. Turtle moniters usually "Excavate" the nest a day after it hatches to see how many didn't make it. IF they find live ones they let them go during the next night. While in Barbuda recently doing a turtle nesting count we found a bunch of tiny tracks from the little ones who had made it into the sea the night before. Here is the strongest of the four that we found. We released them in the hope that they may have a second chance. One in one thousand reaches maturity.

Another Antigua Blog is born. AntiguaTV

Yup, we already have the http://www.antiguaisland.blogspot.com/ blog which has been going for years and has plenty of regular readers, but I think there are more people out there who want to see something different. There are people who don't like reading and would prefer to see videos photos and movies about Antigua and Barbuda. This blog is for them. I hope to attract several other bloggers to be part of this one. We'll see how it goes. Photos and video that you see on this blog will be seen on other blogs and websites as well. Here is our first very simple but fun video. It's a collection of clips that were taken while on a trip to Barbuda with http://www.adventureantigua.com/ Enjoy!