The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The new owners of Long Island’s Flying Fish Marina yesterday said they were planning to invest “at least $5 million” to upgrade the property, doubling both full-time staff and boat slips.

Confirming that they aimed to double the marina’s existing 22 slips to more than 40, Jason Edler, Flying Fish Marina’s director, told Tribune Business the expansion also included construction of a new restaurant/office building.

Disclosing that the construction phase was likely to employ around 20 workers, Mr Edler said the expansion was also intended to help “revitalise” the Clarence Town area.

While declining to identify the Texan investor who had purchased Flying Fish Marina from former Long Island DNA candidate, Mario Cartwright, and his wife, Mr Edler said he and his “boss” had been regular visitors to the island for the past 10 years and wanted to reverse its “slow state of decline”.

Describing the expansion project as “a labour of love”, he added that they were looking to build on the Flying Fish Marina’s strategic location as the last/first port of call for yachts and boats transiting the Bahamas, depending on whether they were headed north or south.

“We do have some expansion plans in progress,” Mr Edler told Tribune Business. “We’re 22 slips now, and we’d like to double that. We are the very last stop going south, and the very first stop going north.

“We are actually in progress right now with some renovations, kind of our first phase.” Apart from completely renovating the kitchen at Flying Fish’s outside bar and grill, Mr Edler said repainting, and the installation of new doors and windows, had also been done.

“I’d like to be further along,” he disclosed. “We’re re-landscaping the entire property; things are really getting underway. We’re in full swing.”

The marina breakwater is also being rebuilt, and Mr Edler added: “We’re finalising some plans to have a two-storey restaurant constructed out at the point, and will start on that in four months. Upstairs will be restaurant dining, and downstairs will be an office and ship store.”

Work on doubling the number of marina slips was likely to start in late summer 2013 once the peak boating season had drawn to a close, Mr Edler said, adding that planning for this would begin in six months’ time.

Explaining how the Flying Fish Marina’s purchase came about, Mr Edler told Tribune Business: “Mario’s a good friend of ours. He’d been there for 12 years and was looking to move on, and the place needed more capital than what was available.

“We spend a lot of time down there, and it’s more getting it back to where it needs to be. It’s a labour of love. There’s a lot of money going into it, and we have to see that returned at some point, but it’s going to be a pretty nice marina once it’d done.”

Mr Edler said the total investment required to upgrade and expand the Flying Fish Marina was “probably going to be in the neighbourhood of $5 million at least”.

Full-time staff numbers were set to increase 100 per cent, growing from the five inherited with the business to 10 once the expansion was completed. Construction jobs were likely to total around 20, with crews set to come in from Nassau.

Mr Edler told Tribune Business that boater traffic and volumes at the Flying Fish Marina remained strong.

“We see about two-three boats a day, and with hurricane season as slow as it is, we’ve seen pretty good volumes,” he said. “Our fuel sales are breaking records every month... Every season gets a little more busy.”

With the Flying Fish Marina a day’s sailing from Nassau, and 150 miles from the Turks & Caicos with the Dominican Republic “right down the way”.

“It’s a good stopover for a lot of boats,” Mr Edler said.

Asked about the developer’s vision for the Flying Fish Marina, he added: “It’s continuing to make a successful business down here. The initial investment’s part of it, where we want to revitalise Clarence Town.

“We’ve met with the island administrator, toured the property and want to see the place thrive. We don’t want to change the character of Clarence Town, the character of Long Island, we want to see it survive and prosper.

“My boss and I have been visiting Long Island for 10 years, and it has been in a slow state of decline, so it’s kind of fun to put something back into it.”