More Beaches in Provo

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

This morning, we planned to leave early on foot to visit the marine store and get more money from the bank. It was a five to six mile round trip, so I decided to do the sensible thing and wear my running shoes instead of my worn and comfortable platform sandals. I dug in the bottom of Wayne’s locker and found them.

The walk was particularly arduous. We zigzagged our way around the construction on the Leaward Highway crossing from one side to the other to find safe footing. My running shoes had been expensive and contoured for maximum comfort; however, after being squished in the bottom of a damp locker for most of three months, the padded convex heel was now stiff and linear. By the time we got home, hours later, I had a blister the size of a quarter on my heel.

So much for sensible shoes. What was I thinking? I have always hated sensible shoes—the brown oxfords my mother made me wear when I wanted loafers, a shiny penny nestled in the leather—the black patent numbers I wore when I was “too young” for pumps. When I was ten, I wanted white go-go boots, but I couldn’t have them either. Since becoming an adult, running shoes have been the only flats in my closet and are reserved for sports and working out. Without a qualm, I threw them in the trash.

Today, was the day we would finally leave the marina. We prepped the boat and by 2:00 p.m., we were saying goodbye to the Hawksbill Turtles that had been swimming under our boat for the last three weeks. We motored around Turtle Cove from the Banana Boat Grill, past the Aquabar, and the Sharkbite. We made a sharp left turn, then another, rode past the megayachts—too big to fit in slips. They lined a long dock end to end like hotels on a monopoly board. And finally, we passed the fuel dock and headed towards the canal that would lead us to Grace Bay.

“Where’s Chris?” Wayne asked casually.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking under the dash. I whistled and called his name, went down the ladder, checked under the coffee table, the settee, and the bottom bunk. I poked my hand in between the clothes hanging in the locker hoping to feel his silky fur. No sign of Chris.

“Wayne!” I shouted up the ladder, “I can’t find him."

In the narrow channel, Wayne turned the boat around, and approached the fuel dock in a stiff fifteen-knot wind. To avoid a highly prejudicial telling of this story, Wayne is joining me in the description of what happened next.

Leah: I grabbed two bundled-up lines from the over-crowded rope locker, while Wayne approached the dock.

Wayne: I had to adjust the throttles just right. Too much gas and we would hit the dock. Too little and we would drift away. A sudden gust of wind could change everything. Hurry, Leah, Hurry!

Leah: On the bow, I quickly hooked one end of a line on the cleat, and hooked the other end on a boat hook, then extended the hook to its full ten feet.

Wayne: Leah was lolly-gagging. The line kept falling off the hook. I won’t say anything, I thought, or she’ll really start fumbling. Come on, Leah, you can do it! I was adjusting and readjusting the throttle to maintain position. She’s got it. By this time, we were close enough for her to reach up and loop the rope around a piling. She tried and missed. Hurry Leah! She tried again. And missed. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! She tried again. At last! Then, a gust of wind came up.

Leah: As soon as I got the rope around the piling, the boat started to move away. Why wasn’t Wayne steering the bow back towards the dock? I tried to pull the boat hook towards me, but my arm remained extended. I held on with both hands and pulled with all my weight. It was all I could do to hold on to the hook. Oooooooh shit!

Wayne: I was getting tense, now. Instead of the rope coming on board, it looked like Leah was going over board. “I don’t know what to do!” She shouted. You don’t know what to do? Does Leah think she can pull a twelve ton boat into the wind with an aluminum boat hook? Two words erupted from my clenched lips. “Drop it!”

Leah: Drop it?, I thought. “Right in the water?” I said, astounded. I looked up at his face. He was scowling, and his mouth was moving but no words were coming out. Guess I better drop it. It hit the water with a splash.

The boat continued to move away taking the line with it, and pulling the boat hook through the water. Oh My! Oh My! The hook eventually came out of the water and wedged under the dock.

Wayne: The line was now taut. I maneuvered the boat closer to the pier, so that Leah could untie it from the cleat. She was just standing there looking in the water. “Untie it!” I ordered.

Leah: I untied the line and dropped it in the water. “What did I do wrong?” He told me I should have selected longer lines. How was I supposed to know that? I found two large bundles of rope in the locker, tied one to the bow cleat, the other to the stern. While he was repositioning the boat for another landing, I scaled the ladder to the bridge, called the marina office for assistance, then ran down again just in time to toss the long line to our helper.
I climbed off the boat to retrieve the hook and line. Wayne, his shoulders hunched up in the vicinity of his ears, marched across the marina to find Chris.

Wayne: My first mate is incompetent.

Leah: I heard that. If you were a better captain, I wouldn’t have to rush so much.

Wayne: I heard that, you…you…you of many thumbs.

Chris th Cat: Hey! Where the hell is my house? It’s gone. Where’s my people?…Someone’s coming… It’s him. Here, I am! Over here, stupid! Under the porch. Are you blind already?. I’m coming out!

Everyone: Thank God that’s over!

We pulled easily from the dock, and headed into the canal, then out into the wide and aqua Grace Bay. The fresh salty breeze immediately washed away all of the tensions of the last forty-five minutes.

The bay was littered with coral and rocks. Motoring directly to our anchorage, just a few miles to the east, would have been treacherous and time-consuming. Instead, we took the same marked channel we used three weeks ago to get from ocean to cove, but this time in reverse. Out Seller’s Cut, we drove along in deep water for a mile or two, until we spotted Stubb’s Cut, the next passage through the barrier reef. Wayne guided the boat over the narrow underwater valley back into the shallow bay. Here, there were no marked channels, and we inched our way cautiously to our anchorage. We dropped the hook on a sandy bottom as close as we could to the beach without entering the swim area marked by big white buoys. A quarter of a mile away, we could see the Beaches Resort.



Tomorrow, our friends, the Nibalis, will be visiting the resort. Also, Aaron, my twenty-two year-old son arrives, and later this week, his friend Kenny who has been a part of our household since the boys were in grade school.

Joe and Julie Nibali, our god-daughter, Samantha, and her little brother, Joey live in California, and we have not seen them for a number of years. I can’t wait for their arrival, and I am curious about the resort. I have never been to an all-inclusive. That’s not the kind of vacation we take, and I wonder if I would like it. But, I am also ready to get back to the sea and do some more cruising. We have stayed too long in one place. When the Nibalis head back to California, Aaron, Kenny, Wayne, Chris, and I are going to leave Provo and explore the rest of the Turks and Caicos. Aaron is a good boater and Kenny is a good sport, and we are really looking forward to exposing both of them to these wonderful islands and their surrounding waters.

Wednesday, June 18, 2003
This morning, our mission was to dinghy to shore to explore our new whereabouts, scout out the laundry, the store, and a good spot to meet Aaron upon his arrival from the airport. We pulled our boat to shore and searched for something…anything to tie the boat too. A long deck covered with picnic tables sat on the dune, and we lugged the boat up the beach and through the sand, until we were close enough to secure it to one of the support posts. The sun was hot on our backs, and our clothes were soaked with sweat by the time we stepped onto the wooden platform.
We walked to the end of the deck where a white clapboard complex housed a dive shop and a real estate office. Everything looked brand new, but eerily, there was not a person in sight. From there, we followed a conch shell-lined path to a dirt road. A sign read “The Veranda, an Authentic Caribbean Village”. Bulldozers had carved a road through the bush with offshoots to the right and left for additional lots. As of yet, there was no other evidence of new construction.

The road was dusty and white and littered with bottles and food wrappers. Five young men sauntered into our path from one of the side roads. They looked lean and mean. Their eyes were narrow slits and their feet looked too large for their bony legs and knobby knees. There is absolutely nothing here, I thought. They must be up to no good. I stood up straighter and tried to look confident and unconcerned as we passed—repressed my urge to quicken my pace. They fell in behind us. I tightened the grip on my bag and didn’t look back. The limestone tract turned to macadam. Ahead, we could see the intersection where cars zoomed by on Lower Bight Road. I let out a sigh of relief.

This was the center of the settlement known as the Bight. Two churches stood on either side of us, a pretty white one to our left, a gray cinder block one to our right. Across the narrow highway, a blue L-shaped compound was home to The Bight Café, and a computer store/internet café that looked out of place. The Bight is a Haitian settlement and by far, the most “third-worldy” in Provo. The houses were ugly and concrete and crowded together on a hill that bordered the highway. They sat on rocky, limestone yards. Deep crevices formed by heavy rains snaked down to the road. There was no vegetation. Trash was strewn about, while large metal trash cans sat empty next to the highway. Barefoot woman and children in dirty, tattered, and mismatched clothes stood on stoops. They ignored the babies’ cries that emanated from inside.

Several tall trees stood behind a stone wall that lined one side of the highway. This appeared to be the only place to escape the relentless sun. Men sat on the wall watching the cars shriek by enroute from resort to shopping center and back. It is customary in both the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos to greet everyone you meet on the street. I said “Good Morning” to the wall-sitters as we passed. A grunt or a barely discernable nod was the response.

We asked a woman how to get to the store. She pointed to what once was a dirt road. Due to errosion, it was impassable, now used as a footpath, a shortcut to the Leaward Highway and the Seven Eleven convenience store. We stepped cautiously over pot-holes and fissures, stopping to shoo flies from our sweaty legs by scraping them with the sides of our sandals. The path took us within feet of the rundown houses, and the women eyed us suspiciously from their concrete slabs. Could this be an authentic Caribbean village?

I tried to put on a pleasant face that hid my disgust of their living conditions. Was life here better than Haiti? Perhaps, the prejudice of many locals against Haitians forced them to live in poverty, but did they have to live in squalor? Did they just not know any better? Once the Veranda real estate agents start doing their job, this Caribbean village will probably be leveled and replaced with a strip mall for the convenience of tourists and ex-patriots. Where will these people go then?

We arrived at the Seven Eleven. It looked like a small rancher converted to a store, lacked the large glass windows of an American 7-11. It was well-stocked with over-priced staples and snack foods, but lacked the presentation standards of its American namesake. The aisles were long and narrow and merchandize was stacked in every available place. Here, amidst the sunscreen and bug spray, you might find a bin of dirt-encrusted potatoes. Here, you might find prune juice between the motor oil and the Preparation H. We stood in line in front of a small crowded counter with our bottles of water. A construction worker bought his breakfast--a soft drink, a pack of cigarettes, and a bag of chips. An old man bought a quart of beer. A young Haitian woman bought white bread and a quart of milk, her children ogled the candy and she said “Non….Non…Non”. Not that much different than an American convenience store.

Back on the Bight Road, we found Dry Clean USA, with it’s paved parking lot and well-maintained coin laundry and dry cleaning operation. This business is locally owned and managed, providing dry cleaning service to the major resorts in the area. It is clean and new, and a whirlwind of activity, a sharp contrast to the Bight settlement only a few hundred feet away—Dry Clean USA versus Dry Unclean Provo.

Back on Lower Bight Road, we headed towards the resort area, less than a mile away. We were in search of a hotel on the beach called “The Sibonne.” Adjacent to the hotel, we hoped to find the Bay Bistro, a place to meet Aaron. Due to our prior experiences with outdated cruising guides and travel brochures, we wanted to make sure that it was still open and had not changed names.

On the way, we were drawn by a bright hand-painted sign to a small arts and crafts shop nestled in a patch of trees. The proprietress wore a multi-colored turban. Her curvaceous body was wrapped in a matching dress. She held her head regally and informed us her name was Sister Provo. Odd name, I thought, but if she wants to be Sister Provo, it’s all right by me.

She was laying out her wares on small wooden tables and benches. There were unframed paintings of black woman in colorful dresses carrying baskets in their arms or on their heads, perhaps what one would expect an authentic Caribbean village to look like. There were masks and crudely carved animals and thin wooden plaques of long-limbed men who seemed to be wooing their ladies, some coy, some not. Sister Provo told us that she and her family were the artists.

Not a half mile further down the road, we found the Bay Bistro, a pretty little restaurant with a small bar just off the beach. It was upscale by Caribbean standards, and we were the only patrons. We sat on stools at a smooth oak bar.
“Good Morning,” Wayne said to the waitress. “Could we have two ice teas?”
She didn’t reply. Moments later, she shoved two glasses of tea our way and turned back to her napkins and salt shakers.

I looked down at my clothes. They were a bit dusty and maybe a little wrinkled, and there were black and white streaks on my brown legs. I had started out this morning looking fairly well-groomed. I ran my hand over my un-tamed hair. I guess we looked like boat rats instead of tourists.

“Excuse me,” Wayne said politely. The waitress turned her head slightly and looked at us from the corners of her almond-shaped eyes. “Will you be open this evening?”

“Yes,” she muttered.

We finished quickly and asked for our check. “Five dollars,” she said.

For two ice teas? I thought. Wayne gave her a twenty. She gave him three fives back, then walked away before he could ask for change so that he might tip her. If we were staying at the resort, would we just leave her a five, in spite of her lousy attitude? Perhaps, her attitude would be different. Wayne looked at me and shrugged and we walked out.

The stroll on the beach back to our dinghy was more pleasant than the highway route. We soothed our feet in the warm water. We made note of landmarks so that we would know where to beach the dinghy when we returned in the evening.

It was a lazy afternoon on the Ella McQuaid. After phoning Aaron on the satellite to tell him of our meeting place, we read and slept until it was nearly time to meet him, then we showered, me in the small head, Wayne on the deck. As always, Wayne was ready before I was.

Primping in front of the mirror, I heard Wayne shout, “Shit!"

“What?” I said turning to look out at the deck.

Wayne was tearing off his shorts. He moved towards the swim platform tripping out of them. Chris and I ran to see what was going on. Wayne dove into the water and started swimming, his small white bum flexing with each kick of his dark brown legs. The dinghy was floating away in the current. He caught it and swam it back to the boat.

“You’re my hero, again,” I said laughing. He smirked, resigned to his fate.

Later that night, we waited for Aaron, sipping a beer delivered on the head of a charming and handsome waiter. Yes…kinky hair, then a napkin, then an upturned pilsner glass, then the beer bottle. It was a good trick that brought a smile to our faces and a tip to his pocket.

It seemed like forever before Aaron arrived. Then I saw him. He was standing at the door, a knapsack slung over one broad shoulder. He scanned the room expectantly. His eyes lit up and his lips opened into a broad grin when he saw us. There he was--my baby boy, so tall, so handsome, but still goofy and loveable.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

“Customs,” he said as he slung the sack off his shoulder and dropped it on the floor with a thud. “They wanted to know where I was staying and I told them on my parent’s boat. They wanted to know where the boat was and I told them I didn’t know. They wanted to know where I was meeting you and I told them the “Sea Bone,” and they said they never heard of it. They wanted to know how long I was staying in Provo, and I said ‘I’m not sure.’ They wanted to know where we were going and I told them I didn’t know that, either. Finally, in exasperation, they gave up and said ‘Get out of here.’”

“You didn’t bring anything illegal, did you?” I asked, worried now.

“No, but in Baltimore, they did confiscate the fishing lure I brought for Wayne’s birthday present. Sorry Wayne,” he said looking truly regretful.

We had a cold beer, then headed for the Ella McQuaid. What was left of the sun glowed on the horizon like a sparkler just before it goes out. Aaron, weary from travel, made his bunk on the flying bridge looked through the screen at the sky and watched each star emerge from the darkness.


Thursday, June 19, 2003

Wayne and I arose early and were puttering around the boat quietly in an effort to let Aaron sleep. Suddenly, we heard a loud splash.

“What was that?” Wayne asked as we ran to the deck in time to see an ever-widening circle of ripples on the water. Another splash to our left turned our heads. Aaron shot from the water and pulled himself onto the swim platform.

“I couldn’t wait to do that!” he said standing, then leaned to his side and cart-wheeled back into the water. Just as he surfaced, I sprang from the swim platform, hugged my knees to my chest, and plunged in next to him. I tread water and floated on my back watching Aaron perform his full repertoire of thwarted dives.

After brunch, the three of us took the dinghy to the Beaches resort and met the Nibalis. We spent the afternoon lolling about the beach.

“Let’s go to the pool bar and get a pina colada,” Julie said.

“Is it OK?” I asked, always wanting to stay between the lines.

“No one’s going to know,” she said. Samantha ran along beside us.

The large pool, one of many on the resort, was crowded with screaming children and watchful parents holding their drinks above the surface. The bar was tiled and U-shaped. We sat on stools submerged in the cool water and ordered, then carried the first of many drinks back to the beach. It was so hot, we spent much of the day squatting in waist-deep water sipping our frozen beverages.

“Come ashore and have dinner with us tonight,” Joe and Julie urged.

When we had a moment alone, Wayne and I debated over whether to pay eighty dollars each for a night pass that would allow us free food and drink and full use of all amenities.

“I do want to spend the evening with Joe and Julie,” I said, “and if we stay at the resort, little Joey can go to the childcare facility and we can have some adult time with them. But a hundred and sixty dollars for one night?”

“I thought they said they were planning a night off the resort?” Wayne said.

“They did, but I think they changed their minds. It’s probably too much trouble with the kids.”

“Yeah,” Wayne agreed.

“Well, if we went out to dinner and had a fine meal, mixed drinks, bottles of wine, and more drinks and dancing, we could easily spend $160,” I rationalized.

“Ok,” Wayne said, “Let’s do it.”

“I feel funny about leaving Aaron behind on his first full day,” I countered.

“He can come if he wants to,” Wayne said.

“Are we going to pay for it?”

“Eighty dollars?” Wayne exclaimed, “No way. He has money."

Aaron opted to stay on the boat and save his money. We left him with the computer for entertainment, and headed back in. We dressed in our version of resort-wear, Wayne in khaki slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, me in cotton capris, a tank top, turquoise jewelry and makeup. We dragged our old gray dinghy to shore and tied it to the Beaches pier. A huge security guard watched us from behind the dune, his neck as thick as my thigh.

At the designated meeting point, a wedding was taking place, so we strolled down the beach to the next set of steps that led to the resort. “There they are,” I said.

As we approached them, Mr. Thickneck suddenly materialized behind them. We saw him exchange words with Joe, then walk away holding his black walkie-talkie to his mouth. Joe told him we were going to the main lobby to purchase evening passes. He seemed satisfied, but as we crossed the resort to the entrance, I wondered if he were hiding behind a bush or perched in a tree like my old vice principal who patrolled the high school parking lot for pot heads and noontime escapees. The part about him being in a tree was only a rumor, but we all reveled in it.

The Beaches Resort was a well-maintained and fastidiously landscaped collection of villas, rooms, restaurants, courtyards, bars, and arcades. Grass grew there. It looked like America in the Caribbean.

We were joined by the Parks’ family who were traveling with the Nibalis and began our evening with sushi without ginger for an appetizer, then moved on to the restaurant selected for dinner, only to find that a table would not be available until after nine. We had two hours to kill, but it was of little concern when all the alcoholic beverages were free. We drifted from restaurant to bar to restaurant, and had cocktails on a lovely terrace lined with jasmine, such a contrast to the Bight Settlement just a mile away.

By the time, we got a table at Schooners, Joey and Megan, the two five year olds had to be released from the childcare facility, so they joined us.

The night ended with Wayne and Joe playing chess on a huge outside board. Wayne captured Joe’s pawn and roared, “Take that, you swine!” as he heaved the two-foot tall chess piece across the grassy lawn.

After over seven hours of food and drink, we stumbled to the dinghy. The tide had come in and the dinghy was full of water and sand. Luckily, we had our trusty bailer on board, made out of the top half of an old laundry detergent bottle.
My first impression of the all-inclusive resort? I expected the restaurants to be four star, but our food and wine were mediocre at best. By the time, we were seated for dinner, the servers looked haggard and out of patience. They probably were not too happy to see a party of twelve, including seven inebriated adults, two five year-olds and a nine and eleven year-old arrive at 9:45 P.M. The place had emptied, and I got the feeling that it would not be long before the cleaning crew would start piling chairs on tables and asking us to lift our feet so they could vacuum under us.
In defense of the resort, Joe and Julie reported having much better meals on subsequent nights. The setting is lovely with nice suites, attractive grounds and a beautiful beach. Because of the security, we felt comfortable walking around late at night, and letting the older children roam freely. It is a great place for the family who just needs to get away from it all, enjoy the beach, do some snorkeling or perhaps take a dive trip on one the resort’s boats.

On the downside, although Beaches employs local citizens, they do not purchase any local food or beverages and my guess is that few of the families ever leave the resort to patronize local establishments, especially after the cab ride down the Lower Bight Road. Turk’s Head Beer (brewed in Provo), was not offered at the resort, nor was Presidente (the Dominican Republic beer we had grown accustomed to drinking). It is a shame that the resort is so much like America. Julie, who last year visited the Jamaican version, said that it had much more of a Caribbean feel to it.

When we went on a three-week camping trip in Baja in a pickup truck, I wanted Grace and Aaron, then nine and eleven, to learn about a different culture. We camped on a beach that looked like the moon and scooped foot-long squid right off the beach. Wayne cleaned them and sizzled them in butter and garlic in a cast iron frying pan held over a campfire. Grace wouldn’t even taste them and had a can of spaghettios for dinner instead. When we plucked shellfish out of the water at Playa Blanco, pried open the shells, applied lime and slurped them up, the kids said, “Yuk!”
For Joe and Julie, it probably is much easier to order some chicken fingers for the young ones, than try to generate their interest in a plate of peas and rice heaped next to a bony fried fish. “Mommy, its looking at me!”

Wound Down in Provo

Friday was the day I allotted as “Wayne’s day off from family obligations,” but he kindly volunteered to dinghy us to the beach, rather than send us in a cab. He'd pick us up at three in the afternoon.

He left us off near the Coral Gardens Hotel. We planted our umbrella and spread out our towels next to the spacious canvas shades and a row of comfortable-looking lounge chairs reserved for guests of the hotel.

The attraction here was swimming around a patch of reef surrounded by rope and evenly-spaced bright orange buoys. But, you weren't allowed to swim inside the buoys. A sign indicated that this site was part of a reef restoration project.

"This mask leaks.” Grace spit water from her mouth. "These aren't the same ones we rented Tuesday.” She slicked back her hair and pressed the mask into her face.

Dexter readjusted his. "Mine leaks, too.”

My mask always leaks,” I said as I slid into the warm water. It wasn't a lie, I kept a bubble in my nose like Wayne taught me and when the mask was annoyingly full, I lifted the corner of the mask and let the water out. I left Grace and Dexter on shore fiddling with their faulty equipment.

Right off the beach, the coral was only a foot below water. It was gray and dead, probably destroyed by the feet and flippers of past snorkelers. Moving around clockwise, the water deepened, but as it did visibility lessened. The silty water reduced the mustard-yellow fire coral to a muted rust or in the deepest spots gray-green. My eyes traveled down each rope I crossed to the bottom where concrete moorings held the orange buoys in their circular pattern.

Underwater plaques were provided to educate snorkelers and point out items of interest. A yellow tail looks like this. Don’t touch fire coral. Brain coral looks like a brain.

Those plaques reminded me of the first time Wayne took me to Florida. We were beach-combing. I walked along behind him, my eyes scanning the sand in hopes of finding something other than glistening rocks and bits of broken shell. I was in search of a perfectly-formed nautilus, conch or periwinkle or a pair of pearly clam or scallop halves still joined. It seemed like Wayne had a knack for picking up a treasure, while I was still finding the dull and broken remains of shells like the ones I toted home from the beach as a child.

Suddenly, I spotted what looked like a “good find” and stooped to pick it up. It was a flamingo tongue, smooth, shiney and flawless. “Look!” I held it out in my open hand

That's a nice one,” Wayne said assuredly, but I noticed he was smirking.

I looked at him puzzled, then followed his eyes to the sand near my feet. When he'd passed this spot before me, he drew arrows in the sand pointing to the place where I would find the shell.

"You jackass," I said laughing.

Now, at Coral Gardens, I read each underwater plaque and finished the circle around the reef, dispirited by the injured coral, and sorry for, but maybe a bit smug, about those whose only snorkeling experience might be this coral garden.

By one, Mom, Grace, Dexter, and I were all squeezed under the little umbrella, each on our allotted quarter of shade. We read our books, swatted at bugs and shifted our towels as the umbrella's shadow elongated and stretched to the east.

At two, we hobbled across small prickly pine cones the size of thimbles. Spiky hitch-hikers lodged in the soles of our feet. We climbed the dune to sit under a Casarina tree. The sun was hot against our red skin as it cut in and out of the waving boughs of the tree. We returned to our books, looking up periodically to check the horizon for the dinghy-at first every fifteen minutes or so, then more frequently. Three o’clock came and went and still no sign of Wayne.

At three thirty, I stood and stretched. "Well, I don't know what happened to Wayne. We can go up to the hotel and call a cab or we can hike down the beach. Maybe, we'll see him coming along the way."

“Bill likes to hike,” Mom said.

The consensus was to walk, and we packed up our belongings and started our march down a long stretch of beach. We passed the hotels, then passed the beaches we'd visited on previous days. Our once energetic pace slowed as we stopped along the way to reposition the beach equipment we toted or remove a pebble from our sandals or wrap our waists in beach towels to not only lighten our loads, but protect our sun-burned skin from the late afternoon sun.

Each time, I saw a boat coming around Smith Point and heading up the channel, I was sure it was Wayne. At first, all we could make out was the frothy white wake and the dark silhouette of the driver. But as each boat drew near, what looked like a grey inflatable would transform into a white skiff.
For some reason, he wasn't coming to get us, but by then it was too late to turn around. I looked to my left for the beach access road that would lead back to the vicinity of the marina.

When we were well past the point where I expected to find the road, we could see masts from the marina above the dune, so I led the group on a narrow, sandy path that meandered around sea grapes and grasses. The path became less-defined. Aware that each step we took away from the beach was a wasted one if we didn't find the short-cut, I forged ahead of my entourage only to come to a stand-still. A thicket lay before me. A quick reconnaissance mission to the left and then to the right revealed no passage. I headed back to meet them on the path.

"We can't get through here."

They looked defeated.

We have to be close,” I added optimistically as they turned back towards the beach. Then, I saw another path, this one more defined. "This looks like it.”

We followed it past the backs of all of the beach houses we’d passed from the front a half an hour before, then to the paved Turtle Cove Road and finally we were trudging down the boardwalk towards the boat. I quickened my pace again and left them well behind me. I wanted to get there first in case I found a thick-tongued Wayne lounging in the Banana Boat Caribbean Cafe hidden behind a pyramid of beer cans. I didn't want to scream at him in front of my family.

I found Wayne relaxing on the deck of the boat reading a book. “Where were you?” I asked.

He looked up. “I tried to start the dinghy for two hours before I gave up. Why didn’t you take a cab?”

At the small convenience store next to the café, I bought fours popsicles. The clock read 5:30. We’d been walking two hours. Purple sugar water was melting down my arms, when everyone else caught up.

"Wanna popsicle?” I said smiling, as if all was well.

"Where was Wayne?" Grace barked.

My mother’s face was ruby-red and splotchy and she was short of breath. I placed a pillow behind her back on the sofa in the air-conditioned cabin, propped her feet on the coffee table and lubricated her with a big glass of ice water and what was left of her grape popsicle.

Saturday, I scheduled nothing. Maybe everyone needed a break from my well-intentioned plans. Wayne rose early and began polishing the boat's stainless rails. I got up next and joined in the fun. Dexter came up from the cabin and started helping too. Then Grace. My mom was the last one to surface, but before long she was polishing the faucets and mirrors inside the boat. We were all working, and we loaded the CD changer with what Grace called cheesy eighties music, and then Credence Clearwater Revival.

By noon, it was so hot, we were driven back into our air-conditioned cabin. If you peeked in Ella McQuaid's windows on that afternoon, you would have seen five bodies draped over sofas and chairs, five noses in books, one cat stretched to his longest on the cool wood floor between us.

“Bill likes to read,” Mom said.

That evening, we decided to go out for a night on the town. Algie recommended a local spot in the settlement of Blue Hills. “Give my regards to the owner. His name is Whitley, but everyone calls him Dick.” Algie grinned broadly.

“We’ll have to get a cab,” I said, thinking out loud.

“No worry. My mate, Hotshot, can give you a lift.”

We looked at the stocky man. Sweat was dripping from his creased black forehead and his clothes were rumpled and splotched with fish blood.

Oh, why not? I thought. Another adventure.

“Hurry up everyone,” I said to my family, “we’re getting a ride with Hotshot."

“Who?” Mom said looking at the mate from the back of the boat. (I wonder now if I get some kind of perverse pleasure from torturing my mother.)

Like me, she was probably wondering what kind of wheels he had, but he reappeared in a shiny red pickup. Mom and I climbed up into the front seat; everyone else settled into the back.

“Fasten your seatbelts,” Hotshot ordered, which seemed strange to me when everyone in the back would be bouncing around like kernels of popcorn, but I locked myself in.
“Hi! I’m Leah and this is my mom, Barbara.”

“My name’s George, but everyone calls me Hotshot.”

“How come?”

“That was my CB handle from the days before we had telephones on Provo.”

Hotshot told us he had to make one stop to pick up bread. We pulled into a gas station and small convenience store.

“I don’t think he’s here for bread,” my mom said suspiciously.

We waited. Then Hotshot came out carrying two loaves of homemade bread.

“Dey always save a couple of loaves for me,” he told us.

Back on the road, Hotshot cranked up the stereo. He loved country ballads, and a twangy barritone and thumping bass emanated from the speakers. “You’re sweeter than honey, and I want to eat you up,” Hotshot sang along.

“Dat's what I sing to my wife when I come home late,” he shouted over the music, “She's pissed and den I sing dis song to her, and she cuddles up next to me and says ‘honey, you’re de best.'"

My mom was laughing now. “Bill likes country music.”

We turned onto Blue Hills Road. It ran along the western shore of Grace Bay. On our left, we passed multi-colored, but faded concrete homes surrounded by coral rock yards and rusty cars. Barefoot children, like tiny bulls, ran in and out of sheets hanging on clothes lines. On our right, big pink conch shells lined winding and sandy paths. They led to huts, each with a sign advertising “Freshest Conch on the Island.” On the beach—six-foot tall mounds of discarded shells.

The truck slowed and we pulled into the parking lot of The Three Queens. Hotshot’s yellow teeth gleamed, and as he drove off, we could hear his laughter. “Say hi to Dick for me.”

“They all seem to think that Dick is a pretty funny name,” I said.


We walked up the wooden steps to a wide L-shaped veranda. There were dark green plastic tables, four chairs neatly tucked under each one. They were all empty. We peered through the door into the darkness of the bar. Music blared and a group of locals slapped dominoes loudly on a plastic table. Each slap sounded like a gunshot and the men shouted and hooted as they slammed down the dominos.

A huge man came from the bar. “Welcome to the Three Queens,” he bellowed showing a mouthful of gold teeth, “Are you dining wid us tonight?”

“Yes,” Wayne said.

“You can sit anywhere you like at da Three Queens.”

We pulled out four green chairs, brought one from another table and settled in on the deck.

“My name's Whitley, but everyone calls me Dick,” he said with a belly-laugh He towered over us like a giant. “What would you like tonight?”

“Could we see a menu?” I asked politely.

“Menu, Menu,” he boomed incredulously. “You can have anyting you want at da Three Queens—fish, conch, steak, pork, lamb, chicken. I’ll send da cook around to take your order.”

Menu? Menu? We dun need no steenkeen menus? I thought.

The cook, a stained apron wrapped around his waist, left his perch at the bar and came to take our order. I ordered New York Strip and the others ordered cracked conch. Wayne wouldn’t eat; he was on a mission to party hardy and refused to order food, in spite of my urgings. “I don’t want to ruin a good buzz.”

“You won’t make it to eight o’clock,” I warned.


When the food arrived, Wayne went into the bar to socialize with the locals. We ate, savoring every mouthful of rare peppery steak smothered in mushrooms and onions and sweet tender conch deep-fried to perfection. Both entrees were the best I ‘d ever tasted. When dinner was over, we ventured into the bar.

“Let’s play pool,” Grace said. She’s a good player and never wants to miss an opportunity to beat me.

While Mom was in the restroom, Wayne racked the balls. Then Grace aimed and pushed the stick into the cue ball. With a loud smack, the balls scattered.

“Thosh guys are ash-holes,” Wayne slurred in my ear pointing towards two young white guys playing at the table next to us.

“Why?”

Grace shot the two ball in the corner pocket.

“I tried to talk to them and they had no time for me.” He snarled. Wayne took his turn at the table and missed. Dexter walked over to the white guys.

“They won’t talk ta you, they’re ash-holes,” Wayne shouted across the room.

They looked up from their game, their eyes wide with surprise. Then their eyes narrowed.

“Wayne,” I said in an embarrassed whisper. Now, whose the asshole? I thought. Time to get Wayne out of here.

“He’s just kidding,” Dexter assured them.

Wayne lost interest in the game and moved back into the darkened bar. We finished without him and joined him. He had a new beer in his hand.

“Can you call us a cab, Dick?” I shouted over the music.

“Sure. My brother has a cab,” he said grinning.

“This is the last one,” I said to Wayne, “We need to go.”

“Why?”

“We want to get closer to home.” That was the truth. I didn’t know what he'd do next and I didn’t want him alienating any more of the patrons. We were miles from the boat and had no means of escape if trouble started.

I looked up to see Mom dancing to Latin music with Dick, her delicate white hand in his big black paw. Wayne took swigs of his beer, his head back, his elbow out. That’s always a bad sign, swigging beer with elbow out. Look at me! I’m a big guy. Like a chihuahua who thinks he’s mean as a pit bull.

“Woo Hoo Hoo!” The domino players howled.

The song was over and another started. Dick pulled me out onto the dance floor. We swayed our hips and pumped our arms. Other patrons turned on their bar stools to watch.

Finally, the cab came and I guided Wayne out the door like two dancers in a rhumba line.

“Bill likes to dance,” Mom said.

Dick’s brother charged us thirty dollars for the cab ride, which I thought was exorbitant, but later I was told that was a deal.

Back at the boat, Wayne went to bed. I was right. He didn't last until eight. The rest of us went to the Banana Boat Grill and listened to bad Karaoke.

“What are we doing today?” Grace asked the next morning.

I looked at Mom; she looked at me. Neither one of us wanted to do anything, but as a mother and grandmother, we could've been swayed. We both looked at Wayne. His face said it all.

“Nothing,” I said, “absolutely nothing."

“But its our last day.”

I shrugged. "We're worn out."

“OK, Ok, you old farts,” she said. Then to Dexter, “Let’s go to the casino.”

“How are you going to get there?” I asked.

“We’ll walk,” she said resolutely as she searched in a overflowing duffel bag for her shoes.

In the afternoon, Mom started gathering her belongings for her flight the next morning. She refolded her shirts and shorts with the care of a cashier at Nordstom’s. She zipped bottles in plastic bags and tucked them in zippered pockets. She unzipped, unpacked, and lifted corners looking for a lost piece of jewelry, or a ticket, or some other item she didn’t remember packing. She always does this and always finds the missing article exactly where she packed it.

So different from Grace, who would start fifteen minutes prior to her departure, cram her wadded up clothes in her knapsack, dirty and clean mixed together, then panic about a lost item and become hysterical right when it was time to leave.

We rented a car to take everyone to the airport the next day. At 3 p.m., a little red car was delivered to the marina, its paint dulled with dust and salt. At 5:30, Wayne and I decided to take a ride and see if we could find Grace and Dexter walking back from the casino. I was starting to worry about them. I sat behind the wheel and turned the key, but instead of the roar of the engine, there was complete silence.

What now? I thought. The car rental facility closed at 5.

About this time Grace and Dexter appeared. They’d walked for miles, but the Casino was not open on Sundays.

“Is there an owner’s manual?” Grace dug in the glove compartment. “Maybe there's some secret button you have to push.”

“Maybe it’s a fuse,” Dexter added.

The manual was written in Japanese. Grace and I laughed, but Mom looked worried. We tried to interpret the pictures and wiggled wires and popped out fuses until Wayne finally got a big wrench and pounded on the corroded battery terminals. The big hammer technique of auto repair worked again. The car started right up.

The next morning, we got mom to the airport by 6, said our almost tearful good byes, then picked up Grace and Dexter for laundry and shopping before taking them to their plane in the afternoon.

In spite of the fact that little went as I planned, I’m sure their vacations were memorable, but I’m equally sure that everyone was looking forward to returning to their normal lives—Dexter to his new job, Grace and Dexter to apartment hunting, and of course, Mom to Bill.

My emotions were mixed--sad, because I didn’t know when I would see them all again, but relieved too, to return to our small quarters in Paradise—just Wayne, Chris the Cat, and me. I was tired of being responsible for the entertainment and happiness of so many and looking forward to getting back in touch with my man.
Whenever, we have company or are visiting others for more than a day or two, I always feel detached from Wayne. You can’t be intimate when you are always within someone else’s earshot. And I am not referring to sexual intimacy, although that too is a factor, but emotional. We need time to ourselves not only to enjoy each other’s company, but to work out our differences.

That night, while in the shower, I heard a cat crying through the small porthole in our head.

“Wayne,” I called over the sound of running water, “I think Chris is meowing.”

I could hear Wayne walking around outside whistling for Chris, and the crying stopped.

“I don’t see him anywhere,” he said coming back into the boat and repositioning himself behind the computer. “He must be out chasing lizards or asleep under the dash.” This was no surprise. Chris had been moving freely on and off the boat for two weeks.

Fifteen minutes later, I gathered my book, reading light, and cocktail and sank into the lounge chair on the deck.

“Merrrrooooow! Merroooooow!” I heard. That was definitely Chris, but where was he and why was he crying?

I stepped off of the boat and whistled and called for him. I walked along the boardwalk, checking out all of his favorite hang outs. I whistled near the porches.

“Meeeerrooow,” he answered.

I whistled behind the trash bins.

“Meeeerrrrow,” he answered again, but further away.

I walked back towards the boat. His cries were becoming panicky, but I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t coming. Then, I realized he was under the boardwalk.

“Wayne!” I wailed running back into the salon and rummaging through a drawer for a flashlight, “Chris is under the dock!”

Wayne grabbed the flashlight. Stooped in the dinghy, he pulled himself under with one hand while shining the light in the water with the other. The yellow light wiggled as it moved slowly across the surface. I bent over the gunwhale and tried to look under the dock expecting to see a little head bobbing in the water.

“It’s OK!” I reassured the cat, “Daddy’s coming!”

The flashlight beam moved up from the water to the rocks where dock met land. High above the ledge on a concrete support, two yellow eyes glowed. Wayne scooped up the sopping wet cat in his arms, then inched his way back to the Ella McQuaid. Chris meowed in complaint, until he jumped from Wayne’s arms into the boat and began licking saltwater from his fur.

“What happened, Chris?” I asked.

He turned his head at the sound of my voice. “Merrrow,” he replied looking ho hum,now. Then he hopped up onto the gunwhale, glanced down at the water, measured the distance and leapt onto the dock. This time, he made it with ease.

Due to Wayne’s finely-tuned sense of time—he never knows what the date is or remembers when an event is scheduled—we found our selves in Provo with a week to spare before our friends, the Nibalis, and our son Aaron arrived. Provo was costing us a fortune. We should've moved out of the marina, but we were far too comfortable and since Mom had generously supplemented our marina fee fund in lieu of paying for hotel accommodations, we stayed on another week.

This was our opportunity to really get to know Provo, to see if we might want to live here someday Our goal was to find an island that we liked more than Key West—a place that was warm year round, offered good fishing and diving, friendly people, and affordable housing (should we grow weary of boat-living). Most important to me was a sense of community. Having always lived in the suburbs of two large cities, Baltimore ten miles to the north and DC twenty-five miles to the south, I craved small town living. In Maryland, I could live two blocks from someone I went to high school with and never see them for twenty-five years. In Key West, after just a few months, I couldn’t walk down Duval Street or go shopping at Albertson’s without running into someone I knew. And there really was a bar there, Captain Runagrounds, where everybody knew my name.

The Bahamas were out of the question, because Americans are prohibited from working there. But in the Turks and Caicos, an American can start a business with some limitations. Opening a restaurant to compete with a local one was not allowed, but if you had a skill or business idea that no native or ex-patriot was capable or willing to do, then you could set up shop.

At five o’clock each night, the parking lots filled up with dusty pickups and SUVs. Construction workers, architects, and civil engineers found their favorite stools around the wooden bars. Later arrivals, jostled for position behind them, as the stool dwellers passed back their drinks. The happy hour crowd was predominantly white. It was our third week here, and our faces were now familiar to them. Some nodded in recognition; other’s engaged us in conversation. There was Paddy, the Irishman. He could tell stories for hours, and he always had one that could top yours. At 5 p.m., I could understand three-quarters of what he had to say—by 6, about half. The Scotsmen were worse, there brogues were thicker than their hairy necks. I laughed when they laughed and frowned when they frowned, and hoped that I didn’t offend them. Every statement made sounded like a question, and only when they paused and looked at me did I know that they were expecting a response. They probably thought I was a half-wit.

One by one the ex-patriots left their stools and swaggered out the door, while the well-dressed locals started to arrive in groups of two or three for that night’s Karaoke or live music. By nine, the crowd was predominantly black.

Friday nights, all of the ex-pats left their favorite roosts at the Banana Boat and Tiki Bars and crowded into Shark Bites for Happy Hour. The girl friends and wives came, too, tourists with their children, and the crews from the big yachts parked at the dock.

The Rotary Club sponsors Bingo on Sunday night’s at the Banana Boat. Algie is the host, and he loves the microphone, greeting the crowd, making announcements, and calling the numbers in his best DJ voice. When the jackpot is high, as many as 600 people crowd into the small open restaurant, spilling out onto the boardwalk. Three weeks ago, someone walked away with $17,500. This night, the pot was only $3500, and the crowd was manageable. We were there early enough to get a seat at the bar. We filled our cards, placing a little cardboard circle on each square, but didn’t win.

When Bingo was over, we stayed to the wee hours talking with Ian, a portly Scotsman. A friar’s fringe of thin brown hair encircled his bald head. His Central American wife looked like a hot tamale with her long black hair and colorful spandex dress, but she was homesick and all she wanted to talk about was children and grandchildren. I listened politely for a while, before turning my attention to Ian. He was well-educated, and lacked the thick brogue of his country-mates. He spouted verses of Eliot, Joyce, and Wordsworth in a booming, theatrical voice like a character from a British film. We shared a love of words, and it was a topic of conversation, then he and Wayne moved to history, politics, and religion, until we could no longer balance our bottoms on our wobbly bar stools. Wayne and I staggered the hundred feet to our boat and fell asleep in our clothes.

Now, it’s Monday. The past week was pleasant and relaxing. We often worked ten to twelve hour days waxing the boat and polishing rust marks from the stainless. Many evenings were like this one. Wayne would play on the computer, while I sat on the deck and read or wrote. There is comfort in working hard together towards a common goal, then separating to our individual activities, not having to talk, just being there. Glancing from my book into the salon, I can see the light of the computer reflecting off Wayne’s face in the darkness. Passing by on my way to the galley for a refill, I plant a kiss on the back of his neck, the gray fuzz tickling my nose. I feel so grateful.

Why I'm Not a Tour Guide...

On Thursday, to give everyone a rest from sun and sand, I planned a day touring the island. Here was my chance to do “the tourist thing” and see all of the sights I read about in our cruising guides. We waited outside while the clerk pulled the rented jeep up to the door at Scooter Bob’s. Wayne opened the door and put a leg in.

“Not ready,” the clerk said.

He went inside and came out with a small compressor, then began filling a tire on the other side.

“It’s got a flat tire?” my mother whispered to me. She looked worried.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” I laughed.

Wayne took the driver’s seat; I took the passenger, and the three of them squeezed into the back.

We wound up the hill to Leaward Highway and made a right. A loyalist plantation called Cheshire Hall was our first scheduled stop. Thomas Stubbs grew cotton and later, sisal, there. Production and exportation thrived until he was forced to abandon the effort due to land deprivation, insect infestation, and finally a hurricane in 1813. The slaves he left behind settled here and their descendants still occupy the Caicos Islands. The plantation is now a national park.

We slowed down, looking for the entrance while cars tore past us. By the time I spotted it, we’d passed it. No worry, we’d stop on our way back.

Next destination—the bakery, highly recommended by one of my cruising guides. We pulled into the parking lot of a small shopping center.

“Is it open?” Wayne looked at the darkened windows.

“I don’t know. I’ll check.” I jumped out of the car and Grace followed me.

I tried the door and it opened. But instead of the odor of fresh baked bread, the smell of ammonia stung our nostrils. We looked around at the empty shelves as a woman entered from the kitchen. “Closed ‘til Monday.”

“Okay”, I said, “two down, twenty to go.”

“What’s next?” Grace asked, when we got back into the car.

“The Tiki Huts of Atlantis. They should be really cool! This beach was only accessible by water, until some French Television producers bull-dozed a road through the bush. The Tiki Huts were a game-show set.

The jeep bounced over a pothole and everyone grunted, but I continued undaunted.

“Contestants dove into an underwater cage that still sits in twenty feet of water off the beach. Inside the cage, plastic pearls shot out of a giant, manmade sponge while the players tried to snatch as many as possible. They could buy air from mermaids, but had to watch out for “bad” mermaids who would swim away without giving them any.”

In spite of its cheesy history, the beach was purported to be secluded and beautiful with easy snorkeling nearby. My plan was to check out the beach on this day in anticipation of taking a cab there the next. Grace, Dexter, Mom and I could spend the day shaded by the Tiki Huts and give Wayne a day off from family obligations.

Wayne grew up in a small, city house with three sisters. I was an only child and had the whole upstairs of our modest cape cod to myself—bedroom, bath, and large sitting room. Wayne enjoys his private time and space. I enjoy having a crowd in my home. Wayne, like Ben Franklin, thinks that guests are like fish—after three days, they start to smell. I have fond memories of waking to the smell of bacon and my mom and her sisters chattering in the kitchen when they came for an overnight visit. I rarely grow tired of a guest. Wayne likes quiet-soft voices, soft music. I like noise—the volume turned up high on the stereo, Oprah or reruns of Frazier on the TV while I’m cooking dinner or folding clothes.

Actually our boat is rather small with five people and all of their gear on board. So, although he did not request it, I thought Wayne might need a day off. That’s why I came up with this great plan to scope out Atlantis.

We drove to the end of Leaward Highway and turned off on Blue Hills Road, the old highway that runs along the northern coast of Provo, past the settlement called Blue Hills. The road ended at a dirt road carved into the bush. Wayne drove the jeep through the dirt and dust, trying to avoid pot-holes and boulders that seemed to bubble up from cracks in the hard, dry ground. I glanced back to see Mom rising from her seat, her head approaching the ceiling, while Grace was on her way down, and Dexter was somewhere in between.

Pot holes grew to wide cracks and crevices. Wayne drove on the wrong side of the road to avoid them.

My mom stared ahead, her hands gripping the seat in front of her. “Watch out!" She landed in her seat again. "Oh."

“It can’t be much further,” I found a map in the cruising guide, but there were no legends to tell me how far it was, nor any land-marks to help along the way. No other cars, just the windy dirty road in front and behind us and tall cactus and low growing shrubs on either side.

“My tail bone’s getting numb,” my mom complained.

“How much further is it?” Dexter asked.

“I’m worried about that tire,” Wayne added.

I got out the cruising guide and started reading out loud in a futile attempt to generate some enthusiasm for our adventure. I read about the game show. I read about the beauty of the beach. I read:

“You can reach the Tiki Huts by car, but it must be a four-wheel drive vehicle.”

“I think we better give this up,” Wayne said, turning the car around and heading back. Back-tracking on the dirt road, through Blue Hills, back to the Leaward Highway, we found the entrance to Cheshire Hall.

Parking was not provided, so we left the car in the lot of a strip mall, and crossed the busy highway. The sounds of the city faded as we moved on foot up a shady, tree-lined lane. Arriving at the entrance gate, we could see bits of the stone foundation through lush vegetation and a narrow, winding path that led to the ruins. It looked inviting after the dirt road and the busy highway, but the gate was locked. Seems you must call ahead to schedule a tour, a fact not mentioned in my cruising guide.

I kept the smile on my face, but inside I was thinking, First, we miss the ruins, then the bakery was closed, then we couldn’t get to the Tiki Huts, now this! What a disaster.

“Oh, well,” I said, “Let’s go shopping”.

We crowded back into the jeep, onto the Leaward and towards the resort area of the island. Here, we found Ports O Call, the shopping area. Mom bought some coffee.

“Bill will like this coffee.”

Dexter bought cigars. Then we girls wandered in and out of small boutiques. Mom bought an animal print sarong.

“Bill says I purr like a kitten.”

Grace scrunched up her face. “Too much information.”

Later, we found Dexter and Wayne sitting in a bar watching tennis on TV. They must be bored, I thought as their eyes moved from left to right, right to left with the tennis balls.

“I’m hungry,” Grace said. We checked the menu, but no one was thrilled with it. Checked two other restuarants in the complex. Both closed.

“Let’s go to Smokies on Da Beach,” I said. “It’s nearby.”

Back in the jeep, we followed our tourist map to a dirt road, then headed towards Grace Bay. The road ended, but there was no restaurant. We turned around and tried another. No Smokies. And another.

“Ask those guys where it is.” Wayne nodded his head toware two workers just finishing their lunch.

“Do you know where Smokies on Da Beach is?” I called out.

“No Anglaise,” the Haitians said.

Now, I was really feeling like a failure. The next planned stop was the Conch Farm, but I couldn’t remember if there was a restaurant there, and I was afraid there might be a mutiny if I paraded my family around a aquaculture complex for two hours without feeding them. At this point, no one seemed too interested in watching a conch grow, anyway.

Back on the Leaward Highway, we found a pizza parlor and after thick slices of hot cheesy pizza, some of the crowd’s enthusiasm returned. All parties wanted to see “the Hole.”

The hole is a natural one, forty-foot wide and eighty-foot deep. Our cruising guide indicated that visitors could swim in the bottom of the hole if brave enough and able (I might add) to climb the ropes. We drove into a residential community on the southeast end of the island and only made one wrong turn before finding a dirt drive among the paved ones.



Graced jumped out of the jeep as soon as it stopped. “Come on, Dex!”

“OK,” he said, picking up his pace to catch up.

We came along behind. There it was—a big jagged crevice. We walked the irregular perimeter. I tried to find a spot where I could look inside without getting too close to the crumbling dirt and rock near the edge. My heart was in my throat, as I watched Grace and Mom venture much closer than I would have liked. On land, they were both much braver than I. I caught glimpses of the stagnant water at the bottom. In spite of the heat, no one was interested in swimming in the hole. Relieved, I herded everyone back to the jeep.

The next attraction on the “Autotour from Hell” was Sapadillo Hill. We headed south looking for the abandoned Mariner’s Hotel.

“I read about Sapadillo Hill,” Grace said, “that’s where ship-wrecked sailors from the 19th century carved their names in the rocks.”

”They were probably twentieth century real estate agents.” Wayne said.

“One of the rocks is hanging on the wall in the airport,” Mom said.

I hope that's not the only one I ever see, I thought, but I said, “Today we're going to see them in their natural habitat.”



Wayne parked the jeep on the shoulder of the road, just off the beach, and after taking a few moments to stand in the shade of a casarina and look out over the tranquil waters of Sapadillo Bay, we headed on foot up a bumpy dirt drive. The cruising guide indicated that we should find the hotel and then climb the hill adjacent to it. The hotel was multi-leveled and tucked in the side of Sapadillo Hill. We walked its creaky wooden decks, looking for a path on the perimeter. One room was occupied. Clothes hung from a cord slung between the supports, and potted plants lined the porch.

“Someone is living here,” my Mom said looking worried again, “we should go." Wayne and Mom started back down to the air-conditioned jeep. I didn’t see Grace and Dexter anywhere. Then I heard a voice that sounded like it was coming from very far away.

“Mom! Mom!”

I looked up to the top of the hill, but saw nothing.

“Are you alright?” I shouted through my cupped hands.

No answer.

“I started up the hill on what might be a path, but really wasn’t. It was a maze of palmettos and cacti. Stones and dirt dislocated by my platform sandals, broke away and showered down the slope behind me. The sun beat down on my head. This looks like a fine place for a snake, I thought as I scanned the area. I remembered speculating at Norman’s Cay about whether the vegetation would be lusher as we moved from the sub-tropics to the tropics. The answer turned out to be “no.” Except for areas land-scaped for the benefit of tourist and ex-patriots, Provo (like Mayaguana) is barren and desert-like. The land is dry and dusty or hard and cracked. The plants are sparse and prickly.

“Mom, Mom.” The voice closer, now.

I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my face. At the very top of the hill, I saw Grace.

“Look, Mom!” she said, a big smile in her voice.

I climbed the last hundred feet to meet her.

“Wow,” was all I could say when I arrived at her side. We were on top of the highest hill in Provo. On two sides there was view of the pale green bay and its tiny cays. We seemed so close to the azure sky and big puffy clouds, I felt like I could put out my hand and touch them. Although, there is beauty in the layered hues of brown earth, the greens and rusts of shrubs, and the unexpected splashes of blooms, it can hardly compete with the cool soothing shades of sky and water. If this were a painting, I would say to Wayne, “I don’t like those acrylics, the color are too vibrant. They don’t look real.”

I turned in a slow circle. Behind us, the milky brown salt flats of Chalk Sound lay as smooth as glass. Dexter came up behind us.

“Look.” Grace pointed to the ground.

We followed her finger and saw flat rocks at our feet, some intricately carved, some crudely. There were names and dates, etchings of sailing ships, and country cottages. The oldest one we found was from 1816.


“This probably looks just about the same as it did in 1816.” I looked out over the water again.

We stood there a few moments longer, and then Grace said, “We better go. Grandma is probably convinced we have fallen into one of those holes.”

Back in the air-conditioned jeep, we tried to describe what we saw, but I don’t think our words did it justice, because if they had, Mom and Wayne would have exited the jeep and headed up the hill. Instead, we moved on.

On this end of the island, there were supposed to be two fish houses and we wanted fresh, local fish for dinner, not twenty dollar a pound farm-raised salmon from the IGA.

“Bill likes fish.”

We drove up and down more dirt roads, past abandoned quarries and a large gasoline depot. Here the terrain looked like the strip-mined hills of Appalachia. The squiggly black lines on the map indicated un-named roads. We couldn’t tell road from driveway.

“Give me that,” Grace commanded. I handed her the map. She was certain that the navigator was the problem. Grace and Dexter and finally, my mom studied the map and directed the driver back down the same dirt roads. There was no one anywhere to ask.

Finally, we gave up and headed back towards the now familiar Leaward Highway through one of the original settlements known as Five Cays. We passed a complex of weary concrete buildings. They bordered a small parking lot and courtyard.

“Turn around,” I ordered. Passing by, I’d noticed words above the open door of one of the structures. They were a sloppily painted, but legible—Fish House. We pulled in and piled out of the jeep. Young Haitians sat on a crumbling, concrete wall. Their faces were angular and stern. They stared. Wayne and I crossed the lot and entered the building. Inside, the eight by eight cement cube were two chest-type freezers and a scale. We walked back outside, and found our family staring at tadpoles swimming in muddy water in what was once a fountain.

Mom looked worried again, probably intimated by those unfriendly faces. We returned to the fish house and looked inside the freezer at the fish. Finally, a young woman arrived. There were bags of strawberry grouper and grunts—four dollars a pound for any kind. We bought some of each. Then, we moved on and stopped at the IGA and loaded up on food and beverage for the rest of the week. Not unlike my last guided tour in a rental car, the one at Georgetown, we were all glad when we arrived back at the boat.

Bill had answered Mom’s email. She tried to use her calling card to phone him, but it wouldn’t work in the nearby phone booth.

“Call him.” I offered my satellite phone.

“But it’s so expensive.”

“Go for it,” I said, “up on the bridge. The reception is better.”

Ah, young love!

Life's a Beach

Sunday, June 1 (I think)

I was cleaning and polishing the inside of the boat, stowing the items we'd stored in the spare stateroom, and making up bunks in anticipation of the arrival of my mom, Grace, and her boyfriend, Dexter.

“Why are you doing all of this?” Wayne asked, “When everybody gets here, no one will notice.”

“It needs to be done and it makes me feel better.”

Wayne thinks I’m crazy, because I always clean like a fiend when guests are expected. I did when I had a house, and I do it now. Perhaps, I don’t want anyone to know what a slob I can be. But, it goes further than that. I want everything to look as perfect as it can. If I have a party or the family comes for a holiday, it bothers me when the guests arrive and mess up my “Better Homes & Gardens” presentation by placing their bags on the floor or in a chair, and their food containers on the kitchen counters. I would rather prepare all of the food myself than have guests arrive with big bags of chips and plastic containers full of store-bought coleslaw. They pull out a chair; I push it in. They put their camera on the table; I hide it on top of the refrigerator. They bring in a box of cookies; I find a plate and arrange them in a pin-wheel of overlapping circles. I know I’m obsessive, and after my second glass of wine, I couldn’t care less. Still every time, company is coming, I go through the same routine.

So, I started early in the morning. By 1:00 p.m., Wayne was tired of trying to look busy while I worked. He suggested that we walk over to the Banana Boat Grill for a coke. We sat in the cool shade of a deck, sipping our ice cold soft drinks, and got involved in conversation with some locals.

We met Algie—tall and so black, he was almost blue. He was trim, neat, and well-spoken. Algie gave up his job in Barbados as an air traffic control manager, where he was responsible for ninety-seven controllers. He returned to his homeland to captain the only local-owned fishing charter boat in Provo. It was called “Gwod Phrienz,” purported to be the West Indies spelling of “Good Friends”. His boat was docked two slips away from the Ella McQuaid.

Beverages progressed to beer, and time passed quickly, until it was clear that no more cleaning was to take place on that fine Sunday afternoon.

Monday morning, I put my hangover on hold and was a whirlwind of activity, trying to finish my cleaning before the arrival of my family. I thought by the time they landed, retrieved their luggage, went through customs, and found a cab, I would have time to complete the transformation of our lived-in floating abode to a luxury suite on the Queen Mary, then I would take a shower, put on clean clothes and makeup and be standing their looking lean and tan, and well-kempt. I would be the perfect hostess and they would go home and tell everyone how great I looked and what a great life I had.

When they arrived, I was on my hands and knees polishing the floor. A bandana was wrapped around my greasy hair and sweat was dripping into my eyes. My clothes were dirty and stained and hung from my limbs like wet rags. They didn’t care. They were so excited to be there. They came bearing gifts and provisions and caught us up on their lives.

Dexter, my daughter’s handsome twenty-three year-old boyfriend, having had the mission to locate a repair manual for our outboard, ordered one for us. After two phone calls, where the provider seemed to be asking questions that were too specific, a huge box arrived at his door. Inside, Dexter found a new outboard, not a manual. We laughed as he told his story in his no-nonsense tone of voice.

Mom, two years a widow, had a new boyfriend named Bill. Dexter just graduated from college and had selected a job. Grace quit her job on Wall Street and was going to start teaching in the Fall. Grace and Dexter were to begin apartment hunting, as soon as they returned to the states.

Their knapsacks and duffles were piled in my clean boat, but I didn’t care. I was just happy to share a little bit of paradise with them.

After dinner, Grace said, “Who want to play Trivial Pursuit?”

“I will,” Dexter said. His mission in life seems to be to please my daughter, in spite of her moods and whims. This endears me to him.

“I’ll play,” I said.

“Me, too,” Mom said.

Wayne agreed reluctantly.

And so we played, but I wondered how I was going to entertain them for a whole week.
That night, before falling asleep on the sofa, I planned some diversions, but options were limited because if you don’t dive and fish, activities in Provo are pretty much limited to beach, snorkel, eat, and drink. Mom and Grace are both likely to get sea-sick in the boat when it’s docked, so I didn’t plan any big boat adventures.

The next day, Tuesday, I suggested a dinghy ride around to Smith Point for a day of swimming and snorkeling. Here, there are patch reefs right off the beach. The five of us crowded into the eleven-foot inflatable. Snorkel equipment, a beach umbrella (for my alabaster mother), bottled water, towels, and cameras were piled at our feet. The sun was shining brightly as the motor strained to push the boat around the harbor and through the canal. We plowed into the bay like a big manatee and came face to face with a steady surge of waves. Although, they weren’t large, the combination of wind, waves, and the weight in the boat sent water up and over the pontoons and into our faces. We moved toward a line of black storm clouds that hung in the blue sky like a partially drawn shade.

“That looks ominous,” my mother said. She was looking towards the clouds and grasping the dinghy with both hands.

Finding a good landing spot on the rocky beach was impossible. We hobbled across slimy, plant-covered rocks in our bare feet trying to avoid the pointy ones.

“Oooch! Ouch!"
“Yuk.”



Once we made it past the ouchy, yucky stuff, Grace, Wayne, and Dexter put on masks, snorkels, and fins and took immediately to the water. By this time, the whole sky was a mottled black and gray. My mom stood on the beach nervously tracking the storm.

“Don’t worry. It’ll pass over. I see blue sky over there.” I pointed to a tiny patch of blue then worked the beach umbrella into the sand.

But the storm didn't pass us by and before long, I looked up from where I was wading in the water and saw Mom standing all by herself on the beach stooped under the green umbrella. She was wrapped in a towel. Her hair was wet—big clumps of it sticking to her forehead. I joined her under the umbrella that apparently was meant to protect from the sun, not the rain. It leaked like a cheap tent. We could see flashes of lightning miles away. Thunder echoed across the clouds and water.

Wayne came to shore, and we left Grace and Dexter to their fun and took Mom back to the boat for a cup of tea, a warm shower, and her book. Then, we rejoined the kids. By this time, the storm had passed and we snorkeled.

Big red starfish lay on the sandy bottom. Dexter drifted up on a Hawksbill turtle and followed it along a grassy underwater meadow. Small, colorful fish swam near rocks and corals. I wished that Mom were there to see it all. It wasn’t a huge reef, but snorkeling from the beach is an easy way to get acclimated to the equipment, and enticing enough to make you want to see more. Maybe, the next day.

Wednesday, we tried again, but this time went further east to a sandy, crescent beach with water so crystal clear, we could have been in a bathtub. Like the day before, we were completely alone on the beach. The bottom was covered with soft sand. It stretched forty feet to a distinct dark line. There, grass and rocks prevailed for the convenience of snorkelers.

I encouraged my mom to try on the mask and explained how to breathe through the snorkel. We were standing in perfectly-calm, waist-deep water.

I pulled tendrils of hair from her mask. “Do you have a good seal?”

She repositioned the mask.

“Now, put this in your mouth and breathe slowly. Breathe through your mouth."

I could see fear in her eyes.

“You don’t have to swim,” I said. “You can just bend forward and put your face in the water."

She put her face in the water. Not ten seconds later, she popped up and spit the snorkel from her mouth. “I can’t do it. ‘

“It’s OK, Mom, maybe later.”

I always thought I was the biggest chicken in the family. When I was in my twenties and we went bike-riding together down a mountain road, I crawled along with my foot on the brake. Mom tore down the hill, but before she got to the bottom, she crashed. Maybe she's more scared now. But snorkeling isn't dangerous. I was disappointed. I wanted her to see this whole new world. I wanted her to see the things I loved so much.



The five of us spent most of the day lying in twelve inches of warm water. Gentle waves lapped over our backs or fronts. We developed the Caribbean Water exercise routine, doing push-ups, the alligator walk, and isometric stomach crunches. Then Grace and I progressed to bent legged and flat-footed handstands, followed by a water ballet, more reminiscent of beached whales then Esther Williams.

Late in the afternoon, we noticed a large distinct shadow moving across the pale blue water.

“What’s that?” someone asked.

I looked up at the sky thinking it was the shadow of a cloud, but the sky was blue and clear. The dark spot undulated like a bubble just before it lifts from the end of a wand, and it was moving toward us. We stood and stared. Grace and Mom ran towards shore.

It came closer.

“It’s fish!” I shouted in amazement, “millions of tiny fish”. They swarmed around us, staying just clear of our body parts, as if a force field emanated from our skin that both attracted and repelled them. We ran and got out snorkel equipment and slid into the shallow water on our bellies.

Grace and mom were standing a few feet from the black bubble. They moved cautiously toward it.

“They’re not touching you?” Grace asked.

The churning fish moved in a clockwise pattern, then with a barely discernable movement of one of our hands or feet or for no apparent reason, the fish would suddenly reverse direction in unison. There was no thinning at the edges of the whirring mass, just rows and columns of shiny two-inch long fish crowded together in a black bubble with ever-changing boundaries.

Mom, standing right in the middle of them now, said, “I wish Bill could see this.”

We lay still in the water floating around my mom, our snorkels in the air. Then we noticed ghost-like silver disks hovering just outside the mass. They were small bar jacks, the predators. And looking up towards the surface of the water, we could see the long, thin, nearly translucent bodies of needlefish. These larger fish had herded the shiners into this bait ball. I wondered if the shiners stayed with us so long, because they knew their predators would not come near us.

I tried to get my mother to try the snorkel and mask again, but she preferred watching from above. The rest of us floated there for nearly an hour. The fish never thinned or made an effort to leave. They just kept whirling and whirling, a silver dervish. We were mesmerized. Would they do this forever?

One by one, we returned to the beach and started packing to go home and the black shadow merged with the dark green band of water just off the beach as we pushed the dinghy from shore.

That night, we climbed the stone steps referred to locally as Cardiac Hill to sit in the Sunset Café.

“Bill would like this,” my mom said as we watched the boats bobbing in the marina below us. The glowing orange sun melted into aqua, then disappeared. Mom was missing Bill and after we went home, I showed her how to use my email program, then shot her love note across the ocean to Keyser, West Virginia.

It's Too Rough to Feed You!

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Yesterday, seas were supposed to be eight feet, so we stayed one more day at Mayaguana. Today, seas were supposed to be two to four, but when we checked the weather this morning, it had changed to four to six. No problem! We were ready to leave this island and get to civilization.

We pulled up anchor, took one last look at Mayaguana's shores, and motored slowly towards the narrow cut. Water broke on the shallow reef that surrounded the bay. I stood on the bow pulpit, guiding Wayne away from brown and black spots. As we entered the cut, huge rollers took the bow of the boat high in the air, then dipped it down into the sea. I held on to the railing, knees flexing in grand plies. When we were clear, I inched back around the boat and up the ladder to the bridge.

We were not en route more than twenty minutes before we knew that these seas were not 4 to 6 feet, but more than we’d ever experienced. Our boat, that seemed so huge when we were pulling into a slip, suddenly felt very small. We crossed water like choppy mountains, some 8 to 10 feet tall. On the top of the larger ones, we had to steer to the left or right to surf along the crest, then slide into the trough. If we didn’t ride the wave just right, the bow crashed down, jolted our bodies, rattled the boat, and sent a spray of salt and water onto the wind shield—that was the windshield on the flying bridge, not the one below. Moving about the boat was impossible, and sitting was unbearable. I tried, tightened muscles to stay on the seat, held on with both hands.

“Mind if I drive?” I asked.

The miles moved by slowly. And we had fifty-two to go. After an hour, I dreaded the thought that I’d have to endure this discomfort for seven more.

I looked down…49.5 miles to go, I noted. I am not going to look at that GPS until we have gone at least another mile, I vowed to myself. I drove and drove, then looked down..49.3 miles to go.

OK, we’re not the Kon Tiki, nor were we rounding Cape Horn, but in spite of the fact that we’d abided by our checklist, our boat was ill-prepared for this kind of water. A sailing vessel is close to the water, made to roll and right itself, and has built-in furniture. We’re sitting high atop the water in a boat that looks like its head is too big. We have a sofa, secretary, chair, and coffee table, rather than built in furniture.

Wayne went below, then came back and said, “Don’t go downstairs.”

“Why?”

"Because everything that could fall over, did.”

The day dragged on. And we were out of cigarettes. The boredom and stress increased my longing for nicotine, and as the withdrawal came in surges and then ebbed, then came again, so our conversation went from moody short-tempered sentences to laughter at our ridiculous behavior, back to growling.

"You’re speaking in Venetian,” Wayne half-joked.

I sneered at him. Fuck you, I thought.

“I’m hungry,” Wayne said.

“Well, fix something,” I shot back.

Wayne went below and retrieved peanuts and crackers.

Yum! I thought, this looks like a satisfying lunch.

“When I was down there” Wayne said, as he cracked open a peanut, “I kept thinking of the song, ‘The Edmond Fitzgerald.’”

“How’s that go?”

“It’s about a steel hauler on the Great Lakes. In the song, the cook came up and said, ‘Sorry boys, its too rough to feed ya’, then the hatches caved in and it sank.”

“Great! I half laughed. “What’s Chris doing?”

“I didn’t see him. Must be hiding”.

“He didn’t even come out when you got the food,” I munched on a dry Stoned Wheat Thin.

“No. He must be terrorized. I wonder if it’s fair to subject him to this.”

“Poor kitty,” I agreed.

Moody hours crawled by. The muscles in my neck and shoulders felt as if someone had pulled them all up together, and then wrung them like a wash rag, leaving them that way. Wayne's injured and surgically repaired knees ached from the lateral motion.

In the afternoon, the water finally subsided a little. Wayne lay down on the bench, holding on with his hands and feet, and actually took a nap. Squinting at the horizon for over an hour, I finally saw two gray humps.

"Condo Ho!" I shouted.

We were still two hours away, but our mood improved as we drew near. Like Mayaguana's southern shore, the northern shore of Provo is bordered by a barrier reef. Once we were within two miles of land, we followed the long white line of breaking surf for six miles until we reached Stellar Cut, our point of entry into Grace Bay. We were finally there.

View Larger Map

“Look!,” Wayne said pointing out over the water. “Red and green markers, just like the good ol’ USA.” He steered between them and followed the channel to each subsequent set. They formed a narrow highway through brown patches of rocks and big black coral heads that dotted the bay.

I returned to my position at the bow resisting the temptation to peek inside the cabin, and only once did we stray from the channel. Wayne saw the depth go from six feet to three. We draw three and a half. He slid the motors into neutral and held his breath as we drifted over the shallow water.

Now, where to anchor. We’d headed toward Turtle Cove Marina, because when my family arrived, we planned to park our boat there, but we couldn’t drop the hook just anywhere. Much of Grace Bay is a park and no anchoring is allowed. Finally, we decided to anchor just outside the canal that leads to the marina, hoping we were outside the park boundaries.

The wind and current were strong, and I tried to keep the bow into the wind while Wayne dropped the big claw anchor. It dragged across the bottom, making a visible white line where it plowed through the turtle grass. I felt sick. Wayne put on snorkel and fins, dove into the clear green water, and swam down the anchor line to check the holding. It lay across the bottom holding only because of its weight. He dove down again and tried to set the anchor. Then back on the boat, we tried to set the danforth anchor—the one bent on the rock in Betsy Bay. We were tired and salty and cigarette-less.

“Keep the bow into the wind,” he shouted as I fought the wheel.

“I’m trying,” I screamed in frustration.

“Don’t pull out the other anchor,” he bellowed angrily.

“I’m doing my best,” I shouted into the wind.

Somehow we got anchored. Wayne cut off the engines from the lower steering console, and I just sat at the helm, numb, staring at nothing, letting my muscles relax, and periodically checking the GPS to see if we were holding firm. While Wayne put the outboard on the inflatable, I began to move about the bridge methodically—slow motion, gathering up the day’s accoutrements—laptop, charts, crackers, sun-glasses.

I didn’t want to look downstairs, but the time had come to descend the ladder and face it. I turned the corner to peek inside. The rope meant to hold the secretary in place had broken, and it lay on its face on our fine wood floor, the books stored on top were strewn. The brackets that held the sofa to the wall had broken loose and it was shoved up against the chair and coffee table, all three pushed haphazardly into the middle of the room. The plexiglass dining table cover had slid onto the floor. I cautiously stepped over the books and furniture and descended the steps to the galley. Cabinets were open; a bottle of hot sauce rolled on the floor. Cookbooks had slid off of the shelves. In our stateroom, there was water on the floor, and Chris finally came forward

“Merrroowwww”, he complained. His entire back end was soaked, his gray tail stuck out like a wet, tapered spike.

In our stateroom, three walls are covered with a long bookcase, where we store a few hundred books. Almost all of the books were on the bed and floor, their spines and pages twisted like the broken arms and legs of corpses, covers torn and wet.

I said nothing and went to work putting our home back together. I wanted it to shift from reality to memory as quickly as possible. Wayne motored into the Marina in anticipation of acquiring the papers necessary to clear Customs and Immigration.

I’d almost finished (except for the books) when Wayne returned with a pack of cigarettes, a smile on his face, and said "Wash up! We’re going out to dinner.”

A happier woman was not to be found on Provo that windy evening. We sat on the porch of the Banana Boat Caribbean Grill overlooking an upscale marina, sipped a cocktail, and ate a fine meal. The waitress was friendly and fast. Oh civilization! How I missed you. I’m sorry I wanted to travel off the beaten path! I’m sorry I wanted to visit small villages and eat greasy Bahamian food! I’m glad to be here among the un-tanned bodies of tourists! Oh civilization! I’m glad you’re here when I need you.

Relaxing dockside, I suggested that we move into the Marina the next day, instead of waiting until June 2nd when my mom, daughter, and her boyfriend arrive by plane. I’m tired of “roughing it”. It’s been thirty-seven days since we left Miami. I was afraid Wayne would say no, but he agreed and I am very happy.

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

This morning I read in the cruising guide that it’s illegal to anchor in anything but sand in a park or reserve, and we could not tell from the chart whether we were close enough to shore to be outside the park boundaries. Unlike the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos are very serious about preserving their natural resources. Much of the land and sea is designated as park or reserve, and it’s heavily patrolled by rangers to enforce the restrictions on use. Restrictions vary from the anchoring rules mentioned above to no fishing, and no spear-fishing. Breaking the law could mean fines, imprisonment, and even the forfeiture of our vessel.

Not sure as to whether we were in violation or not, we hurriedly raised our anchors before the park rangers motored out into the bay and spotted us. Then we wound our way down the narrow canal into Turtle Cove, and parked the now big boat at the fuel dock. The dock master gave Wayne the Custom's and Immigration papers. We filled them out and waited for an hour and a half for the custom's official to arrive. A park ranger pulled up and chatted with the dock master. Wayne sat in the green arm chair, his body stiff like a board.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

He just shook his head.

“Are you worried about customs boarding the boat?” He nodded.

“Are you worried about those park rangers?” He nodded.

“Are you worried about the guns?” We had to turn them over to Customs until we left. He nodded.

“Must be your guilty conscious.” I laughed, but I couldn’t get him to smile. He just sat.

Finally, at 9:45 the Custom's official arrived with his big black sensible shoes, his white shirt buttoned close to his neck, and a large worn leather briefcase. He sat on the sofa, read our forms, got out his inkpad and stamped our passports. He was all business and refused the cold drink Wayne offered him. Wayne sat silent in the green chair, the long black Mosberg case and the green army satchel holding the two handguns at his side on the floor in plain site. The stern-faced custom's official gave us a map, and only after I asked him about local eateries (not where the tourists go) did he finally lighten up.

He was about to leave when Wayne asked hesitantly, "Uh, what about the guns?"

The custom's official looked sheepish, and said, "Oh, I forgot to ask."

Before long he was gone with our weapons. He didn’t search our boat, didn’t ask about the cat, and we weren’t arrested by the park service. All was well.

We gassed up, decided on a slip, motored around the cove, and parked our dirty, salty boat next to a huge yacht right in front of the Banana Boat Caribbean Grill. We docked on the harbor walk, a boardwalk that passes bars and restaurants, hotels and apartments on the land side, and mega yachts, charter and dive boats on the cove side.

Tuesday, May 27, 2003
The raising of two anchors, two dockings, one departure from dock, one custom's official—all before noon. No calamities, but so much stress for poor Wayne. He played strategy games on the computer and I served him egg sandwiches, then read and napped until late afternoon.

When the sun was lower in the sky and cooler night air was eminent, we walked the hilly road to the huge (by Caribbean standards), moderate (by American standards) IGA food market. It was probably lessthan two miles, but it was hot and the terrain was rough.

We had the ATM card, but very little cash. The market had a small deli and bakery, took credit cards, but did not give cash back. How would we get groceries back to the boat?

While I waited, Wayne made arrangements with a cabbie. He was waiting for his wife to finish shopping, then would drive us to the bank to access the ATM machine, and then to our boat.

We filled our cart with fresh fruit and vegetables, bread and cheese, then loaded it all into a cab, and headed down the busy Leaward Highway to the big shiny and brand-new Scotia Bank. I stood in line in an air-conditioned vestibule to use the ATM machine. Everyone else was walking away with piles of fifty-dollar bills, but three efforts on my part produced messages that read "We are sorry we cannot process your transaction at this time. Try again later." Why is nothing ever easy, I thought.
I gave up. Roy, the cabbie took us to our boat, and begrudgingly accepted eleven dollars—all the money we had.

Later, we headed the half a block along the harbor walk to the busy Tiki Hut restaurant where we sat at the bar drinking Miller Lite's on ice. This was one of the daily specials—2.50 each, instead of the usual 4.25. In addition, they offered the Wednesday night dinner special—salad, baby back ribs or chicken, bread, garlic mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables—all for $10.00. We split the special, chatted with another patron, then strolled in the warm air back to our boat.
Wayne held Chris and showed him all around, then placed him gently on the empty dock. He immediately turned around and jumped back onto the boat. Just like us, it may be miserable on this boat at times, but it is still our safe haven.