Tag Archives: Blacktip Island
Illegal Iguana Cullers Injure Dozens On Blacktip Island
An invasive green iguana lurks in the underbrush at Sandy Bottomsâ Beach Resort Thursday. Over-aggressive culling of the non-native species has created a public safety crisis on Blacktip Island. (photo courtesy of Christian Linder)
A rash of mishaps involving over-zealous green-iguana cullers this week has created a groundswell public backlash against unlicensed cullers on Blacktip Island.
âThe green iguanas don’t belong here and need to be checked, but thingsâve gotten out of hand,â Eagle Ray Cove owner Rich Skerritt said. âEvery yahoo and his cousinâs running around with slingshots, golf clubs, cricket bats, lionfish spears, you name it.
âThank God guns are illegal. And bows and arrows,â Skerritt said. âJames Conlee took out a whole row of bar stoolsâguests still on themâwith a croquet mallet at the tiki hut yesterday. Sent five people to the clinic.â
Authorities blamed the rogue hunters on the bounty placed on iguanas.
âItâs only supposed to be a handful of licensed cullers, but with the government paying $5 a lizard, everyone wants in on the fun and profit,â Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. âFolksâre throwing common sense out the window trying to kill as many iguanas as they can. And most arenât trained to cull safely.
âWe tried only paying licensed cullers, but they just brought in iguanas their unlicensed buddies killed and split the take with them,â Marquette said. âIâm arresting illegal cullers. And drunk cullers, legal or otherwise. But I only have the one jail cell. To them itâs a laugh. To the rest of us itâs a public safety nightmare.â
Many island residents support the crackdown.
âItâs scary going outside these days, not knowing if youâll be caught in a culling melee,â Peachy Bottoms said. âNighttimeâs the worst. You donât dare wander out with all the spears and bats and sand rakes flying. People are whacking first and checking their target afterwards. Our little Shelley caught a stray lionfish spear in the buttocks Wednesday.â
Island nurse Marissa Graysby voiced safety concerns as well.
âThe clinicâs in shambles,â she said. âThereâs only one of me, and Iâm out of medical supplies. Weâre not equipped for a dozen injuries a day. Sure, the iguanas are bad, but all these people with cuts and bruises and cracked skulls are worse. It doesnât help that most of the cullers are three-sheets-to-the-wind drunk, either.â
Many cullers defended their actions.
âDoing a service to the islandâs what weâre doing,â longtime resident Dermott Bottoms said. âJack Cobia and them said green iguanas were bad, so weâre taking care of them, on our own time and at our own expense. We sit in some stupid class, thatâs time we could be killing iguanas.
âAnd alcoholâs a help, not a hindrance,â Bottoms said. âCouple glasses of rum, I start to think like an iguana. Thatâs where the magic happens. And that third glass, well, that just sharpens my aim.â
Marquette, meanwhile, is focusing his crackdown in the islandâs more populated areas.
âIâm concentrating on the resort strip where most of the injuries are occurring,â he said. âAway from the resorts, itâs pretty much a free-for-all, but itâs mostly culler-on-culler injuries. If I can keep the tourists safe, Iâll call it a victory.â
Filed under Caribbean
Rude Dive Staffs Prompt Blacktip Island Cotillion Class
Alison Diesel and Gage Hoase practice their quadrille Thursday evening at the Blacktip Island Heritage House. Dancing is one of many social skills being taught to island dive staff in a new cotillion class aimed at boosting tourism on the island. (photo courtesy of Silar)
Faced with a growing number of complaints about rude dive staff, Blacktip Island community leaders and etiquette activists have joined forces to create a cotillion program aimed at the Caribbean islandâs divemasters.
âWe got loads of guest complaints from every resort on the island,â mayor Jack Cobia said. âIt ranged from not saying âhello,â to sarcastic remarks, to snatching food from guestsâ hands. Dive ops fire the bad apples, but the replacementsâre just as bad.
âWhen word hit travel review sites, we knew we had to do something drastic,â Cobia said. âIt was killing our tourism product.â
The solution was to recruit the islandâs gentry.
âJack could have been describing wild animals,â long-time resident Helen Maples said. âHe asked if I might teach the rascals manners, deportment, dancing and other social graces.
âI was delighted! Iâve wanted to institute a regimen like this for years,â Maples said. âThe next evening I lined up a dozen hostile scuba hippies, and whacked them with a ruler if they didnât stand up straight.â
Cobia is cautiously optimistic about the course.
âHonestly, itâs a pilot project,â he said. âBut if it works, we may expand it to include all resort workers, then airfield staff, then anyone else in the tourism industry.
âIf it doesnât work, itâs still fun to watch,â Cobia said. âHelen tells them to imagine their grannyâs standing next to them. Then, if they so much as look sideways, TWHACK! Bruce Leeâd be jealous of how fast that ruler moves.â
Predictably, many divemasters were critical of the class.
âThat bloody ruler hurts,â said Eagle Ray Diversâ Lee Helm. âItâs not right, requiring us to go there and be physically abused. Mrs. Maples is a sadist, she is.â
Maples was unapologetic about her methods.
âItâs a time-honored tradition. Or should be,â she said. âThe ruler reminds them to wear shoes, to speak in complete, non-obscene sentences and to pass the salt and pepper together when a tablemate requests, âWould you please pass the salt?â
Some dive staff, though, say they enjoy cotillion.
âLeeâs a whiner,â said Eagle Ray Diversâ Alison Diesel. âItâs so cool when Gage, umm, I mean Mister Hoase, comes up and says, âMiss Diesel, may I have this dance?â and I say, âCertainly, Mister Hoase.ââ
Attendee Finn Kiick, of Club Scuba Doo, sees other positives.
âItâs goofy, sure, but you learn proper, formal dancing,â he said. âWomen dig that crap. Youâll see DMs out cutting a rug at the Sand Spit pretty much any night of the week now, practicing.
âItâs value-added on the boats, too,â Kiick added. âRun out of stories to tell during a surface interval? Now you can entertain the guests with a waltz. Or a quadrille.â
Filed under Caribbean, Scuba Diving
Itâs Sharks vs. Jetfins in Blacktip Island Playersâ âWest Side Storyâ
Marina DeLow, right, performs âI Feel Prettyâ during the dress rehearsal of the Blacktip Island Community Playersâ âWest Side Story,â celebrating 50 years of recreational scuba diving from resorts on the Caribbean islandâs west coast. (photo courtesy of Doris Blenny/BICP)
The Blacktip Island Community Players will perform their take on the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic âWest Side Storyâ Saturday evening at the islandâs Heritage House. The performance celebrates 50 years of the recreational scuba industry on the Caribbean island.
âWe usually go for something original,â director Doris Blenny said. âBut this year we decided to reimagine a classic to honor the founding of Muddy Bottomsâ Double-Hose Divers all those years ago.
âWeâre casting the Sharks and Jets as rival dive operations,â Blenny said. âIt speaks to the competition between resorts that defines Blacktip Island. And with all the islandâs scuba charter companies on its west side, well, it adds an extra layer that truly resonates.â
Many locals are eager to see the show.
âThis is the sort of thing that really spotlights Blacktipâs vibrant thespian scene,â said island theater aficionado Frank Maples. âAnd Dorisâ casting, as ever, is spot-on.â
Blenny chose this yearâs performers exclusively from island dive staffs.
âWe wanted realism,â she said. âAnd really, who can put all the yearning, the anger, the lusts of a young divemaster into a performance better than a divemaster, young or otherwise. You can see that especially in the Act I dive knife fight scene.
âMarina DeLow as Maria was an obvious choice, what with her beautiful, if off-key, lyric contralto voice,â Blenny said. âAnd the jump from âMarinaâ to âMaria,â well, itâs just one letter isnât it?â
Other cast members include:
- Lee Helm as Tony
- Finn Kiick as Bernardo
- Alison Diesel as Anita
- Gage Hoase as Riff
âWe respected the original score as much as we could, but we also tweaked some songs to be scuba-themed,â DeLow said. âWe do the standard âMariaâ and âI Feel Pretty,â but then we get jiggy a little with âTonightâs Dive,â and â(I Like To Be On) Blacktip.â When Gage sings, âWhen youâre a Bottoms, youâre a Bottoms all the way,â the crowdâll go bonkers.â
The producers are encouraging audience members to dress in scuba-themed attire.
âCome as a divemaster, a tourist or even in vintage dive gear,â Blenny said. âWe want theater-goers to become part of the spectacle. Muddy would have liked that.
âAs ever, though, alcohol will not be allowed, and attendees will be frisked and given breathalyzer tests prior to admission,â Blenny added. âWeâre not having a redux of the âTora, Tora, Toraâ melee of three years ago.â
Proceeds from the show go to the Heritage House and to the Blacktip Island Divemasters Retirement Fund.
Filed under Caribbean, Scuba Diving
Blacktip Island Erupts In Decades-Long Family Feud
Some of the flare pistols confiscated by Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette during the current Bottoms-Conlee feud in Blacktip Islandâs Little Seoul neighborhood. (photo courtesy of Sustructu)
A long-simmering family feud erupted in violence Thursday evening in Blacktip Islandâs Little Seoul district, leaving three persons injured and several others emotionally scarred, island officials said.
âThings get ugly fast up in Koreatown,â Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. âUsually what happens there stays there, but this started at the public pier, then the fight spread to bars and work sites. I confiscated every flare gun on the island and theyâre still shooting at each other.
âIt started with James Conlee fishing at Diddleyâs Landing, only he was in Dermott Bottomsâ corner spot,â Marquette said. âThe families have unwritten rules for that kind of thing, to keep the peace. But James got him a snootfull of white rum and the veneer cracked.â
Community members say the feud brings back bad memories
âThis is how the gang wars started ten years ago,â ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂlocal Cori Anders said. âDermottâs daddy tossed his hand line too close to Jamesâ daddyâs. Wouldâve been no big deal, but Booger Bottoms ended up catching a big, fat snapper. Took months to end the violence, and grudges smoldered for years.â
Island authorities say residents should avoid the neighborhood until the violence can be contained.
âWe donât want bystanders injured by crossfire or drive-bys,â Marquette said. âWell, technically pedal-bys, since all the Bottoms and Conlees have had their driverâs licenses revoked for drunk driving.
âIâm up there half the day and all the night to keep a lid on it,â IPC Marquette said. âWeâre trying to broker peace, but James and Dermott arenât making it easy.â
Each side claims the other is to blame.
âInsult to my family, you know. Things were settled, now this,â Dermott Bottoms said. âDaddyâs rolling over in his grave right now. Thatâs his hard-won fishing spot.â
âWe wonât forgive and we wonât forget,â James Conlee said. âThem Bottoms crossed our lines years ago. I just balanced the scales.â
Locals worry about safety island-wide.
âRosie and Peachy Bottoms were at the Ballyhoo last night, minding their own business, when Jesse Conlee busted in with a flare pistol,â resident Val Schrader said. âPopped a flare straight down the bar at them. No one was hurt, but it cleared the Ballyhoo right quick.
âMy heart goes out to Rosie Bottoms and âCephus Conlee.,â Schrader said. âThey got married a month ago, they live in the middle house in Little Seoul andâve been catching pure hell from both sides. Habitat for Humanityâs sitting on âG,â waiting on âOâ for the gunfire to stop so they can go in and rebuild.â
Filed under Caribbean
Divers Scour Blacktip Island Reefs To Save Lead Weights
Some of the lead scuba diving weights retrieved Friday from Blacktip Islandâs Pinnacle Reef by volunteer cleanup divers. (photo courtesy of Finn Kiick)
Blacktip Island environmentalists Friday launched a schedule for weekly volunteer reef cleanups aimed at ridding the Caribbean islandâs dive sites of lead scuba weights.
âDecember starts high season for dropped weights,â cleanup organizer Ham Pilchard said. âResort divers tend to be heavy anyway, and when the water temps dip, they squeeze into their thick wetsuits and grab a ton of weights.
âThereâs lead dropping all over the reef, crashing coral and leeching poison into everything down there,â Pilchard said. âIntegrated weight pockets? Try âweight dispensing units.â We get divers whacked by falling lead at least once a week.â
The initiative given a boost by island dive operations complaining about a shortage of weights for their guests.
âCoral gets damaged, sure, but it got to the point where we didnât have enough lead to get all our divers underwater,â said Eagle Ray Divers operations manager Ger Latner. âPeople canât dive, we have to refund their money.
âThe Marine Parks folks couldn’t keep up with all those sunken weights,â Latner said. âThen Ham had the idea of making a game of it and things really took off.â
Blacktip Island dive operations let weight collectors dive free on their dive boats.
âWe give âem a mesh sack and a lift bag and let âem go to town,â Club Scuba Doo dive chief Finn Kiick said. âWe can count it as a Search and Recovery dive for an Advanced or specialty card, too. Plus, we pay a 10-cent-per-pound bounty.
âThe hot dive sites are the most target rich,â Kiick said. âYou find other stuff, too. Cameras. Knives. Wedding rings. Gold teeth. Glass eyes. We return what we can to the owners. What they canât return gets sold at resort gift shops. Or online.â
The cleanupsâ profit motive has drawn sharp criticism from some.
âPut all the lipstick on it you want, these people are scavengers,â Sandy Bottoms Beach Resort guest Buddy Brunnez said. âTheyâre selling stuff that isnât theirs after, at best, a half-assed search for the owners. How hard do you really think theyâre looking for who lost a gold ring?â
Industry professionals were quick to defend the sales.
âTen cents a pound doesnât really turn many heads,â Latner said. âBut add the incentive of being able to make some real money through an online auction? Our boats are full, and so are our weight bins. Is that legal? Thatâs the diversâ concern â we get our weights back.
âWe have one of our instructors working up a Weight Retrieval Diver distinctive specialty course, too,â Latner said. âFour dives, and bring back at least 50 pounds of lead, and the cardâs yours. People are lining up to take it.â
Filed under Caribbean, Scuba Diving
Mud-Slinging Contest Winner Will Be Blacktip Islandâs Mayor
A hastily-dug mud pit outside Blacktip Islandâs Heritage House will be the site of todayâs tie-breaking mayoral mud-slinging contest. (Photo courtesy of Led Waite/Blacktip Island Elections Office)
A constitutional crisis was averted Thurssday when election officials invoked a little-known amendment to make literal mud-slinging determine who will be Blacktip Islandâs mayor after the candidates tied in the popular vote.
Incumbent Jack Cobia and challenger Antonio Fletcher finished the election with four votes each. At noon today the men will strip to their shorts, stand 10 paces apart in a mud pit at the islandâs Heritage House and throw sludge at each other.
âBlacktip Islandâs founders knew these races would get ugly,â Elections Supervisor Ledford Waite said. âThey put in an appropriate tie-breaker that would reflect a messy political campaign and entertain the voters at the same time.
âThe constitution say the mayor needs âto have a strong arm,ââ Waite said. âIt also states that, in the event of a draw, throwing mud establishes that ability, as well as the grit to take a shot to the face and stay standing.â
The last-minute announcement had community leaders scrambling.
âWe had to dig a mud pit quick-like-the-bunny,â said Public Works chief Stoney MacAdam. âThe tricky part was mixing the mud to the right consistency. Too wet, it wonât throw. Too dry, it wonât stick.
âHad to slap together stands for 100 people, too,â MacAdam said. âLegally, we have to provide a clear viewing opportunity for the entire population so they can witness the electoral process first-hand and see the electionâs not rigged.â
The last candidate standing will be declared the winner. Election observers have been on site since Wednesday to ensure no rocks, coral or other contraband are hidden in the mud.
âLast recorded mud-off was the infamous Skerritt-Bottoms contest of 1804,â Waite said. âBooger Bottomsâ supporters snuck loads of iguana guano into his section of the pit so he could throw that at Ferris Skerritt.
âThe plan backfired, though, since Booger had to get hip-deep in the muck to throw it,â Waite said. âHe ended up with more on him than he got on Ferris. It cost him the election.â
Antonio Fletcher was confident in his chances Friday.
âIâm not scared, you know,â Antonio Fletcher said. âJack, he cheats at dominoes and everything else, but no way he can cheat at this in front of God and everyone.â
Jack Cobia was equally optimistic.
âIf âTonio thinks Iâll take it easy on him âcause heâs an old man, heâs got another thing coming,â Cobia said. âItâs my duty to whomp him. No way some non-alcoholic-beer drinkerâs gonna represent this island.â
Island voters are eager for the contest.
âItâs perfect,â said resident Finn Kiick. âJack and Antonioâve been slinging figurative mud at each other for months. Time they finally used the real stuff.
âI voted for âTonio, but my moneyâs on Jack in this one,â Kiick said. âHe played Little League back in the day, and heâs still got that outfielderâs arm. He throws with his fingers together, âTonioâs toast.â
Blacktip Islanders Say âWhateverâ To Passive-Aggression Workshop
A pink railroad vine blossoms at Blacktip Islandâs Blacktip Haven resort, site of the cancelled passive-aggression management workshop. (photo courtesy of Leigh Shore)
A Blacktip Association for Mental Health-sponsored passive aggression and sarcasm retreat this weekend at Blacktip Haven resort has been cancelled due to local indifference, organizers said.
âPassive aggression is the monster on Blacktip Island, gnawing away at the communityâs well being,â psychologist and BAMH facilitator Leigh Shore said. âThis retreat was supposed to be a lifeline for islanders identify to and properly deal with hostility regulation.
âNow, with everyone boycotting, weâre stuck in the same old snarky mess,â Shore said. âWhat can I say? You canât help people who don’t want to be helped.â
Some locals said the lack of turnout was due to confusion about the workshopâs goals.
ââI don’t know why Leighâs so upset,â Eagle Ray Divers divemaster Alison Diesel said. âThe flyer read âPassive Aggressive Workshop.â You couldnât tell whether it was for or against passive aggression.
âI mean, if she was gonna teach how to get better at it, I was all in,â Diesel said. âBut two days of being nice to a roomful of jerks? Whatever.â
Other locals voiced broader criticism.
âSome yahoo gonna tell us how to live better? Not happening, you know,â local handyman Dermott Bottoms said. âIt attacks our culture, our way of life.â
Island mayor Jack Cobia agreed.
âWe Blacktip Islanders don’t suffer from passive aggression. We quite enjoy it,â Cobia said. âItâs not a disorder. Itâs a coping mechanism, the survival skill that allows us to get along.
âAs for no one going to this seminar-thingy, Iâm not losing any sleep over it,â Cobia said.
Workshop organizers, meanwhile, still hope to attract participants.
âIâm not mad,â Shore said. âAll it takes is one attendee to make this a success. If the workshop doesnât go this weekend, weâll do it next weekend. And the next. Weâll run it every weekend until someone shows up.â
Locals were not swayed.
âNo oneâs got time for that damn class,â Bottoms said. âAnd if Leigh tries to make us go, well, sheâll see some active aggression.â
Blacktip Island To Get Traffic Signals
- A motorcycle speeds past one of Blacktip Islandâs intersections at rush hour Thursday.
The Blacktip Times offices are closed this week in honor of The Battle of Blacktip Remembrance Week. The editors are reposting an earlier story that addresses a still-unresovled safety issue on the small Caribbean island. – the editors
Citing growing safety concerns, the Department of Public Works will install traffic lights at both of Blacktip Islandâs intersections this week.
âThis has been a critical situation for a while,â Public Works director Dusty Rhodes said. âThereâs the road around the island, and thereâs the one across it. Where they come together, youâve got disaster waiting to happen.â
Not all locals are happy with the decision.
âWe hardly use the existing stop signs,â long-time resident Frank Maples said. âThereâs what, 20 motor vehicles on island? I donât recall any of them smashing into one another. If these lights go up, the next thing you know the government will be paving the roads, then painting stripes on them, then giving them names. Itâs a slippery slope. People come to Blacktip to get away from that sort of rubbish.â
Rhodes disagreed.
âThe stop signs arenât working. Last year alone we had three near-misses . . . that we know of. We donât want that to escalate, especially with the holiday season on us. These roads may not have names, but I assure you theyâll have traffic signals. Weâre installing cameras, too, so we can keep an eye on things.
âOur job is to bring this island into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming if necessary. If we step on a few toes in the process, well, so be it.â
Police officials confirmed the Caribbean island has seen an uptick in the number of vehicle accidents in recent months.
âAll have been one-car affairs, usually on Friday and Saturday nights, but you canât argue with the statistics,â Island Police Constable Rafe Marquette said. âThe trees and power poles are taking a terrible beating.â
The most recent incident involved a lone scooter rider who ran a stop sign and sped into Eagle Ray Sound, IPC Marquette said.
âHe blew through the intersection full tilt. Zoom! Splash! We had to call scuba rescue to pull him out. He nearly drowned.â
Rhodes would not comment on rumors his department would also be erecting nets beyond each intersection to contain other wayward motorists before they reached the water.
Filed under Caribbean
Blacktip Island Author Releases New Humor Novel
Tim W. Jacksonâs humor novel, Blacktip Island, was released Saturday.
Local award-winning author Tim W. Jackson Saturday released his second novel, Blacktip Island, via all major book distributors and his personal website.
Blacktip Island follows a bumbling embezzler who runs off to the Caribbean, a step ahead of the Feds and desperate to start life over as an anonymous divemaster in a tropical paradise. On Blacktip Island, though, he quickly discovers âtropicsâ doesnât mean âparadise,â and rookie boat hands stick out like a reef at low tide.
âItâs a rollicking comedy for anyone whoâs ever dreamed of trading the rat race for an exotic tropical locale,â Jackson said. âIf Margaritaville and Northern Exposure had a love child, theyâd call it Blacktip Island.
Early reviewers praised the novel.
The San Francisco Book Review said, âFive Stars. Blacktip Island’s storyline gets readers hooked, and the characters take this book to another level.â The Portland Book Review called Blacktip Island, âfun and funny, its characters vivid. Take your time and dive into this adventurous story.â IndieReader said, âJackson has a strong voice that makes for an entertaining read from beginning to end.â
The novelâs first chapter is available as a free download below The Blacktip Timesâ âWorld Newsâ section and on the authorâs website.
Blacktip Island is available for purchase at:
A portion of all proceeds from Blacktip Island go to the Nature Conservancy’s Coral Reef Preservation Fund.
Filed under Caribbean, Scuba Diving
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