I left New York for the Caribbean Island of Antigua. My friend a popular radio personality was about to lose a major deal. He had two months to transform a derelict beach property into a nightclub or lose it. After granting him the second unsecured loan, I decided to take off and finish the club myself. I had recently broken up with my girlfriend; so I erased her memories with visions of hooking a tropical miss to take down the isle.
The site was on the Atlantic side of the island. My challenge was to transform the Old Jabberwock Beach Hotel into a first class nightclub. Not only did I pass the test, but also I went on to build what had been described as one of the world's best nightclubs. When it was finished, it had telephones on each table, hooked to the bar. The entrance was a wall of infinity lights. Unless a gowned and gloved stewardess took you through the tunnel of lights up winding staircases around to either a sunken bar, or an elevated and carpeted lounge, you would be lost. The seated guests could see who entered. However, because of intricate black lighting against off-white curtains (giving the illusion of purple raindrops) it was impossible to see who was in the elevated lounge. What a lot of people did not know, before the stars began coming from New York and California, yours truly had a few hair-raising experiences. My nightclub was within three miles of 6 hotels, a U.S Air Force base, a U.S Army ソフト闇金 and a U.S Navy base.
Sal, a true sports nut (I mean that in a friendly way) was the seed of a Venezuelan and Trinidadian couple. His father taught him shark fishing, and his mother worked as a barmaid on one of the bases. One of the Navy guys brought a Boston Whaler on the Navy supply ship. Since there were so many beautiful uninhabited islands offshore, fanned by constant Atlantic breezes, after 6 months of near collisions with the partially concealed reefs, he decided to get a sailboat instead. Sal offered him $500 bucks along with a sad story and the Navy guy accepted both. Sal then came up with the bright idea that if he built shark traps and set them in the Atlantic, he could make some money fast. His reasoning was simple: Atlantic sharks were anywhere from 80 to 600 pounds. So at $4.00 per pound, he should pick up an extra $1000 per week. Not bad reasoning.
The Atlantic coast off the Jabberwock Beach is reef-protected. Jumby Bay Hotel and resort acts as a long reef also. Outside Jumby Bay is a circle of islets ranging from Great Bird, Hells Gate, Crump Isle and an outer ring of walled coral and half moon-shaped reefs that protect those islets. Beyond those lay a lovely channel that belches downwards through more winding reefs like stepping stones until you get to Horseshoe Reef-aptly named. Since Jumby Bay's beaches and the offshore islets are protected sea turtle nesting habitats, from those islets, the reefs offer a maze of protection for sea turtles. The soft sea grass off Barbuda, Antigua's sister island provide enough food and hiding places affording sea turtles tunnels of protection. By the time they leave the outer reefs off Barbuda, the next landmass is Spain or Portugal, depending on their route. By then the average sea turtle wading into the open Atlantic is 300 to 500 pounds. Sharks pursue them regularly.