Adventure Antigua was started by Eli Fuller who is a third generation Antiguan who lives and plays on Antigua’s North Shore where his grandfather built the Lord Nelson Beach Hotel in the late 1940s.
Nick Fuller Sr. came here to Antigua in 1941 as U.S. Vice Consul. On his second day in Antigua he managed to get someone to take him exploring in the North Sound Area. He got to Bird Island and immediately decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life in Antigua. Bird Island has had this effect on many people since then. He and his wife remained in Antigua after the war and raised seven children in Antigua while running their beach hotel.
The Lord Nelson was the first hotel built on a beach in Antigua and was opened in 1950. It is where Eli Fuller and the rest of the “grandchildren” grew up learning how to walk, swim and talk.
Eli’s Dad, John Fuller who was born in Antigua, went to the UK after finishing secondary school in Antigua where he studied law. It was there in London that he met his wife Jill. They came back to Antigua after he finished passing the Bar exams to start a family. It’s one of the best places in the world to raise kids!
Eli went to a local school until his graduation at sixteen. In Antigua school finishes at 1:30 PM so there was lots to do afterwards. Eli spent most of his time boating around Antigua and Barbuda. Snorkeling was a favorite among all the grandchildren and Eli was wearing a mask before he learned how to speak.
When Eli was 12 years old he learned how to windsurf and began competing internationally later that year. His first big race was Windsurfing Antigua Week 1985 where he managed to windsurf in the race from Jolly Beach to Montserrat- a 31 mile race across open ocean. For the next four years he windsurfed most days and competed all around the Caribbean.
In 1988 he was given the opportunity to represent Antigua in the games of the XXIVth Olympiad, held in Seoul, South Korea. He was 16 and the youngest competitor in the windsurfing division. The equipment was one-design though, which was not used in the Caribbean and he happily managed to place 31st out of 45 competitors on the unfamiliar gear.
After graduation from high school he enrolled at Florida Tech where he studied business management while still competing on the international windsurfing circuit. After four years he left Florida Tech with his BS in Business Management and moved to Maui, Hawaii where he trained for the Pro Windsurfing Tour.
After traveling all around mainland Europe, Greece, Brazil, Hawaii, the Canaries, and the US he had to come to miss the real island life and his family. After coming back to Antigua working in the hospitality industry managing night clubs, a small hotel, a restaurant, a bar and a sports complex he finally found job fulfillment after starting Adventure Antigua. While sitting in a sail loft in Maui back in early 1999 he thought about designing a day trip by boat which would be modeled after his family’s childhood adventures. The Eco Tour was immediately a hit because it was so different from what was on offer back then. It was an alternative to the traditional booze cruise. Eli has found something special with Adventure Antigua. It was a job where he was never stuck inside and was always on the water enjoying the thing which made his grandfather stay here back in the forties. Since 1999 he has expanded his business adding new boats, new tours and a bigger team, and together with Nell, Jill, Trevor, Ernes, Rasheem, Makieva, Tyrese, Leslie, Desmond, Adino, Brichelle, Ali, J’ron, Arion, and Charles, it’s now starting to feel like a “real” business.
Eli’s love for Antigua, its ecology and history, coupled with life experience makes his carefully designed tours the highlights of many people’s vacation in Antigua. This website is managed by Eli who now spends way too much time on the internet! Trying to get the word out there in an effort to make his tours available to all of Antigua’s visitors and residents is one of the biggest challenges. Adventure Antigua has managed to succeed because of it’s web presence, coupled with it’s commitment to excellence. It has always been Eli’s mission that his tours are educational and interesting, and that the Team treats each guest as if they were long lost relatives. Each team member is someone who loves the ocean and being on the water, and the passion they have for Antigua and sharing it’s natural wonders is always evident.
For more info on the crew who make Adventure Antigua the best Tour company in Antigua by far please visit our blog’s crew section here, and for more info on the old days of Adventure Antigua you can read this old blog post published in late 2006 (click here).