Author: TimW

In August 2025, our very first Eco-Diver program came to a proud conclusion as five incredible young Antiguans — Aunjelique, Hilah, Iman, Lizandro, and Skylie — became certified Advanced Open Water Divers. Over several months, they not only mastered their dive skills but also dove into fascinating lessons on marine ecology, coral restoration, sea turtles, plastics, and fish identification.

Each day began with inspiring talks from guest speakers, followed by afternoons in the water honing their diving abilities. By July, all five had earned their PADI certifications and proved themselves to be natural divers with a real passion for protecting our reefs.

Now, as new members of the ABOT Volunteer Diver group, they’ll continue diving alongside experienced mentors, building confidence until they’re ready to lead reef cleanup dives themselves. We can’t wait to see them grow into “Lead Divers” soon!

A heartfelt thank you goes out to the Dive Carib team — Louis Evans, Leigh Cunningham, Mona Walsh, and Burton — whose guidance and support made this first course such a success.

ABOT is thrilled to share some exciting news — we’ve been awarded a US$50,000 grant from the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)! This incredible support, under the PROCARIBE+ Project, will help us expand our fight against reef pollution around Antigua and Barbuda.

Our reefs face constant threats from discarded fishing gear — nets, lines, hooks, and weights — as well as other debris that harms corals, sponges, and even entangles sea turtles. Thanks to this grant, our 60 dedicated volunteer divers will be able to complete over 40 additional cleanup dives this year, working closely with local dive operators to keep our reefs healthy and thriving.

This achievement builds on the amazing work already done: more than 145 hours of cleanup dives in the National Park, removing 6,500 lbs of rubbish, including nearly 4,000 fishing lines caught on the reef. With this new support, we’re ready to take our efforts to the next level and ensure Antigua and Barbuda’s reefs can flourish for generations to come.

Over the last year, we have organised 11 cleanups on some of our more remote coastal beaches and rocky shoreline. Most of these have required the use of boats or kayaks to access the areas, which include Sandy Island, St John’s Harbour beaches and Willoughby Bay. We’ve had over 50 ABOT volunteers take part in these fun half-day excursions and we’ve managed to clear over 274 Jumbo bags of garbage and a significant amount of larger debris as well.

ABOT has been fortunate to have established a wonderful group of over 40 volunteer divers who give up their time to help us clean the reefs around Antigua. Our first dive took place on April 30th, and since then we have carried out 9 major cleaning days. Most of the debris we have cleared has been fishing line which is entangled on our inshore reefs within our National Park. But we’ve also been removing larger debris and a wide range of other ocean plastics. This year, our divers are also planning on helping to maintain the NPA coral nursery at the entrance to English Harbour.

One of our main goals at ABOT is to help create the Antiguan & Barbudan marine conservationists of the future.

Our first group of six divers have passed their PADI Open Water Divers Course, thanks to DiveCarib, and are now undertaking monthly conservation classes from some of Antigua’s best marine educators. In September, they will become Advanced Open Water Divers and will continue to assist in our Volunteer Diver group.

We recently received funding to begin our second program and we have another six students excited to start this month.

What a year it has been. We truly never imagined that we would be where we are today. Thanks to our amazing team of volunteers, donors and sponsors, we have managed to accomplish a tremendous amount over the last year. From launching our youth EcoDivers program to establishing two Volunteer groups totaling over 80 members, ABOT has been fortunate to have received so much support, both locally and internationally. We’re looking forward to continued growth and an increased number of activities and initiatives for 2025.

On the night of 26 September, the 40-foot catamaran Gi Gi ran aground on Cades Reef. The foreign owner abandoned the uninsured vessel and left the island, leaving us with a deteriorating wreck which has caused extensive damage to the reef inside Cades Bay Marine Reserve. In six days of cleaning, which involved multiple boats and over 36 volunteers, we recovered approximately 1.25 tons of boat parts and belongings from the broken boat. Unfortunately, it continues to break apart on the reef.

ABOT is actively working on creating change to our government policies in order to prevent these types of situations from happening again.

We are delighted to welcome Millie Dennen who joined ABOT in March 2024 as an intern for 6 months.

Millie was born and raised in Antigua and is passionate about marine conservation. She is studying International Business, specialising in Finance at the French business school EDHEC and is completing this internship to achieve her bachelor’s degree.

Millie will be helping us to move our charity forward in our second year.

Environmentalists raise concerns as yacht’s wreckage threatens marine reserve