By Elesha George
The weather was hot and so were the grills, when Barbuda hosted its first ever Ocean Festival on Sunday 10th November, 2019. The Festival was a collaboration between the Waitt Institute’s Blue Halo Foundation and the Barbuda Fisheries Division with support from non-governmental organisation, BarbudaGO.
The event was hosted as a fun way to promote fishing regulations and compliance with these regulations on the island.
Robin Ramdeen, Site Manager for Blue Halo, said she was pleased with the day’s turnout.
“We got the message out there,” she told OBSERVER media. “There was already that pride about them, that living here in Barbuda means living near the ocean and taking care of it because you rely on it for your bread and butter every day.”
She listed the preparations that went into Sunday’s activity explaining that, “we printed the t-shirts with the local regulations on them. We decided we would do trivia and giveaways and make it fun to bring people out, to get the community involved in their lagoon and their ocean and what better way to do that like doing things they love to do like swimming and eating seafood.”
“We invited some of the well-known chefs around the island, local people, to come and grill-off with lobster, which is in season now, conch which is in season now and fish as well,” Ramdeen said.
Barring a swimming competition and a very scrumptious grill-off, a number of events had to be cancelled, but did not seem to extinguish the high spirits of the children or the adults who participated and showed support for the activity.