A Trip to the Beach (24 page)

Jesse and I walked up and down the beach tasting conch chowder, barbecued chicken, and piña coladas. I had never seen so much activity on the beach before. Dozens of booths had been set up, and smoke from a multitude of grills filled the air. The beach was so crammed with people, it was hard to get through. Johnno's had a band playing, and the familiar thud of the bass pounded through the crowd. The freshly lacquered boats rocked in the bay, the sun reflecting their bright colors in the clear water.

Sails, folded into stuffed bags, were lined up along the beach. A group of excited kids were doing back flips off the wharf, and the shore was lined with motor yachts from St. Martin here to see the race.
De Tree
was out practicing, along with a few of the other new boats, so Jesse and I wandered around looking for Lowell.

The Davis boys were gathered under a blue plastic tarp, and I-Davis bounded out to greet us. “Irie, Blanchards,” he said, the gold star on his front tooth gleaming. “
De Tree
gonna win today.” His dreadlocks hung all the way down to his waist. He was wearing a faded tie-dyed T-shirt, khaki shorts, and big black work boots. “Come in the cool shade,” he said, and we followed him under the tarp where Clinton, Rocky, Kee Kee, and little brother Steve sat in plastic chairs.

After chatting with the Davises for a while, Jesse and I went in search of Lowell. We were excited about going out on his motorboat and didn't want to miss our chance.

“Jah live,” I-Davis said, bidding us farewell. “One love.”

“See you later,” I said.

“Cool,” Kee Kee and Clinton said at the same time.

We found Hughes, along with Ozzie, Sweenda, and their two-year-old daughter, sitting on the beach waiting for Lowell to bring his boat closer to shore. Jesse and I joined them on the sand and watched a little boy, maybe six years old, throw a Coke can into the sea. He pulled it back in repeatedly, using a string he'd attached to the pop-top. It was twenty minutes before Lowell returned with the boat, and the Coke can game continued the whole time—I got the feeling he would be entertained for days.

We all waded out to the boat, climbed up over the side, and helped pass in a cooler with drinks and several life preservers. Lowell's older brother Glen, the customs officer, was also on board. Lowell pulled up the anchor, and we cruised slowly out of the harbor to watch the racing boats practice. By two o'clock all fifteen boats were lined up along the beach, ready to go. The crowd roared, the music thumped, and Mr. Cool fired the start gun. The boats set off crisply in the fresh wind, and the race west was uneventful. The wind was from behind, and there was no tacking or maneuvering. All the boats cruised along in a big pack until they made their first turn.

Lowell's motorboat was called
Baby G
—named after his brothers' two new baby girls. Jesse and I, along with everyone else, bumped along as the little orange boat rose and fell with the waves. The water splashed over the sides and felt warm and agreeable. We couldn't move around much, since
Baby G
was crowded and we had to hang on to something most of the time. The sun reflected off the water in a million directions, and we covered ourselves often with suntan lotion, hoping Bob had remembered to do the same. As we passed Sandy Island a school of dolphins appeared and swam alongside
Baby G
for a while, following the race like the rest of us. The perspective of the island from the water was totally different from what we saw on land. We saw our apartment above Long Bay, then Malliouhana, Carimar Beach Club, and Blanchard's. The restaurant looked very small compared to the hotels, and it was odd to think how our entire life in Anguilla revolved around that little building. I thought of the thousands of happy customers who had dined with us over the past year, their candlelit evening a treasured memory of a perfect vacation.

We passed Meads Bay and Barnes Bay and soon rounded the western tip of the island. A tiny outcropping of rock formed its own island, called Anguillita, marking the end of Anguilla, with open sea stretching out for miles beyond it.

De Tree
was somewhere in the middle, but as they approached the turning pin Glen began to yell.

“Watch
De Tree
now,” he shouted. “She gonna make a move. Watch 'er now.”

Sure enough, all the other boats swung around to the south, making a big arc around the floating pin.
De Tree
was headed straight for the pin. It passed three other boats, narrowly missed
Stinger,
made a dramatic turn, and reset its course, headed north.
Bluebird
and
Light and Peace
had been in the lead, but
De Tree
cut them off and was now out in front.

Glen and Lowell yelled at the captain of
Light and Peace.
“How you could let he cut you off? That Errol wicked, you know. Up the road,” they shouted. “Up the road.”

As we followed the boats closely, Lowell passed around some sugar apples he had brought along for a snack. They were funny-looking fruits, really—like little green pinecones. Inside, though, they were sweet and soft, almost like a melon. I spit the seeds out into the water and watched the colors of ocean life swirl beneath us. A school of jellyfish swam under the boat. They were milky white, almost clear, and about the size of small saucers. They opened and closed rhythmically, passing quickly out of sight.

Inside
De Tree,
Bob was still shaking from the near miss with
Stinger.
The crew had scrambled to the other side during the move, and everyone was yelling all at once.

“Jib. Jib. Jib,” Errol screamed. “Haul the jib, boys.” Shabby and Rigby tightened the jib sail until Errol yelled, “Good jib.”

“Come up to the wind, Cap,” Sam called. “Pinch the mainsail. Pinch the sheet.”

Errol and Sam tightened the rope a little on the mainsail, and
De Tree
came up onto its side until the gunwale skimmed the water. They continued toward the north, away from the rest of the pack. Clearly Errol had his own game plan. After about ten minutes
De Tree
came about and took a new tack toward the east.

“
De Tree
above everybody,” Glen said. “She done cross everybody.”

We followed along next to
Light and Peace,
since Glen and Lowell were supporters, and Jesse and I enjoyed the sunshine and sea spray. Other motorboats zoomed around us, hailing us as they passed. James came up close with about a dozen people in his fishing boat, all waving Heinekens and cheering before speeding away. Miguel waved from another speedboat, and Thomas flew by in his lobster boat.

By the time we got back to Sandy Ground,
Bluebird
and
De Tree
were neck and neck, vying for first place. Each boat gracefully tacked back and forth around the throng of anchored sailboats, speedboats, and fishing boats.
Bluebird
passed the finish buoy one boat length ahead of
De Tree,
and a roar came up from the crowd.
De Tree
had grabbed a respectable second place for its first August Monday race.

We spotted Bug on the beach dancing and waving a Heineken in the air. He was singing, “Can' touch
Bluebird. Bluebird
the boat to beat.”

The race for third place was a heated one.
Eagle
and
UFO
were tacking back and forth, narrowly missing each other each time they crossed.
Eagle
was ahead by one boat length, but
UFO
was closing in. As the two boats passed, both crews yelled, “Hard lee, hard lee,” and instead of changing their tack to avoid a collision, it became a game of chicken. Neither boat would give way.
UFO
was headed straight for the starboard side of
Eagle.

Lowell, Glen, Ozzie, and Hughes were screaming and shaking fists along with hundreds of people onshore. The
UFO
's bow struck
Eagle
broadside, and the heavy rocks, sandbags, and lead in the bottom sank her almost immediately. Within minutes
Eagle
came to rest on the sandy bottom, her mast sticking up about halfway out of the water.
UFO
continued past the finish line, taking third place.

Eagle
's crew was shuttled ashore by the police boat, and everyone argued on the beach for almost an hour. I'm not sure if
UFO
was eventually disqualified or not, but apparently this sort of thing happens from time to time, and nobody took it too seriously.

“How are they going to get
Eagle
up?” Bob asked Errol.

“See them divers?” he said, pointing to a group of men swimming out to the sunken boat. “Once they take out the ballast, she jus' float back up. Then they take off 'er mast an' bail 'er out. Don' worry, man. She be ready for the race tomorrow.”

That night we returned to Carnival Village to see the Mighty Bomber, the grand old entertainer from Trinidad. We stood with Lowell, Miguel, Hughes, and Ozzie by their booth, listening to the calypso until midnight. His performance was much more our style than the loud, pounding bands we had heard earlier. Surprisingly, the young people in the crowd enjoyed him as well. The Bomber, as everyone called him, wore a light gray suit with a hankie stylishly flared out of his pocket. He had on a white top-hat rakishly tipped to one side. He told the audience that he'd been entertaining since the fifties, and I had a feeling his act hadn't changed much since then. “Va va va voom,” he'd sing, and the crowd swooned. Clinton joined us midway through the show and said, “Mel, this the real thing, ya know. He the best.”

On our last night before leaving the island for vacation, we went to visit Jerry Gumbs. We hadn't seen him as much as we'd hoped throughout the year and wanted to make sure we said goodbye. I wanted to have the image of his long white beard, round brown belly, and big smile firmly embedded in my mind in Vermont.

“Jerry,” Bob said, “I didn't see you at the boat races. I went out in
De Tree.
”

“Haven't you noticed I'm an old man?” he said with a smile. “I used to go to every race, but not now.”

Bob told him about getting second place and about the new boats from various villages. We drank Ting and sat around the old card table on Jerry's veranda.

“Jerry,” Jesse said, “have you ever heard of little fruits called canaipes? They grow in big bunches and have a tart jellylike inside. We had them once in Barbados, and I wondered if they grow here.”

“Ginips. We call them ginips in Anguilla. You like ginips?” Jerry asked in his resonant bass. “You got some time?” he continued, not waiting for an answer.

“Sure,” Bob said.

In a matter of minutes we were driving toward The Valley with Jerry, who was taking us to his favorite ginip tree. He led us to Crocus Hill, which at 212 feet above sea level is the highest point in Anguilla, yet still barely visible from the sea. Jerry pointed out his childhood home and told us how Crocus Hill had once been the center of town. We'd always thought Jerry had been born and raised in Blowing Point—he seemed to have been there for centuries. Fifty years ago, he said, the post office, clinic, government building, and courthouse were all located in Crocus Hill village. It was the hub of the island before The Valley.

Looking around that night, Crocus Hill village was barely discernible—only a few scattered houses, all with spectacular views of the island and beyond. We could see the northern landmarks, Sandy Island, Prickly Pear Cay, and Dog Island, as well as the lights of St. Martin to the south.

“Pull in here,” Jerry said at the crest of the hill. He directed us into the driveway of a house where he assured us no one would be home. We followed him to the backyard, and he pointed to a giant tree with dozens of branches weighted down by bunches of little green ginips. The fruit was all out of reach—someone had already cleaned off the lower branches. Jerry gave Bob and Jesse the okay to climb, and while the sun plunged like a blazing ball into the sea, they maneuvered arms and legs over and around the thick branches of the tree. Jerry and I stood on the ground, the evening breeze rustling the coconut palms around us on the hill. We filled a cardboard box with ginips as Bob and Jesse flung down bunches of the cherry-sized fruit from above our heads.

I looked up at the silhouette of the ginip tree and watched the stars pop out one by one. Anguilla never really experiences dusk as we know it. When the sun goes down, the sky is dark within half an hour. A sliver of moon was growing brighter in the north, and I felt as if time stood still up on Crocus Hill. I knew that had I been there picking ginips under the moon a century before, nothing around me would have been different.

Eating ginips takes time. You can't be fussy about peeling the skin. It's best to just pop the whole thing in your mouth at once, break the thick skin with your teeth, and suck out the tart jelly inside. Then you spit out the skin and the seed inside. Bob had little patience for it, but Jerry, Jesse, and I bit, sucked, and spat happily the whole way home.

On the way back to Blowing Point Jerry entertained us with his stories of Castro and the Anguilla Revolution. He remembered nostalgically the speech he had made at the UN in 1967. Back at Rendezvous Bay, Jerry settled into his tattered lounge chair, and before we said goodbye he recited, word for word, his favorite poem. His deep voice was captivating, and he paused for dramatic effect each time he came to the line “This too shall pass.” We drove home to pack, comforted by the thought that Jerry would be sitting in his lounge chair when we returned in October.

The next morning we were up at five-thirty to catch the eight o'clock American Eagle flight. Our apartment was in order, our suitcases were loaded in the truck, and we walked out onto our balcony for a final gaze at the sea. The sun was just peeking over the hill behind us, and the clouds over the water were yellow on the top and a bluish gray on the bottom.