These are the subtle shifts, the things only a permanent resident
would see and feel. At the same time, these alterations in nature’s pat-
terns are accompanied by development schemes that exacerbate their
impacts—and also cloud the picture of what, or who, is really to blame.
The effects are synergistic. Circling into the driveway of a hotel whose
perimeter of mangrove trees has recently been dredged for a prospec-
tive golf course, Prosper explains: “The developers are supposed to stay
100 feet away from the shoreline, but people are quarreling over where
the shoreline actually starts. There have also been problems with
expansion of many hotels that have come to the coastline, when large
stones are brought in to make barriers, piers, and so on. Well, now you
don’t have to wait for a hurricane. Anytime there’s any severe weather,
or even the pass of an easterly wave, the waves crest [over the barriers]
and water gets into the hotels.”
The island’s original name was Wadadli (a distinction now
reserved for the local beer) or “well-water island.” Later it was renamed
Antigua or “anti-agua.” One wonders at the prescience of whoever con-
jured up the latter name.
THEMANGROVESAREGONE
The ideal vantage point for exploring what is happening to Antigua is
from the sea. On a Friday morning, along with a half dozen other visi-
tors, I embarked on “Eli’s Eco Tour,” a day-long voyage around the
island from the Caribbean Sea on the west side to the Atlantic Ocean
on the east. It is skippered by 30-year-old Eli Fuller on his 34-foot, cen-
ter-console motorboat, the Isis. Fuller was born and raised on Antigua.
His grandfather, who arrived in 1941 as America’s vice-consul, stayed
on to open the island’s first beach hotel. Eli’s father is a prominent
local attorney.
We head out to sea from Jolly Harbor, with its 150-slip marina,
resort, and golf course, past what Fuller says used to be a “very healthy”
mangrove swamp. Woody plants that have adapted to living in salty,
muddy waters, mangroves can grow to be trees as tall as 25 feet or
remain as scrubby growth in drier areas. They serve as spawning
grounds for many species of fish, absorb flood waters, and reduce the
Antigua and Barbuda 67