CARIBBEAN PICTURE TREASURES

[Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm a photographer to capture the feeling of the caribbean in pictures there and remembering the joy of being alive [Music] [Applause] like a modern day columbus our mission is to rediscover the caribbean with our cameras our journey is plotted nearly 500 years after columbus's first voyage followed by the virgin islands then down the leeward and windward islands as far south as trinidad we moved to the west and the netherlands antilles and then up to jamaica following columbus's voyages the first real importance of the caribbean was this fortress el moro has withstood the mightiest powers of europe it has walls over 40 feet thick repelled attackers such as sir francis drake after the spanish-american war elmora was peacefully turned over to the united states and a new chapter in the history of puerto rico began today the emphasis in puerto rico is on creating a stronger economy through a plan called operation bootstrap the first business to pull itself up by operation bootstrap is the carob china factory let's go inside the factory and see what it takes to make a coffee cup [Music] the necessary ingredients include properly mixed clay a molding machine and a quality control system [Applause] these photographs were made with natural light inside the factory we used high-speed film to capture these dimly lit scenes [Music] [Applause] [Music] finally the cup is dipped in a glazing solution fired glazed and fired again the care of china's customers are international but some are also their close neighbors this is the logo for the nearby saramar beach hotel at the ceramar activity is a way of life it's just a short hop from puerto rico to the virgin islands unlike columbus our journey offers us several opportunities to see and photograph these islands from the air according to legend columbus appreciated the feminine shapes and softly veiled atmosphere of these islands they reminded him of saint ursula and her eleven thousand mythical virgins and so he named all these islands the virgins on virgin gordo we met burt and jackie kilbride who were experts at underwater exploration they pick us up at little dick's bay and we head out to photograph the wreck of the roan [Applause] this is one of the most alluring and beautiful shipwrecks in the world the 300 foot long british male packet was only two years old when the hurricane of 1867 broker in two against the rocks off salt island we're about to start a photographic treasure hunt our objective bring home the beauty of this shipwreck without removing anything from it all of our cameras are protected with underwater housings along with our professional 16 millimeter movie equipment we use the kodak xl movie camera because of its ability to make movies in very dim light we use a light with this camera to provide the necessary illumination inside the pitch black hull [Music] as we dive to a depth of a hundred feet let's listen to bert describe the wreck there's a great wreck there's everything is there there's all kinds of things uh pistols there were a couple of cannons on there there's one there now and millions and millions of fish around there and jackie of course has a few pets there that she feeds like a hundred squirrel fish and a few coneys and stuff like that and if we don't feed him they're gonna come up and bite us you know so jackie always carries a loaf of bread or something down when in trouble on the stern of the vessel there's a little uh square hole of lazarette uh when i first discovered this hole there was nothing that was filled right up with silt and sand and uh i went inside we found silver platters and plates and spoons and dishes and and they're all at least 125 years old but the the roan uh has so many artifacts we like to get the legislators here to make it a national park [Music] in the area of the french west indies are the islands of martinique dominica and guadalupe on guadalupe we have the opportunity to train our cameras and tape recorders on a group of young native folk dancers the people of the french west indies inspire picture taking at first sight especially when you see and hear their traditional folk dances [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the particular style that mim adeline uses to tie a hat indicates whether a dancer is married engaged or just eligible the older dancers are interpreting a laundry day romance the subjects are happy the costumes colorful and all in all it makes an excellent subject for anyone's camera [Applause] by the way this is a folklore style of dancing and it relates to life as it really is here on guadalupe on the neighboring island of dominica we photograph ancestors of the island's original inhabitants they are the carib indians who gave their name to the beautiful sea around them the carobs live without the need for modern conveniences they still prepare some of their meals from cornmeal mash and dig out canoes in the same way their ancestors did 500 years [Music] ago in the days of columbus some of the caribbean dims were cannibals but today there's a strong relationship with the church the church of walmart is surrounded by the lush forests of martinique martinique has contrasts and scenery that can inspire any photographer water is the common denominator for all these islands so naturally fishing is the common occupation it seems as though everybody in this small village got in on the catch this fishing project started hours earlier when the fishermen laid a net around an area of water larger than a football field we move our cameras in real close to catch the fresh fish the fishermen divide the catch right there on the beach and most of it finds its way to the marketplace [Music] after the fishermen hang their nets out to dry some of them go right back to their boats and race each other this traditional race in martinique is simply called the fisherman's race but the fishermen aren't the only ones racing more than a hundred veteran sailors from some 26 countries come to martinique to participate in the annual world championship sun fish races [Music] the weekend schedule includes six races run over courses that will vary from six to eight miles races of any kind are challenging subjects to photograph the secret is to get out where the action is and to seek out as many vantage points as possible we photograph this race from the shore from a variety of other boats and even from airplanes our next photographic challenge takes us from a 14-foot boat to a 700-foot luxury liner the rotterdam this is a floating luxury hotel you can set your own pace time and appetite in between ports there's a variety of activity from soaking up the sun to a game of shuffleboard the open sea is an excellent target range for trap shooting the official uniform is a swimsuit the sport jousting the weapons are wet pillowcases filled with balloons even if disarmed it's possible to be a winner me [Music] uh on the southern end of the grenadines is the spice island of grenada the natives come out to meet our ship and dive for coins that passengers throw from the upper decks [Music] the harbor at st george is not quite large enough to handle our ship so we head for shore in launches [Applause] prevailing winds blowing over the mountains in grenada dropped 200 inches of rain a year creating an ideal atmosphere for lush tropical gardens [Music] ah [Music] grenada was originally settled by the french but later the english came and planted nutmeg trees the nutmeg is a seed of a peach-like tropical fruit when the fruit ripens it splits in half to reveal the glistening shells of the nutmeg this lacy crimson covering is called mace it is often the principal ingredient in delicate french perfumes it would be pretty hard to guess that your next cup of hot chocolate might begin right here on this tree [Music] the workers split open the ripe cocoa shell to reveal another surprise cocoa beans are pure white and gooey the processing of cocoa beans is very simple as the cocoa dries it turns from white to the familiar chocolate brown and a native dance step called the cocoa bean shuffle speeds up the drying process [Music] before the daily rains come the workers protect the beans by pushing the drying racks under the buildings [Music] throughout the caribbean there is a mixture of ethnic strains from all over the world one of the leading melting pots is porter spain trinidad famous for its pre-lenten carnival [Music] we want to tell a complete carnival story so naturally our film crew takes a great variety of photographs and lots of them building grandstands tuning instruments and fitting costumes are all part of the story we used sound cameras to capture the lyrics of a one-time calypso king to tell us the carnival story planning for the grand dukkis and the cannibal celebration seaweed building the grandstand and tuning the steel bun costume making is like a treat sometimes we almost forget time to eat carnival carnival [Music] right here in trinidad [Music] today carnival grips all of trinidad in its annual display of color and pageantry there are steel band musicians everywhere with a combined sound that's almost deafening [Music] there's no question about it calypso is the voice of carnival it's the once a year opportunity for all the people and all the entertainers to join in a calypso festival human floats come alive right on stage these floats are custom fitted to the shape and size of each participant and they are entirely people powered one person inside each float [Music] for the celebrants this night runs right into the next day and juve morning from party night club london everybody out for hannibal still van beaten in the street we jump till we get cold weed if you have in a room or two [Music] [Music] in your right hand hold your coke in your left hand your ulu jump with your wife saw her cannibal thousands of natives participate in carnival celebrations and the culmination of their efforts is the grand parade [Music] so [Music] just north of the venezuelan coast are three islands of the netherlands antilles curacao was discovered in 1499 and ships have been visiting the island ever since the british and the french fought over it the dutch settled it and now the tourists are enjoying a real dutch tree [Music] [Applause] [Music] a must on the tour of this sparkling city is the floating schooner market the ships bring fresh produce from venezuela which is just 30 miles to the south [Music] we pack up our cameras once again and head for jamaica one of the most picturesque waterfalls in the world is duns river falls they are impressive as they send fresh water from the high tropical forests cascading down to the ocean beach let's listen to our guide describe them dungeon falls is a very scenic interesting place it's much photographed it's been used in all the advertising campaigns and everything uh people like the excitement of walking up the falls starting down at the beach you go over a sort of staircase of rock over which there are cataracts of water and you get up to the top where it's slightly more placid and then you go up another staircase and water gushing down at you it's very refreshing to stand underneath these cataracts of water and just just feel refreshed [Music] jamaica's answer to jogging not really it's warm-up exercises for limbo limbo is mainly done by professionals for entertainment purposes but it is really a very interesting art because it requires in some cases the bending of the back down to a level of six inches you know from the ground what is very interesting is when you know you've got a group of visitors in a night club or at some show on the beach or wherever trying this thing you begin then to recognize the kind of difficulty you get into when you try to go onto a bar that's five feet from the ground you can't make it and compare that with somebody who does it six inches from the ground it is for them a great experience this with an experience of laughter fun excitement just how low can he go here's what we call the pocket camera limbo [Music] it was a tight squeeze but he made it like columbus we returned to the virgin islands for a second time this time we come to photograph these beautiful waters from the decks of a sailing ship for the other passengers and our photo crew this is a barefooted venture aboard the three-masted windjammer the flying cloud let's listen to her captain captain luffalong lucas the flying cloud is a barking team which is an archaic rig nowadays although it was quite a common one back in the clipper ship days it takes quite a number of people to operate a square rigger we've got about 20 in the crew but of course a lot of those are cooks and stewards and engineers and so forth on deck we actually have six seamen boson and the first officer and myself apart from working on things like raising sales and washing decks and so forth the crew actually spend most of their time chipping paint and painting and helping passengers carry baggage running launches back and forth when we're raising sale we usually start by heading up into the wind with the help of the motor if necessary and we start from aft raising the after sales first all these sales are raised by halyards and you can see the people pulling on the halyards uh we try and get as many as we can as much weight and very often the passengers will pitch in and give us a hand and so forth once the sail is up then we sheet it in the sheet is the line that comes off the back of the sail usually the end of the boom if it's on a boom and you tighten that in so that the sail lies in fairly flat and if you're running off the wind then you would let it out again a little bit all together four and a half we've got about 12 000 square feet of sail and with the two square sols added be another eight thousand so a total of about twenty thousand square feet of sail [Music] if you look back up there on the end of the main yard you'll see a long rope coming down to the deck and you can stand way up there on the bow and do a douglas fairbanks off into the water and then let go but there is a certain etiquette connected with using the rope which i'd like you to observe in the first place before you let go check your impact area in other words if there's somebody down there in ground zero then be sure that you're not going to drop on top of them secondly when you get out there and it sounds a little basic but let go because very frequently people start swinging back toward the ship and everybody else let go and the lasting panic thirdly don't let any part of the rope get between your legs because if you get out there and you drop and the ropes between your legs you're liable to get a nasty surprise when you let go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] somehow the fresh salt air and the warm sunshine really seasoned the appetite after an active morning and a big meal it's time to just relax in the sun [Music] the variety of our photographs is limited only by our imagination and ability to seek out unusual viewpoints [Music] [Applause] we found unusual viewpoints on the bowsprit and by climbing the rattlins to the crow's nest this has been an exciting photo assignment we found a variety of picture treasures throughout the caribbean on the sand in the sea and everywhere under the warm tropical sun foreign