An Embarrassment of Mangoes (27 page)

Rum and Coconut Water à la
Receta

If you don’t have access to green coconuts, coconut water is sold in cans and little juice box–type cartons in West Indian grocery stores and some supermarkets. It’s often sweetened, so you may want to add a touch less condensed milk.

2 ounces white rum

4 ounces (approx.) coconut water

1 tablespoon (approx.) sweetened condensed milk (or to taste)

Whole nutmeg

Shake or stir the rum, coconut water, and milk with ice. Taste, and add more milk if you want the drink a bit sweeter. Liberally grate nutmeg on top.

Makes 1 drink

Sharing the Dream

Well, we didn’t kill off my parents. In fact, they wouldn’t make bad cruisers—although they might not tell you that. They’ll probably bemoan little things, like risking life and limb clambering in and out of the dinghy, and practically needing a university course to use the head . . .

E-MAIL FROM STEVE TO HIS AUNT AND UNCLE
IN CANADA, DECEMBER 1998

Myrna and Murray, Steve’s parents, have sailed on
Receta
only once, on a carefully orchestrated afternoon on Lake Ontario, when the forecast promised flat calm and a gentle whisper of wind, and the sailing was followed by a convivial dinner onboard while safely tied to the dock. It was the kind of day that seduces non-sailors into buying boats, and I could see even nervous Myrna’s view of sailing soften. Her only other outing on a sailboat had been years before, on
Overkill
, the 31-footer that preceded
Receta. Overkill
was a tender boat that leaned over easily under the pressure of the wind, regularly canting the cockpit to a funhouse angle. With an orange Coast Guard–issue keyhole-style life preserver tied tightly around her torso, Myrna clenched her teeth and clutched the handrails the entire time, certain her prankster son (the same son who would never leave a trail of plastic ants crawling all over her freshly baked pies as they cooled on her kitchen counter) was going to tip the boat and send her flying into the water. “When we sold
Overkill
,” Steve told friends, “you could still see my mother’s fingernail marks in the teak trim.”

But now Myrna and Murray are not only coming to stay on
Receta
for a full week, they have chosen to visit us in Bequia, one of the small languorous islands that make up the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “Bequia sweet, Bequia sweet,” sings the Carib grackle in its unmistakable two-note call, and those who wash up here quickly agree. However, Bequia is a fair stroll off the beaten tourist path and an unlikely destination for a pair of ultraconservative travelers aged sixty-six and seventy-one.

For centuries, Bequia’s residents made their living by whaling, and even now a few island men still have the skills and the nerve to kill whales with hand-thrown harpoons. During the whaling season—February to April—they keep watch for spouting humpbacks heading north after mating and calving; when one is spotted, they take to sea in an open 27-foot wooden whaling boat propelled by wind and oars. Bequians are still permitted, under the terms of an agreement with the International Whaling Commission, to catch two humpback whales a year for local consumption. Last year was a good one, we’re told, with a full catch. Everyone on the island knows when a whale has been killed, because the monstrous carcass is towed to Petit Nevis, a tiny island a harpoon’s throw off Bequia’s southern edge, and the whalers build huge fires to render the oil from the flesh. The smoke and stench hang in the air for days. Bequia is decidedly not Nassau.

Five miles long by 3 miles wide, it is an island of empty beaches and small guesthouses framed by red and purple bougainvillea, perhaps with a pretty white arch over the front gate made from the jawbone of a whale. Traditional boatbuilders work with hand tools under palm trees, and Rastafarians sell tomatoes and papayas in the small market. Sure, there’s an “Internet café” where we plug in our laptop to pick up e-mail: It’s in a shack, up a path that’s either dust or mud depending on the weather. Inside, the table that holds the aging computers also hosts a regular parade of sugar ants up and over the keyboards, and faces glassless, wood-louvered windows. One day, a squall raced overhead while we were there alone, the proprietor having wandered off to other business; it was left to us to dash about and close the louvers, leaving us in the dark but with the equipment only dampened rather than doused.

This has been a record wet year for Bequia—three times the normal rainfall. The cisterns on the roof of every house are full to overflowing. Even if the rain stops, the arrival of the blustery annual Christmas winds is imminent, fierce gusts that slide off the hills, sending boats hobbyhorsing in the heavy chop and sometimes even dragging anchor, usually in the black of night. The odds of seven straight days of blissful weather for our guests are very long odds indeed.

Common cruising wisdom says: Don’t do things any differently because you have guests. Do what you usually do, eat what you usually eat, and get them involved in your usual daily routines. They’re coming to visit because they want to experience
your
way of life.

Right.

T
he plane from Canada is late, and Myrna and Murray miss the first connecting flight. The next—a puddle-jumper from Barbados—arrives in the evening, which means their introduction to cruising life is a bouncing dinghy ride across the harbor chop in full darkness and a steady drizzle. “You’re gonna love this new dinghy,” Steve says as he holds it steady in the dark and helps his mom climb in. But Myrna and Murray never rode in the old
Snack
, so the relative improvements are lost on them. From their point of view, it is simply a small, rocking rubber boat—without a seat. Like most cruisers, we don’t bother with such niceties; a seat simply gets in the way when you’re carrying jerry jugs of fuel and water and bags of groceries. Perched nervously on the inflatable’s pontoons, without any teak to clutch, Myrna (who doesn’t like to swim unless her feet can touch bottom) and Murray (who doesn’t like to swim
at all
) seem decidedly uneasy.

By the time they’ve climbed from the dinghy onto
Receta
’s swim ladder, an athletic endeavor at any age, and been coached from there into the cockpit—“
please
don’t grab that, it’s our radio antenna; no
NO
, not that either; it’s a wind generator support”—they sink onto the cushions with obvious relief. They have clearly had enough adventure for one day. Perhaps for the entire week. Perhaps for a lifetime.

Welcoming hugs over, I leap into the breach. “How about a glass of rum punch?”

“No, I don’t think so,” says Myrna. I’m not surprised: Although back home she would occasionally join us in a glass of wine with dinner, I can’t recall her ever having a cocktail. “Try just a sip of mine, Mom,” Steve offers.

“Mmmm, that
is
good.”

“Here, I’ll pour you a small glass.” By the time we sit down to a late dinner of chicken pelau, the small glass has been drained. And Myrna is looking decidedly more relaxed.

P
rior to their arrival, we’ve had only one set of stay-aboard guests, but they hardly count: They were experienced sailors who knew the routines of life on a cruising boat as well as we did and fit right in. We know the stories from other cruisers, though: the terrifying but true tales of how the Good Friends from Back Home transmogrified into the Guests from Hell: dangerous creatures who—horror of horrors—left the water running while they brushed their teeth, drank the supply of expensive Diet Coke without offering to replace it, tracked sand through the boat, burned precious amps by neglecting to turn off lights, and—the worst offense—clogged the head necessitating ugly remedial work by the skipper.

We have four more sets of guests lined up to visit in the months to come. We want to make sure we get this guest thing right.

Don’t do things any differently than you usually do
. “You have a choice, Myrna,” I explain. “You can take a shower in the head, where you’ll have complete privacy. But you’ll have to wipe everything dry and you won’t have hot water.” With the trade winds now keeping our wind generator spinning steadily, we don’t need to run the engine to charge the batteries—which means no engine-heated water. “Or you can do as we do and shower outside in the cockpit, with nice hot water from our solar shower.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. You can keep your bathing suit on.” Steve is trying to make amends after completely intimidating both parents last night with his detailed instructions on how to operate the toilet: “Pump at least ten times when you pee, at least double that when you do anything else. And don’t forget to pop the pedal up after you’re finished, or water will continue to come in and you could sink the boat.”
How many times? Sink the boat? Was it pedal up or pedal down? I COULD SINK THE BOAT??
For the first two days, they ask for refresher directions every time they flush.

Myrna opts for the cockpit shower, with her bathing suit. Steve and I duck below to give her privacy, and to put together a pitcher of sundowners before we dinghy into town for dinner. “We still have fresh coconuts from Dingis, right? Make rum and coconut water tonight,” he says. This time Myrna accepts a drink without urging, and when I top up everyone’s glass a little later, she doesn’t decline.

“I think she’s settling in,” Steve whispers.

Dinner is at Daphne’s. “Daphne Cooks It,” the worn sign says, pointing the way to a white frame house off the main street of Port Elizabeth, Bequia’s one town. Daphne’s is a restaurant only in the loosest sense of the word, more like eating Sunday dinner at the house of a favorite aunt. There’s no menu, and the food—classic West Indian fare—is served family-style at a scant handful of tables covered with worn flowered cloths. Steve and I already know that Daphne certainly can cook it: We’ve eaten extremely well here before. We also know that, from the food to the loo, it will be a real adventure for Myrna and Murray. (Daphne cooks, but she doesn’t necessarily clean.)

“It will be my pleasure to serve you tonight,” Alwyn said when we stopped by in the afternoon to let Daphne know we’d like dinner. Alwyn is as lean as Daphne is rotund, with a warm broad smile that shows off his gold front tooth. The only disconcerting thing about Alwyn is that each time we see him, his belt hangs undone under his T-shirt, as if he has been suddenly interrupted from other pressing matters to serve his customers.

Daphne could cook fresh tuna tonight, Alwyn told us, or fresh lobster. “And there’s chicken,” he added, with only the slightest change in inflection to suggest this would be a really dumb choice. Since I’ve already promised to make lobster onboard, we all pick tuna. “But can you tell Daphne we’d like Steve’s parents to try some traditional Caribbean side dishes with it?”

“It will be my pleasure,” he said.

That night, Daphne serves thick callaloo soup, followed by the tuna, stewed in a Creole-style sauce of tomatoes, onions, and peppers. There’s rice, to soak up the spicy sauce, and heaping platters of breadfruit salad, conch fritters, steamed red cabbage wedges, cucumber and tomato salad, and provision, the ubiquitous boiled starchy vegetables. As we’re wiping the big plates embarrassingly clean, Daphne comes out of her kitchen to chat, as she usually does. “My stove’s been givin’ me trouble,” she complains. Steve assures her that her cooking is better than ever, Myrna and Murray request another dinner later in the week, and I try to winkle out instructions for how to make the tuna. She’s helpfully vague—at least until she can execute a diversionary tactic: the delivery of homemade vanilla ice cream, which immediately sets everyone
ooh
ing and
aah
ing in a different direction.

When we return a few nights later, Daphne has stewed the tuna—again, everyone’s choice—in a buttery brown sauce that’s fragrant with lemon. And taking seriously her responsibility to introduce Myrna and Murray to West Indian cuisine, this time she’s accompanied the fish with squares of the polenta-like coo-coo and cole slaw. The fritters are different too, made with some other, more delicate, seafood than conch.

“Tree-tree,” she explains when she again emerges from the kitchen. “Tiny, tiny fish you can only get for a short time around Christmas.”

“Tree-tree” refers to all kinds of river fish that hatch in the ocean at this time of year and then, less than a half-inch long and not yet fully formed, migrate inland to live in rivers and streams. When the “tree-tree” run, people flock to the mouths of rivers to catch them, using very fine nets or sheets, since they’re so small. We’re lucky, Daphne tells us; tri-tri—I later see the name written down—are considered a delicacy, and they run for such a short time that most visitors never get to try them.

As she ambles back to the kitchen, Murray asks Alwyn if he can take a picture of them both. “It will be my pleasure,” Alwyn says with his charming gold smile. “But I will have to ask Daphne.” She agrees, removing the apron that covers her flowered dress but keeping on her color-coordinated ball cap, before posing in a corner of the dining room with Alwyn, his belt still undone.

But Steve wants a picture of her in her real domain: her kitchen, in front of her wonderful old monster of a stove. “It still givin’ me trouble,” she says, hefting a freshly roasted breadfruit from its oven. “Ah’m gonna trash it yet.”

B
equia is the leaping-off point for the Tobago Cays, a 21⁄2-mile-long horseshoe of coral reef 25 miles to the south, protecting small poster-perfect islands. The cays are pristine and uninhabited—just a few coconut palms and glittering white sand beaches, the embodiment of the Caribbean. We want to take Myrna and Murray there for a day or two, but common cruising wisdom also advises it’s bad form to make your guests seasick. The Christmas winds need to lay down if we’re going to make the trip.

While we wait, we explore the island by day and teach them to play the island version of dominoes at night. Myrna builds a shell collection; Murray handlines from our deck, happily landing small squirrelfish and snappers, though nothing of edible size. They start to go barefoot onboard and in the dinghy, only putting on shoes when they get to the dock in town.

“Can the people on that boat see into our cockpit?” Myrna squints at our closest neighbor. “Not unless they’re looking through binoculars,” Steve replies.

And so Myrna decides showering naked in the cockpit is okay. As she’s toweling dry, she sticks her head down into the galley. “Will you be making up some of that coconut water stuff tonight?” she inquires.

“I think she’s
really
settling in,” Steve whispers.