The water entranced me.
I watched ripples dance across the turquoise Antiguan bays. I listened to the gentle waves tease the beach and lap against the sailboat.Skimming toward shore in the dinghy, I looked through clear wavelets at sand and coral and sea grass and was unable to tell whether they were four feet or 30 feet below.
My mother and stepfather and I spent two weeks on a charter sailboat in the waters of Antigua. Our accommodations were fairly bare-bones, our American crew -- a captain and first mate -- casual and full of tales about life in the Caribbean. "Piracy is alive and well in the Caribbean," Captain Jack intoned after an expensive trip ashore to restock the food supply.
I felt a world apart from the tourists stuck on land. They weren't rocked to sleep by the Caribbean, the fabled sea that lulls you by night, captivates you by day with its unmatchable hues.
Those tourists had more luxurious accommodations than I did. I had a narrow bunk, little privacy, the possibility of dropping my sunglasses or my lunch overboard, and a head (don't call it a toilet!) that had to be pumped after use.
But I felt privileged, even superior. For I spent my days surrounded by the turquoise sea. I explored beaches and islands uncrowded by visitors, accessible only by private craft. I reveled in the Caribbean in a way only possible by boat.
My sleeping berth was adequate, my bare-bones wardrobe stuffed into a hammock above. But I preferred to take a blanket and sleep in the open-air cockpit, where I could hear the water, feel the breeze brush my face and rustle the awning. Though we were in the Northern Hemisphere, around midnight the Southern Cross emerged above the horizon.
One night, as we swayed at anchor in Carlisle Bay, I sat in the cockpit and listened to the serenade of a steel band floating across from the shore. Incongruous as it seems, "Somewhere, My Love" works well as anisland song.
It was a vacation of indolence. Not much of an itinerary. Our most ambitious activities were snorkeling and an occasional trip ashore to explore. I knew I was acclimatizing to the sailboat: Once ashore, if I held still for a minute, I could feel everything gently swaying back and forth.
Shipboard cuisine lacked the variety available on a cruise ship. Although first mate Francie, who cooked for us, had American tastes, our menu was limited to what was available on Antigua -- and what could go without refrigeration, as the sailboat lacked such an amenity. A cooler of ice didn't last much more than a day. We ate fruit, fried potatoes, French toast, sandwiches and stew, and drank lots of Kool-Aid and bottled water.
Most of the meat in the stores was either canned or preserved with salt. There were also fresh cuts of tripe and pig's feet that we lacked the courage to try.
The sailboat's compact galley had a sink operated with a foot pump ("fresh water available at the touch of a foot!" my mother said), a propane stove/oven that might be at home in an RV, and rope handles overhead in case of shaky footing at sea. A wire basket with fruit and vegetables, like you might find in many homes, dangled from the ceiling -- but in a nautical adaptation, it was also attached at the bottom to the counter to keep the produce from spilling out.
Our captain and first mate, Jack and Francie, were Americans who actually lived on their boat. There's a whole culture of boat dwellers in the Caribbean, and one of their most valuable commodities is books -- paperback books. I ended up leaving my Tom Clancy novel on the boat because I knew they were dying to read it.
We met up a couple of times with friends of Jack and Francie who also lived on their boat and took paying passengers. We would hop in the dinghy and go visit -- like popping over to the neighbors' house, except that it required a boat to get there. Instead of turning on the porch lights at night, we turned on the mast lights. On their VCR we watched "Captain Ron" and, as seasoned old salts after a whole week on a sailboat, laughed at Hollywood's portrayal of life on an astonishingly roomy boat.
One lazy day we roused ourselves enough to explore one of Antigua's northeastern barrier islands, Great Bird Island.
We climbed its volcanic ridge for a view of contrasts: On one side writhed the deep blue Atlantic, an ocean not to be messed with. On the other side, shimmered the Caribbean, a warm turquoise playground. A deceptive impression, perhaps, considering the number of shipwrecks on these reefs over the centuries.
We had wondered at the beginning of our trip: Would we be seduced by this sun-washed, indolent way of life and find it hard to go back?
Well, no. I found one week of utter relaxation would have sufficed, and after two weeks I was eager to return to my sleep-deprived life.
But since returning to that landlocked existence, I daydream about the Caribbean water, and if I sit still and close my eyes, I can feel the room gently swaying at anchor.