strainhunters admin Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 hey Franco, nice day reports bro! i'm here enjoying my vacation keeping up with the thread, I gotta say you guys are pushing it to the limit again and i'm sure the day schedules are jam packed.take care of X, simon and arjan + others! talk to u soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bozoph Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 thank you guys agian for this. i truely feel like we are all there with you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowsdower Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Man you guys are lucky, palm tree beaches, smoke, and a crazy field tour to top it off. Your work would be most smokers dream vacation haha. Wondering if you found/took any seeds from some red colored phenotypes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franco Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 @ StrainhuntersAdmin: enjoy your holiday bro! Few more days and we'll head back to Europe... I'll miss these islands and the people!!!@ Rowsdower: it's a lot less charming when you actually meet the mosquitos and the sandflies man. ;-)@ G Starr: grabba is my favorite tobacco, I always carry a couple of leaves with me when I am in the Caribbean. I'm even rolling blunts with it sometimes...;-) Chalice is more diffused in Jamaica than where we are now.;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franco Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 DAY 7 I open my eyes and the first thing I feel is pain in my legs, still stiff from yesterday's walk. I also have a blister on a toe. But there is no reason to complain: the swimming pool is waiting. I get out of bed, roll a quick joint, and I'm outside in the warm morning air. The water in the pool must be 30 degrees, it's like a hot-bath. I jump in, and I enjoy a swim in the morning silence. The sun is rising, and the sky is blu and clear. I look around and marvel at this house. It's surely worth a lot of money, and it's amazingly beautiful. This is a really special treat, never before during a Strain Hunters trip we had such a luxury-accommodation; but this is the perfect way to combine safety, invisibility and to keep the camera-crew (and ourselves) happy. The dirty, stinky guesthouses of Himachal Pradesh are a distant memory….Everyone else is still in their rooms, waking up. MisterX shows up, and we go online; it's really cool to see how many people are following our threads on the forums. The villa has an excellent wifi network, finally we are able to upload at decent speed without having to use a dodgy connection or a satellite-link. Slowly the whole crew wakes up and crawls out of their rooms, and into the swimming pool. Someone turns on the music, and the atmosphere gets charged. The air fills with the smell of weed, Simon is burning his morning spliff and I take advantage and steal a few puffs before diving back in the swimming pool. By 8 o'clock Gerry and his wife, the staff that takes care of us and the house, are making breakfast; I can smell the coffee and the bacon, and it's a really good feeling. We all sit at the big table and eat like we didn't eat in days. When everyone is done we pack the filming equipment and head down to the beach, where one of our speedboats is waiting. There has been a problem with the engines of the second boat, so we have to do without it for today. We load the gear and point towards the main island, which we reach in about half an hour. The 2x250 hp 2-stroke engines in the back pull some serious speed, the boat is flying. The sea is very calm, and we don't bounce too much. I remember when Arjan and myself were here during the scouting, it was a different story…. we had really rough seas back then. We smoke some weed, and enjoy the ride. Somewhere along the leeward side of the island we stop to fetch our guides for the day, a group of planters friends of Philip, our boat captain. They guide the boat to a secluded small beach, where approaching with the boat is tricky because of the reef. We disembark quickly and we organize the equipment to be carried. We need to pack a lot of extra-water because walking up steep hills with this heat means that each man needs up to a liter of water per hour. We walk fast, with few stops for filming. We reach the fields before noon; in this part of the island there are several large operations, and we soon realize we are in one of them. The planters cleared an entire mountain-side, a very steep one. They plant local landrace, a Colombian Santa Marta, but during the last 10 years they have been almost constantly crossing it with small batches of Jamaican seeds (which in turn came from Amsterdam and California, ultimately). The result is truly marvelous: 80% of the plants are tall sativas, local landrace, but 20% are showing all kind of influences, to various degrees. We run around like kids in a candy-shop, smelling the buds and rubbing our noses in them. I smell sweet indica scents of kush, and some old skunk, overlapping the typical sativa. Most of the plants just started flowering, but in some sections they are already further, and the resin is starting to make the buds sticky. The local sativas have a typical scent of carrots and celery, a feature we found already several times during this trip. We are sweating a lot, the sun is high on our heads, and we need some shade; we sit in the shanti overlooking the field to rest a bit, then we shoot some scenes for the documentary near a planting-bed where thousands of seedlings have sprouted, forming a lush, thick green carpet. From there, the young plants are transplanted in the field, following a permanent rotation system that allows a constant flow of weed to be produced. After we are done with the seedlings we move on to shoot more scenes in the fields. It's a film-maker paradise, the light and the colors are amazing. But time is ticking; we have to start the descent, through the thick forest, back to the beach. I am using a GoPro Hero action-camera, and I run down fast, ahead of the rest. When I get to the beach I gained a few minutes, and I have the time to jump in the sea to cool off; the water is amazing, clean and refreshing. The coast guard is patrolling the area, so our captain keeps his boat out of sight, away from the beach, until he gets my radio-call. Then, at the last moment, he rushes to the beach to pick us up. We board quickly, and we're off, pulling real speed over the water again. We follow the coastline towards the south for about 20 minutes, keeping close, looking at field after field of cannabis, clearly visible on the sides of the mountains. Then we approach the main peer of a village, where we find our two pick-up trucks, and our contacts J. and C. waiting for us. We jump off the boat and onto the trucks, and we drive off to meet a very cool farmer named Blacka. He has lost a huge field, cut down by the police recently, and he agrees to be interviewed for our Strain hunters documentary. Arjan and myself met him a few months ago already and we know he's a real soldier, a true ganja-pirate, and it's great to feature him and his message. We have to move fast because when the sun goes down it gets too dark to film really quickly. We park the cars, and walk into the bush. After few hundred meters we reach the field that was destroyed by the cops just two weeks earlier. It's devastating to see so many dead plants. Blacka meets us there, we smoke some good bud, and we sit to have a chat. By the time we finish filming it's almost dark. We drive back to the boat, and we're off to the villa. The half an hour boat-ride is awesome: the sky is still purple on the west, and the stars are already showing in the east. Pure poetry of nature.The sea is still calm, and the boat is flying over the water, bouncing rhythmically. I got a spliff in between my lips. Life is good.Back at the villa we shower and we relax by the swimming pool, sipping pina-coladas and talking about the fields we saw earlier, and about the great documentary-material we have. Before hitting the dinner table for some fish we smoke some serious amounts of weed, looking at the view over the bay and loving this place. Life is really, really good.Captain Philip and his boatman Box join us for dinner, and the atmosphere is really lively. We eat a fresh, healthy salad, and then snapper, cooked to perfection and seasoned with local hot-sauce. After dinner the camera crew is busy backing up the material they filmed, while the rest of us take turns at the pool-table (yes, we even have a pool-table…. this place is like a dream).And bomb after bomb, we smoked almost 25 grams of weed in the last few hours. It's time to go to sleep.Tomorrow we will have 2 boats available (hopefully) and we will go look for some good spots for landing and approaching more fields. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshua7 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Thanks you guys are the best and lucky at that as well!Jah bless! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franco Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 [video:http://youtu.be/NKeFONAQ-LE][video:http://youtu.be/ixkOw54CLqM][video:http://youtu.be/8hjk_S8rJ-g][video:http://youtu.be/k_9wjGuT-Ts] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dub_Rifles Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Awesome pix.It looks like a helluva great holiday! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franco Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 ;-)Now I can only do one thing: burn a huge joint and pass out....it's priceless experience..... but I would not really call it holiday ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flail Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Man, some of those guys in your entorage are pretty built.... crazy!Thanks for sharing yet again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 great great pics as always and great narration Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluntcorps Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Great update. Seriously jealous! I would love to be able to do a trip such as this someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexbiologo Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Place is awsome! Franco you need to get some Fat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrystalPhoenix Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Great to see y'all having such a wonderful time!!! Can't wait to hear the post-travel stories!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
copious Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 just amazing Franco,you like super heros safe guarding the future of cannabis genetics! keep up the most essential work lads man kind will thank you (eventually)Happy hunting Gentlemen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrblond21 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Very very nice! Just carry on folks.It´s a pleasure following your theard and watching your awesome pictures and videos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shiva boom Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 P. H. A. T - pretty hot and tastey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G_Starr Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 just wanted to add to the carib vibe hehe ;-) Attached files Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeu9 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Franco, looking forward for those GoPro Hero sequences! Enjoy your stay guys!!!Take care and be safe!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Love the pics and vids Franco, every day is amazing. Thanks for sharing whit us. How is the local food??PeaceJimmy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franco Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 Just waking up here, another hot sunny morning ahead.... sky is clear and there is no wind. I can't believe how lucky we are with the weather. This is normally the hurricane season, and it should be raining a lot! Instead we had already several days of sun. Perfect for filming, and damn hot for walking in the bush... but I am loving every bit of it. Today we should have 2 boats: the plan is to go out at sea and take some good action-shots, then head for some secluded beaches where we can land to access more fields. But at the moment the only things I really care for are a cold shower, a joint, a cup of coffee, and the swimming pool. Last night I had one too many of those pina-coladas... damn, they were good!;-)@ Jimmy: food is great here man, fresh fish, fresh fruits, and amazing juices.... and good chicken, hormone-free, real free-range... ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Good luck for today men, try too catch some nice shark attack pictures Can't wait to see the final video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franco Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 Thanks Dust! And thanks to all of you for following our reports! Soon we will be back and the competition will begin.... sign up for it in the special thread!!!Gotta go now, breakfast is almost ready and I still have to roll a few joints to bring with me for the morning...Talk to you guys tonight! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cogollo Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 very nice lizard i think its an anolis , my frien use to have one of those, i dont know if he still keeping ithave nice day and enjoy your espedition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Potent Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Amazing, Truely Amazing!! Brilliant Narration as always and the pics looks awesome, Can't wait for the finished film inc the Hero sequences hehe! the house looked bliss and i agree CRAZY LATS lol all together lookings like a Legendary Experience Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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