ST. VINCENT AND the Grenadines
December 2 - 12, 1966
Friday (December 2) Catch 4:45 flight delayed to 5:45 Panam to Barbados. In at 12:05 AM. Cab to Windsor Hotel---free.
Saturday (December 3) Free breakfast of eggs (scramb) and bacon and OJ and toast, and fly at 11 AM to St. Lucia via LIAT via St. Vincent. In at 12:05 PM. Taxi to Villa Hotel. Lunch then of hamburg and ham and cheese and beer and Coke. Rooms cruddy and at 3 PM take cab to Camelot beach house for $2 and $2 back. Swim and walk cocoanut strewn deserted beach and RAIN falls greatly and back at 6:30 for dinner of HUGE steak and FF and papaw, bed at 9 PM and sleep til (room is $8 US)
Sunday (December 4) 8 AM! Breakfast of eggs and bacon and decide to transfer to Blue Waters, doing that by 12:05 PM, in time for swim and buffet of dachine, raw plantain (better fried), and others. Swim after and climb cliffs and watch sunset and eat diner, also buffet, and tannia in salad is turnip-like. Bed at 9:30 after watching stars, and write to 10:30 about Canada.
Monday (December 5) Eat and call for cab around island, lunching at Cloud's Nest, and dining late at Blue Waters on lamb and cloud-spectacle in cloudless sky. Ride 10 AM-5:30 PM! Eat cocoa and cocoanuts. Play snappy ping-pong and bed at 10. Room is $9.90 US (+ 10% tip.)
Tuesday (December 6) Fly to St. Vincent 9:15-9:45, and get to Sugar Mill. Walk to beach and meet Brian and Valda Hoar and other couple. Brian doll in snorkel. Talk of flying saucers, ghosts, prophesy, LSD, ESP, traveling I've done, "names" I've known, gold and diamond mines in Guyana.
Since the trips to the islands will probably turn into yearly affairs, taking off four days for personal reasons along with one or two holidays to make two long weekends, I'd better get this one down quickly, though it's already over a month old, it being now January 26, 1967, and the trip dates were December 2-12, taking as close to ten days as I'd care to measure, having left for the airport at about 4 PM on Friday, the second, and returning home about 4 PM on Monday the twelfth. This was the first of the series, and covered St. Lucia and St. Vincent in detail, and Barbados and Antigua only in so far as I've seen enough of THEM to not want to see any more than necessary of them in the future. So these are four down, only about 46 more to go: 50 makes such a NICE round number.
Madge and I started thinking about it when we both found that we had two weeks' vacation left, and no idea where to spend it, and Herman, my boss, insisted that only one week at most could be left for the next year. So we had to go somewhere, and Madge agreed that we go to the Islands. I had done some preliminary investigating before going to Canada, and had decided on some of the more southerly islands, so I read up in EB again and studied maps, and tentatively made up a list which included Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbados, the Grenadines, and Grenada. Then I went again to my travel agent, Joe Wain, and found that Dominica was so far off the beaten path that it wouldn't be possible to get there in a short week. Barbados we had to go to, since all flights left from Barbados, but Grenada was out, maybe, again because of the awkward schedules. So the trip narrowed considerably, and we planned to land overnight in Barbados, take off on the next morning to St. Lucia, stay about 4 or 5 days, then fly down to St. Vincent, then back to Barbados for a couple days before flying home, all for $199 each. Then in the rush for reservations on a plane, it appeared there would BE no definite reservations: all the BWIA and Pan-Am flights were booked, and to add to the difficulty, Pan Am was supposed to go on STRIKE on Friday, the 2nd. Finally, the only flight we were actually confirmed on was a SUNDAY flight, getting us MONDAY into St. Lucia, leaving on Thursday for St. Vincent, on Saturday for Barbados, and on Tuesday for New York. We watched and waited through the first few days of December for the strike news, but still they appeared to be going out. Mr. Wain refused to make any hotel reservations for us, since we had to forfeit a day's deposit if we didn't show up: and since the flight reservations were so chancy, we just couldn't afford the risk. But he assured us we'd have no trouble getting places to stay, so we tentatively picked Marigot Bay for St. Lucia, nothing in particular except Young Island for St. Vincent, and Sam Lord's Castle for Barbados. Finally on Thursday we decided that we'd leave for the airport on Friday, to try our luck on a standby basis, though Joe Wain was a bit discouraging about our getting seats. But I kept talking up a storm for my luck, that I'd never missed a flight that I was on standby basis for yet (the latest being the entire series from New Westminster to NYC), and we had really nothing to lose by trying. So Friday we left work about noon to go home and get packed, and about three Madge pulled up outside in a taxi; I finished packing in an enormous hurry, and we grabbed another taxi for the East Side Airline Terminal. The driver tried to convince me that we should drive to the airport, but I insisted that we didn't. Madge looked at me in wonder as I handled the situation, something which would become so much a matter of course as to be expected throughout the trip. We were supposed to leave at 2:45 to get to the airport at 3:45 for the 4:45 Pan Am flight, if it was going to take off. The newscast at noon and one and two announced that the strike deadline was being postponed hour by hour so long as the negotiations continued. We simply didn't know whether the flight would be leaving or not, so we got to the terminal at 3:20, and I noticed that the bus had left all of 40 minutes before, at 2:50. I hid my chagrin---anyway, there was always the BWIA flight scheduled to leave at 6 PM---and strode up to the counter to say "I want to catch the 3:30 bus for the 4:45 flight." By some miracle, the ruse worked, and they shuttled us out to the platform, from which the bus departed at 3:35. We went slowly in traffic, and got hung up in the interminable traffic circles in Queens, but finally we drove up before the huge circular Pan Am terminal at 4:25. There simply wasn't any time to spare at all. Rushed up to one of the check-in counters, which was very nicely situated at the other side of an air-door, and we were glad to get inside, even our layers of shirts and jackets and sweaters and raincoat weren't too warm in the cold breezes, but one doesn't wear an overcoat to the tropics. Dashed for a quick look at the scheduled departure, and found that the flight had been delayed from 4:45 to 5:45, and upon inquiry about the strike, the charming Negro hostess merely said something about "We know nothing about the strike" and then absolutely floored us when we asked to be put on the standby list by saying that there were open reservations on that flight! We looked at each other in amazement, and I chortled gleefully away about the "luck of the Zolnerzak." Now all that had to happen was that the strike be called off, and we'd be in luck. Maybe. After we checked in, still grinning joyously at our good luck at least getting SEATS on the plane, we got over to the overnight accommodations desk, where a beautiful foreign girl tried to help us, but could give us nothing definite. They couldn't guarantee accommodations for us for the night in Barbados, neither could they confirm our flight out the next day, but they wired ahead for us, and we again had no recourse but to trust to my luck. By that time it was 5 PM, and still the flights for Pan Am were taking off. We would NEVER have made the 4:45. Relaxed a bit in the rest rooms, then talked a bit about the trip, then Madge called her sister and I called Herman to say that we were probably taking off on the flight, but the only reservations we had back were on Pan Am. With that Herman wished me a Happy New Year! That's the sort of fellow to work for. Out of the booths in time to hear the announcement for the departure, and at this time my queasiness hit me full force. I had been able to sleep the night before, since our flight out was not certain, but now we were going, and the chill from the cold walk down the carpeted stairway to the front entrance remained with me in the plane. I put my raincoat in the rack above, and still I was cold while my hands and feet sweated. We sat for a very long time as people came on, and we moved up to the front right seat in the tourist section, as far forward on the wing as we could get, but I cursed the fact that we had to fly at night. Then we found we had to land in Antigua, and I dreaded the take-offs and landings. Plane jolted backward out of the air-hanger and into the darkness on the runway. Taxied for miles in the darkness as my stomach knotted even tighter, and at last with a roar we plummeted down the runway. Climbed steeply, and by peering to the front we could see the skyline lights outside, and then the plane banked steeply, slowed, banked again, and we could see the lights of Long Island falling behind. My nervousness grew as Madge's decreased, and finally I talked about it a bit when I was rather sure she had calmed down. We chatted about that for awhile, and finally I began to sternly will myself to get calmer. The flight droned on almost uneventfully, and late in the flight we were served dinner. I had difficulty swallowing, but the concentration on cutting and chewing made the minutes pass, and after gave me the excuse to go back to the john. The back of the plane was jouncing and bucking much more than the front, but with washing my face and going to the toilet---ANYTHING to take my mind off flying---even the jouncing became almost entertaining as I braced myself against the wall and desoaped my face from the rocking wash basin. Wabbled back to the seat, and pretended to be tired so that I could lay back and close my eyes. Through the entire trip my mouth was absolutely DISTENDED by continuous yawns. That was another common syndrome through the trip. After awhile the moon rose over the left wing, and I sat at the opposite window, looking at the moon glow off the clouds and water. But there was just not much of anything to see. Finally at about 9 PM we started to lower, and we both strained out the window for a look at where we were landing. The first sight of stars was encouraging: at least it was clear. Then there were lights which may have been boats, and then more lights as we skimmed low over Antigua. How I WISHED it were day! Finally we landed, very nicely, and the first hint of gentle lack of civilization was the presence of oil-burning plug lamps for runway markers. We strained for a sight of the island, but along the runway there appeared to be only sand, and on the horizon there was such darkness we could make out no outlines. Finally the plane stopped, for thirty minutes only, but of course we had to get out to see what we could see. Joined a couple who knew everything thoroughly, but they were staying on in Antigua. The air was warm and there was a moist breeze blowing. It was not intolerably hot, but still the breeze and the warmth was our first taste of tropical balm, and it WAS delightfully refreshing! Into the low white cinder-block building, and we began noticing the Negro population, many of the first being in the white uniforms of airport police and attendants. Around the building were bushes with varicolored leaves, and some plants were growing in accustomed lushness in the sandy soil. We exclaimed over them, and everyone knew this was one of our first times in the tropics. Tried to get some sort of idea of inter-island transportation, but only saw that it seemed to be expensive but available if necessary. By the time we'd seen everything, it was time to go back to the plane, encouraged by the fact that time had advanced one hour: it was about 10:30, and the flight to Barbados would thus be one and one-half hours, not TWO and one-half hours, for which I was again thankful. Onto considerably emptier plane, and again the nerves for the takeoff, the ascent, and the leveling off. The ride was a tinier bit bumpier, and I kept watching the cant of the curtains on the class-partition door for an indication of upness or downness. And we began down long after we were supposed to, but time always seemed long on those planes. Again tried to see something of the island as we came down, but again nothing much except scattered lights greeted our view. Out of the plane for the final time, and ready to face the next bit of luck, the hotel for the night. Into the small terminal, well toward the end because of the fracas with the fat American in first class who had sat on a mint and refused to exit so that the tourist classers could pass through the first-class cabin. This weather was quite a bit warmer, and inside the building out of the breeze, even with sweaters and coats off, it was beginning to be terribly humid and warm. Found that they really DID want my passport, contrary to what everyone said, but they let me through anyway. They wouldn't take my word for the vaccination, and we had to wait for the bags to trundle in so I could get my papers from my suitcase. After that we talked to the very personable young Pan Am representative who got us a hotel room with no trouble and called up a taxi. By this time it was getting toward 12:30, and we were ready for sleep, though I had stopped yawning when the flights were over. And then we had a busy day ahead of us. Went through into the very long air terminal, carrying our own bags, and checked in at the LIAT counter to be told that the flight the next day was booked up, and upon my asking to be put on a waiting list, he looked puzzled, then said, "Oh, you want to be ship-siders?" I assured him we'd like nothing better than to be ship-siders, and started our permanent position in the Islands. Out to the taxi, which was very leathery and warm, driven by a rather surly black driver we had no way of knowing whether we could trust or not. Oh, yes, now I remember that he DROVE us from the baggage area to the front of the terminal for the LIAT business, and Madge sat nervously alone in the car as I wandered back and forth carrying messages to keep her informed. Many people glanced wonderingly at us, and I felt good to have her on my arm. Then we were back into the taxi, after being told we should be at the terminal at some ungodly hour like 8 AM. The hotel was a good distance from the airport, and the driver, with only a little prodding, started telling us about the parishes, and the people, and the sugar cane and bananas and the weather and the beaches and the hotels, including a private recommendation of his own for a guest house behind the Blue Waters. Hurtled through the cane fields with the only lights coming from the headlights, and we were already in another world. People walked bare-footed in the dust at roadside, and there were a few bicycles and no other cars. Got to the Windsor Hotel about 1, and checked into the large, bare, newly-painted white rooms. There, hanging over our beds, were our FIRST mosquito nets. With the taxi and jet noise gone, we began to hear the crickets and the frogs and the cicadas of the tropical islands, and by the time I lay in bed for about a half hour, naked, trying to get to sleep, I decided that my ear-plugs would be in constant use. Got up once about two to look out at the moon-lit garden behind. The hotel was quiet and pleasant, but the thought began to hit me so soon in the trip: what did you DO here? Then I got to sleep, maybe about 2:30.
Saturday, December 3: Woke long before I was supposed to, and lay looking at the room and listening to the rain from the quick shower outside. The sky was dramatically clouded, the trees in the garden were beautiful, and I was again looking forward to the day. Met Madge for breakfast, and the fining room was completely open and breezy, and the odd slowness and awkwardness of the native servants made me feel a little nervous. They all spoke with English accents, and sometimes I think they just didn't understand me. Like when I ordered milk and it came hot; they must have boiled it. I'm sure they didn't understand. We had a very American breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, very crisply done, and orange juice (which didn't particularly taste freshly squeezed) and toast. Out of the dining room to present our slips to the fellow behind the desk, and there was no charge for anything. How carefree! The driver is waiting already, and we load the taxi and take off to the airport. The ride back is much more pleasant than during the night, but quickly we get tired looking at the children walking in the streets, the bicycle riders, the shanty houses rickety on hills, the inevitable goat or chicken in the yard, the strictly native population, interspersed with hotels at which we saw few tourists. The island was mildly hilly, and there was little lush vegetation; in fact there were more bushes that trees. I asked about the rest of the island and was assured it was about the same as this, and somewhat later I remarked to Madge that I didn't think I wanted to come back here: when I was looking for an island, I wanted a JUNGLE island, and this farmland, kitchen plot, hotel complex was not to my liking. I got bored driving down the street, this was hardly the place I'd like to spend days walking around exploring. I didn't see any of the beaches except from the car, and they seemed to have small waves, which also didn't impress me very much. I wanted to swim in an OCEAN, and not in a pool. Got to the airport and was told we'd have to wait, with the unspoken question being, "What are you doing here so EARLY?" We wandered around outside in the hot sun, and looked from small tree to flower bush, smelling, looking, exploring our first island as it appeared between the asphalt lanes of an airport parking lot. The clouds were the most uniformly spectacular part of the scenery, and Madge said this was completely typical of the tropics. I recalled the skies of Bangkok and tended to agree with her. Actually, aside from Bangkok and Lima, this was the first time I was REALLY in the tropics, and I rather liked it, even though I knew that Barbados was NOT the kind of island I wanted. The slow time passed before the plane, and for part of the hours we sat, wordless, watching other people sweating in the tropic heat. We were dressed cooly, and still we were not quite used to sitting around feeling HOT. Then we were called to the counter and told we had confirmed tickets to St. Lucia, via St. Vincent. Still the luck was working! We boarded about 10:30 and took off about 11, squeezed into a double seat one seat behind the front in the packed-in Hawker-Siddelley of the LIAT fleet. It was rather comfortable, considering it was a tropics airline, and we took off from Barbados again straining to get sight of what we were flying over. Out over the ocean and passed little boats, then St. Vincent came up beside us, and there were a few magical moments of flying along coasts swept by white-capped breakers crashing against huge rock cliffs covered with greenery and trees. We landed on a valley with hills on the other side. THIS was the islands. Waited about ten minutes, staying on the plane, and I moved to another seat, forward and next to the window. We both got lovely sights of green and blue waters, foaming surf, magnificent cumulus clouds parting to look down over enormously blue---almost velvet blue---water, and ten we were landing on St. Lucia. The pilots were excellent, flying the planes the whole distance: there was no stomach-lift at attaining altitude, no sickening descent on starting down: it flew on a planned arc which was all very nicely done. Out on St. Lucia, and into the VERY small frame building, and again I needed my passport, and this time I didn't let them take my word, since I wanted St. Lucia stamped in it! They checked my vaccination papers and we stopped to see what hotel we could get, to find that the three undoubted best ones were taken up by some motion picture company shooting a film! So the choice immediately devolved on a place only minutes from the airport and one in the city, so we took the one in the city, "With a beautiful view over Castries." Called a cab and seemed to go ALL OVER the island just getting to the hotel: along the dock areas, where we saw the huge sheds of bananas ready for loading, the Market Street which was jammed with people, since Saturday was Market Day, and some of the banks and theaters and department stores of Castries. Finally up the hill to the Villa Hotel, and some of the poorer sections were rather depressing, with scrawny children, chicken scratching, and wood that had never seen a brush with paint. But they seemed happy enough, and we got off at the hotel. Went up to our rooms to find maids running the showers to fill red plastic pails for when the water would grow short in the morning. The rooms were terrible, little yellow-painted cubicles without even mosquito netting, but the screened verandah on the back and the narrow balcony on the front were pleasant. We were getting hungry about 1 PM, so went to the bar and ordered beer and Coke and ham and cheese sandwich, and Madge almost discourages me by getting a hamburg, but it turns out to be the hit of the meal, with a delicious tomato-chili sauce of just the right piquance. Eat and wander around the hotel, looking again and again at the breadfruit tree out the back verandah, and out over the roofs of the city toward the harbor, and then we decide to walk down to see the markets. The trip down is easy, since we're fresh, it's downhill, and I rather remember the way. Coming back is a different matter. Madge is now dressed in pink slacks, and not for nothing everyone seems to be staring at her. As we get down to the village, I begin to see more and more men in trousers only, and I begin to see that the Islands will have an enormous appeal as far as the male physique goes. The streets get hotter and hotter as we descend, and the crowds press in on us at the marketing place. Look at stores filled with plastics and unknown vegetables, hats made out of straw decorated with some sort of iridescent straw fibre with no great skill, and Madge tried to shop but bought nothing. Into the Park Avenue Market-type shed to see huge heaps of potato, cooking pot, some cigar-shaped and colored rolls we're told is cocoa. We see herb leaves and chairs, natural brooms and hats and folding chairs, but everything seems brown and vaguely dirty, and we're out of there quickly to the hot street. Want to walk back, but turn up too soon and find ourselves walking up into the hills on a strange street. Try to get back to the center of town, and we can't do that, and Madge, I can see, is getting tired and hot, and I'm really weary of walking. There's nothing more to talk about, and walking becomes an ordeal, so we ask someone where there's a taxi, and he takes us back to the Villa. Sit around the hotel a bit more, looking at schedules for tours, and decide there's only one thing to do: go to the beach. We're told where it is, and that it'll cost us $2 to go and $2 to come back. There's nothing else to do, so we agree. Back up AGAIN to change, and back to cab, which AGAIN takes us through town and over another set of hills to the Camelot Beach Club on Choc Bay. Change in bathhouses whose doors won't close, and out on beach. Paradise Island at last: huge crescent of beach with trees coming right down to the surf, rolling cocoanuts tossed in the waves, and no one, absolutely no one in sight for miles in either direction. Walk along the beach to get out of the immediate neighborhood of houses, and into the warm, but not too warm, water. And then the trouble starts; Madge doesn't want to come in: she can't swim. Finally coax her in, and a wave comes along and tosses us all down and tumble us and we get gulps of salt water, and Madge can hardly stand it. I try to teach her to float, but she's really remarkably heavy, and sinks under the least provocation. There are stones underfoot, and every so often I step over a log submerged. There are things to be said against swimming naturally. The waves are variable, but at last we get rather used to them, but after a couple dunkings Madge says she'll never learn how to float. Walk way along the beach as a diversion, but the trees and gnarled roots come so close to the shore that it's difficult to walk in the surf, so we go back to the bathhouse. By this time the sun's setting, and clouds build up in the east, and just as the sun sets it starts to rain, and the rain turns into an absolute deluge that thunders around us for about an hour. Really an unusual way to spend an hour on our first day in the Islands. It gets dark and less hot, and the cab comes at 6:30 and takes us back to the hotel. We're chagrined to find we have to dress for dinner, but the dining room is rather nice, and there's a good view over the harbor, and ships seem lit specifically for our delight. And I swear someone sets off two fireworks during our meal. We get huge steaks, and eat rather silently, then go to sit on the balcony for a bit, but I feel VERY tired, so I get to bed at 9 PM. The night noises are less insistent, but still there.
Sunday, December 4: Wake, yet not quite refreshed, at 8 AM, to Madge peering in the doorway. Dress and breakfast on eggs and bacon, and decide that this hotel has had it, and telephone to the Blue Waters, who have vacancies. Check out (room is $9 US) and taxi down to the Blue Waters next to the airport. Rooms are nicer and more modern, the shower is tiled, not merely painted, the quantity of water implies no shortages, and each room has an even nicer terrace, with two or three plastic-lattice chairs and a glass-topped coffee table with a comfortable adjoining lounge. This is delimited by a hollow-work concrete fence that looks out toward the individual cabins and the whole curve of the coastline. Again just as we move in, it's time for lunch, and we decide first, at 12:05, to go for a swim. Walk out down the tiled path past the concrete-block outbuildings of the hotel complex, along a beaten path under the trees past the rocky shelves of the near bay, and out onto the immaculate sand under the trees along the highway along the airport runway to a bathing area which is far superior to the Choc Bay region: wider sands, trees, rather than bushes, for shade, and water which is not brown, as was Choc Bay, and filled with bits of debris, but green and clear, though inclined to be sandy and rather obscure. The waves depended on the section, being in some parts almost non-existent, and in the area of greatest curve of the bay, where the waves seemed to be funneled into the shore, five and six-foot crests would collide with each other directly or from the sides, sometimes sending an anti-wave rolling back to the blue depths, which new incoming waves would battle until the peaks would rise in the air far from shore, then the peaks would be carried landward, again building to foaming crests which would contend with themselves until another anti-wave would roll away from the beach in watery bafflement. It was a never-ending spectacle of the ocean's unceasing fascination. Since the waves were more predicable, and since the water underfoot was shallow for a greater distance, and composed of fine sand rather than of foot-bruising pebbles, Madge was finally able to float for more than a few seconds without floundering in the water and wincing and spitting out the salt and the dirt. Since the water, too, was cleaner here, it was more amenable to swallowing in small quantities. All in all, we felt happy with our move down from Morne Fortune. After swimming for about an hour, we walked back to the hotel to change into eating clothes and participated in the buffet luncheon which was the custom on Sunday afternoons. And what a buffet it was, with almost more new foods than familiar foods, though too many for our taste were the raw potato type like tannia and christophene and plantain, though some eaten later when cooked turned out to be quite delicious, as was the fried plantain, which looked like some variety of banana. We ate our fill, noting with not too much pleasure that there were children in great number around (though they all seemed to be staying in the separate cabanas, and thus not howling overhead or next door) (nor did they join us for more than one or two meals). Getting the names of the foods was sometimes difficult, as the poor girl had to pronounce the name several times before I could understand that it was either "dachine" or "lachine." Madge came back from her loquacious room-maid---you have pretty hair, oh, how I'd like to go to the United States to be a maid for $20 a week for the rest of my life---with the report of something like a "goodnapper" which we only found some days later to be a "golden apple." There was nothing to do after lunch but put on trunks, though on the way to the beach I wondered what was the other way, where the hostess said there was a reef on which one could snorkel, and where we could see the waves driving in on a rocky coast. We walked along the cabana-sides, around a fence which we obviously ignored, onto the large-rocked shoreline on which we found snail shells, an eight-inch dead fish, and pieces of water-eroded coral branches. The going was very slow, since there was always something to hinder Madge: a muddy cow-pasture like area bisected by a puddly steam which had to be crossed, a short step up from the beach to the grass edge when the surf came bubbling in right to the edge of the grass, a stretch of barbed wire to be walked gingerly along, or a long area of grassland out in the sun. We were beginning to feel quite pink, and I wanted to avoid direct sun for as much as I could, so that a burn wouldn't make the rest of this short vacation unpleasant. The waves were beautiful to watch surging in over the rocks and reefs, and the quick discovery that the rocks were covered with large and small crabs who managed to cling with their claws when the waters washed two to six feet over them added to the wonders of the waterline. I wanted to get far enough to be able to see around the point of land that separated this bay from what lay beyond, but there was a cliff-like section of beach which didn't allow walking without getting the legs wet pretty much up to the knee, which I knew Madge couldn't be induced to cross, and the only alternative was a meadow which sloped rapidly upward into bush-land. I walked up the hill, thwarted in my aims of exploration both by the wild terrain and the saddle of an unathletic girl. Madge looked very thin in a bathing suit, and her fragility was emphasized by the narrow long muscles on her legs which looked almost obscene and chicken-meat like in their utter hairlessness. And she had the rather disquieting model-look of legs which were so thin at the top that they opened in a gap, rather than closed together, in the crotch. Though she could be resourceful and mentally-tough when it came to emotional and work battles, she was too femininely helpless and whimpering when it came to a bit of leg-stretch to leap an obstacle, getting white shoes wet or muddy, or making the least little bit of physical discomfort to get to know a new area better. At length, wanting to get tot the top of the hill, I plunged into bushes which got higher and higher until I was bending to weave through knotted underbrush to push through tangles of limbs and leaves through to a grassy clearing about 100 feet above sea level. But I saw that this meadow only rose to another, steeper tangle, and that there were houses above, which must be reachable by a road up the other side. Then I was discouraged from the tangle of underbrush, tired from exertion in the still-unused-to heat, and sweating irritably over scratches on arms and face from clawing through the scratchy cliff-growths. I pushed back down the hill, losing the path I had bulldozed on the way up, and rejoined Madge to say that there was nothing to see from the side of the hill. We sat again and watched the waves, taking care to keep tender arms and legs out of the sun. Three Negro boys came smiling past bent on catching something, and I envied them many things: their venturing along the coast where I wanted to go; their dark immunity to the sun's rays; their kindred companions: friends who would do what they wanted when they wanted; and their youth and semi-nudity, fetching in the sun's rays. I gazed off after them, almost not caring if Madge saw that I looked at them perhaps too longingly. They walked carefully out into the weltering surf, jumping from crag to crag underwater, helped by staffs as third legs in the water. They used the same tactics as the crabs, moving forward when the water was low and quiet, then bracing and clinging where they stood as the waves pounded over parts of them. Though they tottered precariously more than once, they never once seemed to fall or step off when they didn't want to. They scooped down into the water and picked up small dark objects which they threw in relays back to the collector on the beach---probably clams, I thought. Finally the cloud-scudded sky, the wash of foaming waves over the rocks, the scuttle of the crabs on the beach-head, the rattle of the rocks in the undertow, all these paled and we walked back down to the hotel to bypass it and go for another swim. Unlike Choc Bay, there were a few people in the water here, mostly colored natives who dressed in bathing suits much like ours. By this time the sun was nearing its 6 PM setting, and the water began to feel almost warmer than the surrounding air. I went in for one last time and swam to get my muscles used to the exertion, then walked one last time to the beach to sit in my towel and watch the sun go down. The clouds changed colors slowly from white to pink to purple to light blue, but in all the sunset was rather underwhelming. I watched the crabs, more, when I discovered them. They had dug holes which perfectly fitted them in the sand, and would venture out when they were sure the coast was clear, wiping their eye-stalks quickly with one claw to clear them from sand, then dig warily into their pits, accumulating a small bolus of sand, then drag it quickly a few inches away from their hole and flick it toward the waters. Why they flicked it away seemed to be related to camouflage, but it was perfectly easy to tell the holes from the fan-like design of flung sand radiating from these dens. They seemed to be involved in some game which included sidling sideways closer and closer to the water, dashing very quickly back when an extra-high wave threatened them, and sometimes uprooting another, smaller one, from its hole by cutting off the line of access between the crab and the hole. When the seventh wave of the seventh set came, they would all be forced back into their holes, and ones who had been dispossessed digging theirs anew with startling speed. Those who had been covered would reappear quickly, throwing off sand almost indignantly; those who had not been covered had longer times to luxuriate in their safety, and appeared later. Some would come out headed away from me, and they wouldn't notice me until I made a sudden motion, and then, with movements too quick for my eye to follow, they would vanish down their holes. I didn't see them engaged in eating, but they must have been absorbing the almost microscopic snacks which each fresh wave would throw up on the sand. When I noticed them, all beaches had these crabs, and only Choc Bay had none which I noticed, though they were probably there all the same. Every so often two children, one slavishly imitating the other, would wander past with a long pointed stick and jam it into the hole of one they saw vanish. The crab would dig deeper and they would jab deeper, and more often then not they'd uproot the creature, fling it dazed onto the clear sand where it couldn't burrow away so quickly, then smash it again and again with the stick, with over-reacting winces of the face and jerks of the body, even to the littler one who wasn't wielding the stick, which seemed to indicate they were doing it more because they "had to" than because they really wanted to. And various dogs would wander past and sniff at the holes, but usually leave their crustacean-inhabitants unmolested. It was almost as if the hotel had a dog for each set of its tenants, as there were many roaming the premises, and not infrequently one would follow us out from the hotel and lie quietly on the grass above us on the beach, watching us reproachfully. Madge didn't like dogs with a distrust which was almost pathological, and if any dared to come close enough to try to sniff her legs, she gave every evidence of being ready to faint if they took too many liberties with her person. Constant approach did nothing to conquer her fear, though there was some small relation to the size of the dog; large ones would send her dashing off in panic before they got as little as two feet away. Madge was successful only in one aspect: she didn't sun-burn. She would very quickly, she says, tan (though her color was so dark that I really couldn't say that I noticed the difference, nor did I desire to see when she once coyly remarked that you could really see the difference when you looked at the line between her skin inside and outside her bathing suit. I could care less to examine any area of hers adjacent to the line of her bathing suit. While I turned pink and slightly sore, she turned brown and experienced no discomfort. But, sitting waiting for the sun to go down, she revealed another of her predilections: I would sit, oblivious to the surroundings, and she would be besieged with hordes of flying, biting, irritating insects. She would go "oooh" and slap and brush at herself, saying "Oh, they'll eat me ALIVE!" And finally she would excuse herself to put some covering clothes on, while I continued to sit, even alone, scarcely bothered by them. Finally there seemed to be nothing more to see, the sun had vanished and the stars had come out slowly, and the headlights on the adjoining highway would every half-hour or so begin to cut through the night. We went back to the hotel to shower and change, then sit on the verandah and talk about Madge's friends and relatives, and sometimes about Liz and Gene, and then it would be time for dinner. This was again buffet, with food similar to the lunch, and in general it was unmemorable, uninspired, but filling and adequate. Tannia in the salad had the acrid green taste of cooked cold turnip. Later, desperate for something to do, we wandered to the seaside, away from the lights of the hotel, and looked at the stars twinkling in their finery. A lighthouse beam from a headland lit the perisphere at regular intervals, and every seventh wave would show us the shoreline with a whipped froth at our feet. Wandered back to the hotel and I said I was tired and wanted to go to bed, as early as 9:30. Toss and turn for a bit after adjusting the mosquito-netting, nude on the bed, and for some reason get the "Bolero" pounding through my head and some of the phrases and sayings of the first session in Canada come to mind so strongly that I crawl out of bed and look for my pen, which Madge seems to remember that I left at the counter when checking out of the Villa Hotel, and I have to dress and go to the desk to ask for a pen, and feel some release and relaxation when I write down the phrases which occur to me. I wonder what the occasion was, other than I was getting relaxed for the first time since then, and maybe it was just time for those ideas and cycles to pop to the surface of my unwinding mind. Finally, about 10:30, I could drop off to sleep, again ear-plugged against noises of the night. After a while, I didn't debate about using them, I simply pushed them in as a matter of course.
Monday, December 5: This day I decide we have to do something, since I'm rapidly tiring of St. Lucia: it just isn't the desert-jungle island of my dreams. Can't even contemplate the thought of another day spent in idleness swimming and doing absolutely nothing,, so I go over the list of sight-seeing tours around St. Lucia and after checking with Madge that it isn't too expensive for $27 per car for a tour that's billed as "Around St. Lucia Tour: A drive around the Island. This includes stops at Vieux Fort at the southern tip of the island and at the Sulphur Springs, Soufriere, then back to Castries via the villages of Canaries and Anse-La-Raye. Distance 95 miles. Time 5-1/2 hours." About the only "sights" on the island which would be left out were the northern roads to Gros Islet and Pigeon Island, and the old L'Anse road to the Reef, and the St. Lucia Beach Hotel. But with the unknown movie taking up the island, we felt we were better with the longest, most-expensive, southern route tour. Eat breakfast from a recited list of what was available, but still the "fresh" juices taste canned, and telephone Wellington 2817, which turns out to mean "Call the airport and ask for the driver Wellington, who drives cab number 2817." Oh. I guess we get to the beach first, where we meet the fat old tanned lady we'd seen at the hotel last night, and she tells us that SHE uses Wellington, and he's the best of the lot. He comes about 10 AM, and we're into the hot car and off. Even the natives are saying what a hot day it is, and we're happy to be going in a car with open windows for ventilation. Back along the road next to the airport, over the hills and past the town's one intersection with direction pointers down into the valley with the odd muddy-looking decaying town square, again through the main shopping street of Castries, again through the banana boat docks, where we see innumerable people carry stems of bananas on their heads, pushing or pulling three or four on wagons or carts, and even kids with two or three hands piled on their nodding heads. Wellington tells us that the boats had just left filled beyond capacity, and rather than let the fruit ripen and rot, they were given free to the towns-people, who could take all they wanted. What a great way to get rid of a banana surplus! Up again onto Morne-Fortune past the Villa Hotel, and I remarked that I was finally going to see where those wheezing cars and trucks that passed the Villa were going. It went up to the even higher and more decaying Hotel St. Antoine, and up past manors built back from the road barracked by huge rock walls, and new houses a-building on palisades overlooking the entire section of the island. Quite respectably spectacular. Surge up the hill to the Government House on top, surrounded by red-flowered trees. Wellington stops many times to show us, or try to show us, the difference between banana and plantain, actual cocoa and coffee growing on the trees, and other fruits and spices which I literally don't remember, but he's a gem of information. Down the other side into Grand Cul de Sac and the first of the valleys given over entirely to banana-growing. After the first hundred thousand banana trees, with their first ten million bananas, they just blur into a totality too huge to contemplate. Their total export last year was over six and a third million stems, and we must have seen fully that many and more being grown this year, not to mention the supplies for the local inhabitants, who must live on the stuff. The roads are surprisingly good for an island without such traffic, and they curve and cling to the hillsides with amazing faithfulness, sometimes the inside of the curve going up a hill is almost straight up, and I get the idea here and there that the slope is so great that one degree more and the car must simply topple over from misplaced center of gravity. We pass many people walking on the roads, and they all turn and look at us as we pass, with their solemn, serious dark eyes. I suppose they simply have nothing much better to look at. Down into the valley once more, and some of the fields are literally inundated with overflow waters that cover the ground, and in some places the trees are pushed down by the waters. Later we'll see how much water CAN fall on these islands from the copious heavens! See the turn-off to the Yacht Haven and Marigot des Roseaux in the Roseaux Valley, and though it's not exactly on the tour, I see no reason for coming so close and not seeing it, so I tell Wellington to turn off. It DID mention something about stopping, though, for coffee. We travel down a somewhat less repaired road, and stop at the foot of a sheer hill with equipment trucks and cars, and we bounce out down the path through the cool lobby of the Yacht Haven and out onto the pier. A few yachts ARE there, but we remember that some movie company has almost taken over the place. Two-foot swimming fish look at us from the murky waters, and we wonder where they swim. Walk along the shore and a few dozen yards away is a sight neither of us can believe: a huge floating snail, about thirty feet long and 10 feet high, lies moored in the water! They must be making some sort of science fiction film---then I see the simpering smile on its face---or fantasy film here. The accommodations are pleasant, wooded huts with thatched roofs with screened-in porches and a look of ambivalent luxury in rustic surroundings. Down the path where activity seems to be, and a shirtless American, a beautiful fellow, wanders out of the forest and passes us without a word. Can always tell an American! Walk back in and talk to two white-uniformed policemen: what are they doing back there? They're filming scenes from a movie. What movie? "Doctor Doolittle." FABULOUS. We ask permission to go back, and are told to keep out of the range of the cameras. Trucks and costume racks and generators line the way, and we step across a wooden bridge camouflaged with palm fronds onto a tiny clearing at the edge of the island, and there are hundreds of native extras in costume and warpaint standing patiently for camera angles. They're ordered to go from "Position 1" to "Position 2, the butterfly position," and since the cameras are obviously not filming, we walk further. People wander about, looking vaguely busy, but still vaguely doing nothing. At the edge of the crowd are people in the inevitable canvas-backed chairs, and they look at us with vague mistrust. Geoffry Holder sits in huge semi-bareness in one of the chairs, his head painted in a caricature of the fellow being operated on in "Fantastic Voyage." I recognize no one else, and Madge listens with belief when I say that probably no one of importance is around now, since most scenes involving Rex Harrison will probably be done on sound stages. A huge barge floats just off-shore, and workmen, tan-red from the sun, go from camera boom to chair to wooden shanty. Much activity, but nothing much being done. A fantastic waste of man-power, somehow. We stare at everyone and everyone stares at us, and through the crowd, filming a boy climbing a coconut tree, comes Rex Harrison, stripped to the waist, with unlikely tweed trousers or shorts on. I urge Madge to go say something to him: how much more often the strange girl can get something the man can't. She doesn't want to, but I coax her, and she goes over to say "Are you Mr. Harrison??" And he gruffly replies "Yes, hi," without taking his eyes off the boy climbing the tree. She stands, watching, for two more seconds, then comes smiling back to me. "It IS him." We watch some more, then think of the time ticking away and Wellington sitting there in the taxi, so we walk back through the woods, stare at the seals in their cool cage filled with water, and back to the cab. Such an interesting interlude! Climb back out of the valley and get to the village of Anse La Raye, poorer than Castries, with fishing nets festooned to dry along the darkly-sanded beaches. Women are beating their clothes clean in the muddy stream, and naked children hop in the water. Bare-backed workmen are always pleasant to look at, and the bodies are almost invariably beautiful, shining black and clearly defined in the sun. And I have to be traveling with Madge-girl! Quickly through the town, with the tin-roofed church by far the largest building, and over another mountain with swinging curves and sudden climbs and turns and scarcely a straight road to be seen. Wellington knows the road very well, and can tell just when to speed up and when to brake down, and as a result the progress is optimally fast, and with all the swinging and jostling and holding onto sides and back of car and bracing for curves, I fear the thought of getting car-sick before the day is over. Or worse, of MADGE getting car-sick. Careen down to Canaries, much like the other villages, and the pitons of Soufriere loom large ahead of us. Vents of steam or smoke pop up through the countryside, and Wellington says that we'll see much more of these in the Sulfur Springs of Soufriere. Barrel down into the village, this one a bit large than the others, and off onto a side road for the Sulfur. The road vanishes as the rotten-egg smell increases, and we bounce over rocky outcroppings with steam vents roaring in the distance. Stop the car past one lone man, who is introduced to us as the son of the fellow who had been there for years, and he leads us down into the hells. Across blasted yellowish-green slag and see black pools bubbling in natural kettles. When the steam blows towards us there is the gag of nauseous vapors, and the stream is hot and coated with green and yellow slimes. New pools have just developed, they say, and the paths to the edge are not well-defined, and we shy away from the instant death that lies, peacefully, waiting for whatever would fall into it. As in Yellowstone or Japan, I'm impressed with the complete "other-worldliness" of the place, and the smell is quite enough to convince you you've stumbled onto a world where people could and would never live, where birds avoid flying over, animals take a wide range about, and only the hardiest plant-life lives, along with the not-standing algae in the emerald streams. If the wind blows in the wrong direction, the whole view is obscured with foul-smelling clouds, and the clammy hand of damp falls out of the cloud and clutches the entire body. We wander the crumbling walks and see all the pits, and I have to borrow $1 BIWI from Wellington to pay the fellow for his "services," attested by his lime-charred boots. Back into the taxi and breathe the fresh air of the again-green hillside with gratitude. Unable to see the Pitons clearly from the car; the only way to see them is by air, as we find out the following day. As we draw near Choiseul, we can look out south over the ocean and see the violet-fogged island of St. Vincent rising from the water. Since the land is more level down here in the south, Choiseul and Laborie and Vieux Fort don't seem to be separated by as enormous distances as the northern villages which lie in valleys separated by tortuous mountain roads which range like a spiked snake through the thickets. The southern part of the island has a beauty all its own, with its green valleys and farmlands dotted with cattle and more mundane crops which grow in neat rows. It had been threatening rain all day, and the gray skies gave the landscape a look with such settled farmland beauty that it must look like England or Ireland. Vieux Fort is positively level, and we see fields of horses which would have been no use back in the hilly upcountry. Drive into the city and the driver has to ask the way to Cloud's Nest, which is round a corner and up an impossible hill to a garage which is situated directly under the dining room. The sun is coming almost straight down, it seems, though it's 2:30, and the dining room is quite empty. I think they announce a choice of soup, but the rest of the meal is the same for everyone at $2.40 US apiece! Though Wellington says he's going to eat somewhere else, he never does. We get wine with the meal, and it's tart but tasty, and the fresh carrots and celery is good after the morning's ride. Chicken is strangely fried in some unknown oil which tastes like something familiar, but neither of us can put our finger on it, almost as if they had been fried in peanut oil, or tannia crumbs. Get melted ice cream for dessert, and during the meal the clouds seem to pass, and it no longer looks like rain. It seems they planned for only one person, since we adjourn to the rest rooms to find the sinks full of water, certainly water which we only can use. We do, and feel refreshed with washed faces and hands. I guess this was AFTER, rather than before we stopped at the cocoa center, which detoured us earlier. We'd driven down into I think Laborie, or maybe Choiseul, and Wellington suddenly asked us if we were thirsty. We looked at each other and said we were, and he pulled off the road and next to a shack. A huge red-eyed Negro slouched out to meet us, and Wellington talked to him briefly with such an accent that I couldn't understand what was being said. He almost bowed to us gruffly, but asked us to come in in such a stern way that I frankly didn't know whether it was some sort of ghastly trap, or whether this happened so seldom that everyone was uncertain about what to do. Other younger fellows came out to stare at us, and we walked through the gateway with some trepidation. Nothing was terribly clean, but neither was it dirty. Women stood around out of the way, looking at us with faces made stern and squinting by the sun. Spread on the ground on a layer of cloth, as it had been spread numerous times along the highway, was a square of cocoa beans, wrinkled and drying in the sun. When I heard it was cocoa, I didn't even think it necessary to ask, but stooped to pick up a single bean of the dozens of thousands lying there. Its skin had dried, but it was still vaguely pulpy, like a dried kidney bean. I cracked through the thin outer shell and there were lobes of brown-black matter inside, which I separated from the husk-like membranes separating the lobes, and tasted what was inside. It was chocolate, very strong tasting, but really not bitter, as if a bit of sugar had been added already. I offered some to Madge, and she took some with a little frown, as if she wished I hadn't offered it to her. Would you like to see how it grows? We said we would, and the man ordered some fellows into the trees with a long pole with a knife at the edge, admonishing them to get us a good one. When it came, he took the reddish half-sized football in a grimy hand and cut it open with an equally cruddy knife, then twisted it so that the central lobes splayed out like a squashed sweetbread in his palm. "You eat the outside." I looked at him, not particularly interesting in touching what he'd touched, but I figured dirt was dirt, and took the slimy creamy yellow-white chestnut-shaped kernel from his fingers and put it into my mouth. The outside was soft and tasted somewhat like the jarca of Rio de Janeiro, not sweet, not bitter, not juicy, but tasty and flavorful. They explained that this outside had to dry in the sun before the cocoa would become useful, and I visualized a couple of days, but later at the hotel Mrs. Whatsis said that she had tried drying some for about a week, but they were still damp: they must have to do it for weeks at a time. Then they brought out the coconuts, and again there was the familiar ceremony of slicing off the tops. This time there were no straws, so Madge and I simply tilted them back to our lips and drank. It wasn't so cold as in Rio, but it was cooler than the air, and rather sweeter for being warmer. It still didn't particularly taste like coconut. After a number of swallows I managed to finish the liquid, though about halfway through I didn't want anymore, but wanted to finish to show my gratitude. When through, he took the coconuts from me and threw them into the trash in the back. They seemed content that we stay as long as we wanted, but we urged ourselves back to the car. I handed the red-eyed fellow a dollar, BWI, but he said it was too much. I actually though he was being sarcastic, but then he insisted we take two more coconuts in the trunk of the cab so we could have them at the hotel that night, then cut a couple more cocoa pods so that we could have those. He seemed to want to give us more, but we laughingly said no---and I STILL couldn't decide whether he was "for" us or "against" us. So that explained why we didn't get to Cloud's Next at Vieux Fort until 2:30. By that time the 5-1/2 scheduled hours were over and we were just about half way around the island. I feared the thought of getting back into Castries long after dark, driving through those treacherous roads even with Wellington at the wheel was not my idea to fun. The road ran more inland from Vieux Fort to Micoud, and since it was more level we made better time, except that there were more busses on the road and we had to honk coming to corners so that there would be no chance of collision on the absurd turns of the road. It was a pity that the road was inland, since I had been looking forward to seeing the rugged Windward coast of the Windward Island, but only from precipice-tops far from the ocean did we have a chance to stop and gaze out to the huge swells rolling in from Africa to crash thunderously on the sheer rock ledges far below. There were beautiful sights of islands standing sheer and green in the water, wave-washed and as desolate as the coast of Northern Ireland, and I almost expected to see crenelated ruins of some ancient keep looming through the trees. Micoud was again at the coast, but unlike the fishing villages on the Leeward coast where the main street invariably ran along the beach in sight of the fishing boats, the main street of Micoud was residential and commercial in from the sea, and we could only see the perpetual stream crossing which marked each of these little towns. Zipped through the town, and I didn't particularly like the way the natives frowned at the taxi, but Wellington knew he had to hurry or we would never make it back to Castries by sundown. This side of the island was less cultivated, more wild, except in the lowest valleys where the eternal banana stood deep in muck and water. Once, we crossed a dam where a little old lady was embarrassed to be found wading with her children and grandchildren. Dennery passed quickly, and we took off into the center of the island, heading for Morne Gimie and the highest point on our trip. I craned backward as we climbed higher, and caught small glimpses of the ocean, but never could we look entirely across the island. I'd also pictured these islands as lots smaller, almost capable of being walked around on a nice afternoon's jaunt. Have to wait for others for that pleasure. We climbed and climbed, and the vistas, green walls of vegetation plunging down into invisibly-bottomed valleys, got so spectacular that I demanded he stop. We stood in wonder at the cliffside, but stopped to go back to the taxi too quickly, as Wellington was relieving himself at a roadside ditch. Clouds covered some of the hills to the north, and cool breezes again suggested rain, but the sun came and went brightly, and the fantastic greens of the scenery suggested that there had already been rain through here today. Back into the car and to the 11th mile post on the top of Barre De L'Isle, from which we could look down once again on the leeward side, but the windward ocean was far behind us. It was getting near to five o'clock and we were both tired of travel, but when Wellington suggested we could stop at Fort Charlotte, we both said yes. Out of the car again onto ground spongy with rain and looked over old battlements from some forgotten battle, and glanced up the hill to abandoned living quarters, picturesque with vacant windows and creeping ivy. The clouds were most spectacularly golden violet as the sun was about to sink into the sea, and we got back into the taxi and drove down Morne Fortune, through Catries, and over the hill to Blue Waters just as it began getting dark in earnest. Arrived back at 5:30, amazed that we'd made it, and gave him $30 US, hoping it would be enough. From his profuse thanks, it was, though possibly he'd forgotten that he'd lent me two Biwi dollars earlier. We collapsed into our rooms to rest, and I think I went onto the beach again. But it must have been earlier that we met the fellow who had been snorkeling out in the center of the Vigie Bay, and who walked past us with a smile and explained that the snorkeling was very bad, since it was sandy bottom and very cloudy. Couldn't see much at all. I couldn't see enough of his beautifully sculptured body made fantastically appealing by standing out beneath a tee shirt which he wore when snorkeling, which hung from his magnificent pectorals as from a shelf, and only stopped at the ripples of his abdominals. I simply couldn't take my eyes off that fascinating torso, and dreamed vague dreams of him coming back from his car, telling me to get rid of the dame, and the two of us kissing off into the sunset. My stomach felt physically affected for about two hours after I saw him, and I don't think I even TALKED to Madge during that time. During our dark wait for dinner at 8, we sat on my balcony and again talked about her life in Hong Kong, details about her sister's wedding, and nothing much in particular. I looked up at the stars through the palm trees, then saw some sort of design of light, just sitting there, in the sky. I stared to make sure it wasn't some sort of refection off a cloud, then asked Madge if I was seeing things. She said I wasn't, and we went out onto the front walk to have a better look, and see if anyone ELSE had seen it. No one had, and no one particularly noticed us as we dragged chairs onto the walk to stare at it. I tried first an iron-legged chair in the soft grass, but sank stupidly a foot into the turf before I sprang to my feet and uprooted the chair. It looked like a band, but a double band, connected with a thin haze, one part of which was moving, the other wasn't. I though it was some sort of smoke or cloud, but I could see stars distinctly through it, whatever it was. From the circular shape, I thought it might have been some sort of explosion from a space satellite, which had partly stopped, partly remained in orbit. The two segments separated more and more, and Mrs. Whatsis, who'd said she'd been watching it since 7, where we'd just seen it about 7:30, said it looked rather like a question mark. If we had been comic strip characters, you would have seen the question marks standing about our heads like a halo. The whole thing seemed gradually to fade and move toward the roof of the hotel, where it was lost to sight. We started talking to Mrs. Whatsis, and she said that St. Vincent was an island not to be missed: they'd seen it for a couple days the year before last, and last year spent a whole week there. This year they just left after two or three weeks in order to see St. Lucia, which they didn't like so well, and next year they figured they'd stay all vacation at the Sugar Mill, which they said was the best place in the islands. Since we'd sort of decided on leaving tomorrow---what else was there to do on St. Lucia?---we decided that THAT would be our aim. I planned then that we'd stayed one night on Barbados, we'd spend the last night on Barbados, three nights on St. Lucia, maybe the planned two or three on St. Vincent, then probably go on to Grenada. The dinner was served from a buffet style table again, and I went back twice after the fresh fruit and had a LOVELY piece of warm pineapple cake to finish off the lovely meal. On the way back to the rooms, we passed the Ping-Pong table, and I thought I'd for gotten everything, but I've acquired some sort of coordination in my old age, and I could almost make a match for Madge. We got rather quickly winded, and the help gathered in the doorway and smiled with our playing. Probably hadn't seen anyone so active in years. We kept on for a while, but everyone bade us goodnight, so we took the hint and stopped the gnip-gnop noises in the cool air. Sweating, panting, we said goodnight and got to bed at 10. This was our last night on St. Lucia, and tomorrow on to new territory. This was working out rather pleasantly. We had walked down the pitch-black road to the airport to see if we could make reservations for the next morning's flight, but there was no one there. Without an occasional passing car's lights on the way back, we could have easily gotten lost. Total darkness is so TOTALLY DARK!
Tuesday, December 6: Up for an early breakfast and chat with an Anglican minister who's about to take off for Vieux Fort, and he speaks highly of Grenada. It's almost impossible to get anyone to agree about these islands, but that adds to their charm and uncategorizability, I guess. To the airport after checking out for $12US per day to be told they really don't know how many people are on the plane, and if there'll be room for us on it to St. Vincent. Wait in the tiny dining room, glancing through the local paper to see if they said anything about the sky display, but it's two days old, and we see the ads for the fancy dance we'd been asked if we wanted to attend at the Villa on Saturday, which was FORMAL! There were some things about the Islands that didn't quite hold up to expectations, though the possibility of eating dinner informally at Blue Waters was snapped up without question. Pooh on Villa Hotel's tie and jacket dinnertime! But our only souvenir of St. Lucia, a packet of post cards, and find that we CAN get on board the plane. Someone's sitting on the right front window, so Madge sits in the left front, and I sit behind her. We take off and fly down the coast, where I can hardly identify Roseaux Bay, but the Pitons are impossible to miss, rising sheer from the sea, and they fill the window as the island drops, literally since we're still climbing, behind, and the flat tongue of Vieux Fort is a rather incongruous end to the island. Almost as soon as we lose sight of St. Lucia we gain sight of St. Vincent, and fly a good ways around it before we get to the airport. I try to get a sight of the mountains of the island, but the engine of the plane is in the way, and it's cloudy, so I can't see too much. There just isn't too much to see in these LIAT planes unless you're smack in the front seat, as we were between St. Vincent and St. Lucia the first time, and it was great. Land at the somewhat larger airport, and into the large concrete waiting room. There are pleasant hostesses handing out brochures of welcome to St. Vincent, and there's even a car from the Sugar Mill waiting for another couple who doesn't arrive, so we have a ride---though if we'd made reservations, we find, we'd have gotten the ride free. This driver is Sydney, and he owns the car and a company, and we're to feel free to call on him anytime. What a racket these guys have! The road is rather in from the sea, and we pass through Kingstown, which is quite a sizable place, and through tiny Calliaqua, from which we turn up the narrow hill to Rathos Mill and the Sugar Mill Inn. From the pink-painted wooden fence to the neatly trimmed lawn to the flowered terraces to the flagstone paths to the hollow stone mill to the large open porches to the polished wood lobby, we thought that Sugar Mill was by far the nicest hotel we'd seen in the islands. Yes, we had to go some distance to the beach, but we DID like the hotel. Mrs. Stevens greeted us warmly at the desk, and seemed the perfect West Indies hostess, tanned, gracious, comfortable dressed, naturally cheerful, pleasantly firm and commanding. Our rooms were right down the hall, high-ceilinged and newly-painted, and the hot-shower fixture seemed to guarantee regularity of hot water, which wasn't quite the way it worked out. We found that the transportation regularly left for the beach at 9:30, so it had just gone, but it would be picking up the two couples who had gone down at noon, so if we could walk down---and we could, since it was just a mile, we'd have a way back. Changed again and out onto the blazing highway, taking care to drape a shoulder with a towel to stop re-burning an already red arm. Through Calliaqua and naked children playing, as the play through the island, and finally reach the Aquatic Club after about 20 minutes of intense heat. I'm glad it wasn't further. Into the changing rooms to the ever-present company of the little green lizards, which Madge stupidly insisted on screaming at, and we went down to the beach, seeing that Young's Island was indeed close to the shore. Walk along the beach and see a couple walking toward us, and from their white skins they must be from the hotel. The woman is shortish and quite fat, and I expect that the fellow will be older and am greatly surprised as he draws nearer to see that there are good solidly muscled legs under green swimming trunks which boasts a long sinewy treasure looped within, fetching to stare at, and nice torso with a boyishly peeling chest and a fetching grin on his tanned and peeling face. Are you from the Hotel? Yes, I'm Brian Hoar---the last name is pronounced loudly and distinctly, with the perfect arbitration between one and two syllables and this is my wife Balma. Who? Balda. Who? Valda. How do you do. They're off to Young's Island, but they point out the other couple, and we go off to greet them, she a ugly-faced, brash-voiced goddam jewel, and he a quiet, uglifying aging fellow. Madge and I go into the drink, and THIS is a tropical island. The water is so clear as to make the Blue Waters look like uncertain soup, and there are almost no waves to speak of, and the sand isn't pebbly, like Choc Bay, or muddy, like Vigie, but evenly-grained and farinaceous, so that it sinks quickly and doesn't cloud the water. We swim for a while and Brian and Valda return, and again the green swimming trunks captivate. Oh, how I wish! He has snorkeling equipment, and I ask how he uses them. Easiest thing in the world, I'm shocked to learn. Spit in the mask to prevent fogging, put it on with the little metal thing on top, and make it comfortably tight. Then stick the two rubber tips between your teeth, so that the rubber flange is outside your teeth and inside your lips, loop the tube through your face mask so it points straight up, and fall on your face and float. I fall on my face and float and fall in love with the snorkel! The glass in the water makes the bottom PERFECTLY clear, and with the enormously magnifying effect of the water, there's absolutely nothing missing without my glasses. Paddle gingerly out to the reefs which he says are at the side, fearing I won't see much, and the world of snorkeling bursts in on my senses with fantastic glory. I didn't DREAM it could be so beautiful so EASILY! Putter out along the rocks, amazed that you CAN see the schools of fish, they ARE very many bright colors, you CAN maneuver in the water. It IS shallow enough so that you can stand, but I look with suspicion at the black a spiny sea urchins. Are those the spines which are supposed to be poisonous? And there they are, all around. The sun goes in and out, but when the sun is out, the world comes to bright vivid life. The mouthpiece fills with saliva, but Brian's instructions to blow hard work, it clears it. I float on the surface, the sound of my breathing loud in my ears, and fly through the underwater world. I try to maneuver in a semi-panic at one point, and find that I'm not entirely certain of myself near rocks, and I'm continually amazed at the magnifying effect: a rock will look a foot or two away, I'll put out my hand, and it appears literally under my nose, only about halfway to the rock. Get back to the shore spouting the wonders of the deep, and Brian says I'm welcome to use his flippers. The large size fits, and it's much easier to swim, and I feel so DAMN professional flutter-kicking through the water. Seldom find it necessary to use my hands, and they drag behind like useless appendages, but they're great for turning corners, something which I never do get very good at. Get back to let Madge try them a bit, but she keeps getting water in her mask when she laughs. I determine to go into town immediately, if not sooner, to get a snorkeling set. By that time it's 12:30, when the car is to come, and we get back to the bar to be told it's left. We call a cab to go into town, but find that stores are closed from 1 to 2, and pick up the walking tour and get back to the Hotel. Brian advocated a dip in the pool as a shower to get the salt off, so we do dive in, and it's colder than the ocean, but freshly nice. Dry off and go into lunch, taking whichever table looks best to us, and that turns out to be next to Brian and Valda, and the other couple sit next to us on the other side, against the wall. Lunch is very good, and we're content that we've found a great place, and the other couples agree with us. A cab, Sydney again, comes at 2, and we go into town to United Traders Ltd. where Madge says she doesn't want a set of fins, and I pay $25.90 Biwi for an entrance to heaven. With the exchange at $1.66 Biwi to $1 US, I soon get adept at dividing by 5 and multiplying by three to come up with a little over $15, good in any book for 2 masks, 2 snorkels, and one pair of fins. Back to the beach, and after many trials, Madge learns the rudiments, though I fear to take her out far. We swim along, I make a motion to her, and hear the "blblblb" of her laughing, and I laugh, and we pull to our feet, sputtering and laughing. She practices by herself and I take off along the reef again, then I think what Mrs. Whatsis said about the path back to the boathouse, and I swim back to find a long narrow reef, like some huge half-split-open wiener bun with a cleft down the center, where I can STAND on the sand beyond the DEEP side. Tell Madge to come over, and I walk along with her, and she's amazed, as I am, by the tiny brilliant fish, the small plants, the schools of thousands of identical fish one inch, two inches, three inches long, that swim and move in the tides as they have done for hundreds of millions of years, oblivious to the causal interlopers from the unknown outside world, a world which they have no interest in knowing anything about. Only in a few spots is the water too deep to stand in, and I try to get up onto a rock, but it's difficult because of the pull and surge of the tide. Finally I figure she has enough confidence in herself, and the fact that she can stand, if she wants to, and I go onto shore and watch her weaving back and forth among the scary. I exchange places with her later, and find that this reef is almost ideal: deep and shadowy on either side, so that I can swim in the deeper waters and peer sideways at fish hiding in the clefts of the rocks, but with a cleft down the center in which I can swim without perpetually wondering whether my knees or feet aren't going to scrape the rough rocky surfaces. Since everything is so close, there is no need at all for glasses, and everyone is, to coin a phrase, crystal clear in the transparent water. But the moment the face-mask comes off, there's the distortion of the waves and the opacity of the water, so that someone not snorkeling has absolutely no idea of the undistorted beauty waiting for the snorkeled vision. By the time the afternoon wears on and it's time to call a taxi back, my back is thoroughly reddened from the floating position, and I dub the condition "snorkeler's burn" since it only happens on a triangular area of the back which is exposed to the rays of the sun while the rest of the body is blissfully underwater. This one day underwater has convinced me that a whole new world waits for my explorations, and it's so fantastically easy! I'd considered that most of the spectacular scenery shot in underwater films was taken by skin divers who had to breathe correctly and get used to the pressures underwater and control their motions and go through all sorts of preparation, but now I find that the most beautiful sections are just under the surface, and lack of eyeglasses affects the viewing very little. Anyway, when the depths go down twenty or thirty feet, the sun begins to dim, and some slight non-transparency in the water increases so that things at that distance would be slightly out of focus no matter how developed the eyesight. Go back to the hotel in absolute euphoria. Into the pool for a shower, and wish that Brian would come out again. Shower in the room and get all the stuff out of my hair, then into the lawn where everyone is having "Rum punches," at 45 US, or 75 Biwi---good. I join in the conversation with the two couples. Nothing much is talked about of any importance, just flying saucers, ghosts, prophesy, LSD, ESP, traveling I've done, Madge's life in China, "names" I've known, and other inconsequential topics. Then it's into dinner and the Hoars sit in the center and we sit on the outside, but we still talk back and forth. There may have been one or two other people, older singles who would join only a little in the conversation, and sit alone at their tables eating while we shouted and laughed back and forth. Afterwards it would be into the lounge for tea or coffee, more conversation, and Mr. And Mrs. Dexter (let's call them, since I've forgotten their names) join us at the farther table and tell of the troubles they've been having with their house a-building above the hill. The place was supposed to be done two weeks ago, but it wasn't fit to live in yet, so they stayed at the hotel, or at least came down for dinner every evening. With nothing to keep everyone awake, we had a tendency to go to bed early. And we did, and I was again thankful for earplugs as the further hillside seemed covered with roosters who thought that each five minutes was dawn, and crowed triumphantly.
Wednesday, December 7: These days begin to fade one into the other, and it really wouldn't matter what happened which day, except for chronicling purposes. Today we all rode down with Patricia, a beat sort of girl who didn't like the name Pat. Swam in our accustomed area and Brian further fluttered my heart by teaching me now to dive, simply go under and swim about with the tube filled with water, then come to the surface and blow extra hard, and like a whale's spouting, the tube would be cleared for the next breath. This gave me the chance to look at his spectacular body floating beneath me, all muscles tensed in his drives through the water, and gave me a chance to dive while his head was above water, and swim toward his paddling body. Ah, to be a fish and take a nibble out of one of the ribs, or nuzzle the delectable area between the shoulder and the neck. Oh, Brian, so ready for everything, who never gave the slightest interest in fellows, how loverly you were to gaze at! In the afternoon we went back to the beach, but this time took the free ferry across to Young's Island, and comely too were the fellows who ran the boat, resplendent in skintight white ducks and widespread legs. Just off the dock was a rock pool with a sampling of the usual and not so usual fish to be found in the reefs, including two huge puffers who wouldn't respond to any sort of poking to puff up. But most of the others were the typically breathtaking, fantastically colored everyday fish you see by the thousands in their natural state. In an adjoining pool were dozens of enormous lobsters clattering their carapaces together in their attempts to get on top of each other and climb out of the pool. Turtles, too, were there, though I'd seen none in the waters. Past the pools the concrete walk ran, then out onto the broad beach with umbrellas scattered here and there, and palm-frond-covered shacks for no particular reason except to keep people out of the sun. The beach here was much wider, and the waves, if possible, were even less than across on the island. We snorkeled up and took off, and these reefs were even greater than the others, which were composed of huge squares of rock tumbled from the cliffs, overgrown with weeds and inhabited by fish. But here at Young's Island there were actual coral reefs growing up the slope of the beach, and there were actual brain-corals and branch corals growing on the bottom and on the rock ledges. Here the waters were deeper, and the area of interest was broader, and it grew into shallow water so there was an enormous range from two feet to twenty feet away. Brian joined me at last, and we took turns diving to the bottom, to see what we could see, and I would hope he got at least half as much pleasure out of watching my body glide by as I got out of HIS body gliding by. He needs some sort of repayment. Then he came to the surface and said "There's an eel down there." He pointed to the area, then dived down. I followed him, but could see nothing. He said "You can just see the head, with the mouth opening and closing." I went down again and could just see the head, with the mouth opening and closing. It was a moray, from the looks of the pointed jaws, but it was mottled black and white in an extreme caricature of the coral in which he was hiding. By that time Brian had seen more of him, and told me to see how LARGE he was. Sure enough, on the next dive I saw a space in the rocks about two feet back from the head, and the whole area was filled with the black and white pattern of the head-area. He WAS big! Swam around a bit, looking for something to show him, but couldn't find anything, but later saw a lobster tail waving in the tides, his front claws firmly attached to the rocks. I told Brian about this, but he said live lobsters never assumed that position, as thinking back at the rock pond would have told me, so he thought it was a dead shell that someone put there to be funny. The sky was cloudy most of the time, so the waters were dimly blue rather than ultra-transparent, but I got just as much of a kick out of floating on the surface in schools of fish as exploring the undersea wonders. They would congregate in thousands just under the surface of the water, close enough to bob up and down, tail-over-head, head-over-tail, and they were spaced usually so that every other one would be going in a different direction, so the whole fleet presented a most pleasant dancing bobbing motion that I could look at for hours. I try off the other side of the island in the afternoon, where it's more shallow, but the waters rush in and out, and I get exhausted fighting the tides until I simply have to stand up somewhere and relax before fighting my way back to shore. There's some sort of trap baited with coconut pieces, but there's nothing in it. Brian hunted for the caged brilliant fish he'd seen before, but said they'd moved it. Here the bottom was more level, and the green and white cameo fish darted in and out of the covers. I saw a flounder, looking like a flat pile of sparkling sand with two eyestalks which followed me about as I swam around the top of it, and later, back in front, caught sight of a long gar-like fish that prodded the bottom so that the ocean would have laughed had it been ticklish. Got a bit exhausted fighting the currents, and dried myself off and looked for shells with the others. Tried searching the tidal edges for the most perfect tiny shells, but it was hard to find unbroken ones, though I collected seven or eight lovely samples of size one or two millimeters. While standing talking the jackass came up to look at us, and while staring at Valda's rear, for some unaccountable reason got an erection. At first it hung down blackly curving like an enormous human cock with two enormous balls the size of large tangerines, perfectly round and potent-looking. With the wrinkle of black skin around the head, it almost had a circumcised look. As it stood, it got longer, and as it stiffened, it rose from pendulous to almost horizontal, and at two points it sucked in its stomach so that the cock stiffened almost completely and flapped up against the stomach. I vaguely hoped that it would masturbate itself in some way, though the girls looked at it and away from it, no one having the nerve to talk about the obvious fact of its excitement. Then, almost as fast as it had developed, it went away, gradually folding up completely so all that was left were the murderous balls. The black length was somewhat between 13 and 15 inches, and this was a small donkey. What a wonder THAT was. Back to the road, to the boat club, to the hotel, and again the swim, as Brian tried to give me diving lessons, but I couldn't get below about 10 feet without my ears suddenly hurting enormously. I tried to breather out, as instructed, to equalize the pressure, but it didn't work, and I was condemned to the near surface for the present. The evening went very much like the previous evening, though as we sat down to dinner I suggested that we pull the tables together, and before we knew it, everyone in the dining room was sitting at the same table, along with old Mr. Someone, who lived in a club in Toronto, who had traveled everywhere, including Macchu Picchu when you had to ride a burro to the top to the hotel. We compared notes on our travels through the meal, but then I had to get away from the sad old man: what he said was true, but I knew it was true (about the crazy younger generation, the need for kindness, the uselessness of money) but I simply didn't want to take the time to hear I from him. I saw myself in his position when I was 78, and I felt sorry both for him and for myself. We sat around that evening deciding that something had to be done the next day, and Brian decided to rent a car. I hinted to Madge to rent one, but she hadn't brought her driver's license. I WILL have to learn to drive. One of these nights, after saying goodnight to everyone, I took the mirror from the wall and get up a viewing system whereby I could masturbate with great visual satisfaction. Then fell asleep.
Thursday, December 8: Doctor Dennison arrived this morning, and I had hoped he would be somewhat like Brian, but he instead was a youngish 40ish man, plump, with glasses, and cheerfully pessimistic. We chatted through part of the morning, and Brian said he wasn't going to the beach, and when Madge pressed me for a decision, I said I wasn't going either, maybe I'd just stay and walk around, but mainly I wanted to see what Brian was going to do with his rented car: a Moke. It was a wacky sort of vehicle, just made for crazy North American tourists looking for something to do on a West Indies Island. It was a metal box onto which was fitted four plastic covered metal seats, and covered over with the barest minimum of framework supporting a plastic top in jungle green. There were no doors, merely step over the side and sit down; there was a little place to put things behind the back seat; it was four wheel drive, and everything seemed to be under where we sat. It could seat four comfortably, but when Brian at last thought he wanted to go up the leeward road, there were five of us: Brian and Valda comfortable in front, Brian on the right, as looked at from the rear, in the driver's seat for the island's "left of the road" driving, and John in the left and I on the right in the back, with Madge rather uncomfortable in the middle. We took bathing things along, with towels, but that was all. Left about 10:30 and had no trouble finding Kingstown, but then had a bit of trouble avoiding Ross Castle and getting to Questelles in the profusion of crossroads with no signs at all. We asked some directions from the natives, but all we had to say was that we were going up the coast, which wasn't very much for the natives to reply to. Unlike St. Lucia, here the natives would wave to everyone who passed, and we would wave back. Even the dourest old man or old woman would break into a snaggle-toothed grin and nod "Good morning" or "Good afternoon" with a charming broad a on the "Ah,tah, noon." Kids would be tempted to run after us, laughing and shouting and waving, as we rode slowly up a hill, and they could keep up with us for quite awhile. The roads here again wound around the hills, but the hills weren't so much jungle as very overgrown underbrush, so that the hills were a bit more open, but the roads were almost as tortured, and Brian had to lay on the horn going around corners to fend off busses coming towards us. We got to Layou about 12:30, and decided we would need something to eat, so when we smelled the sweet odor of baking bread, we stopped and went into the bakery, where everyone stopped working and gathered about us, giving samples, showing us the ovens and whatever else they could possibly think we might want to see. They had three kinds of produce: a sweet small roll rolled with a pink coconut inside, a sugar roll looking rather like crumb cake, quite a bit larger, and some plain rolls, Brian ridiculously wanted about 24 of one kind, but I convinced him to make only 8 of those and about six of each of the other. We also got a burlap sack into which to put them, on the promise that we would bring it back. One or two of them were great, but then they began to weigh in the stomach, and the sack was closed and we again attended to the scenery. Passed many barren fields, and decided that these had been devoted to sugar growing, as the abandoned sugar mills would indicate, until there was some sort of problem with taxation or shipping, and there was no more sugar on the island. Our guide at St. Lucia came in handy as we pointed out cocoa trees and pods, and tried in vain to relocate coffee for them. The clouds had closed in through the morning, and at about 1 it started to rain, but we figured it would be a short shower like we had had the previous evening, and that it would pass. It didn't. Through small towns where all the children would be chanting in the schoolrooms and stare out and wave as we would pass, past teenage workmen plummeting downhill on scooters made out of wood and wire, or on galloping burros. We stopped one of the scooter riders to ask him about his vehicle, and another person to ask directions, and everyone was pleasant, though some had gotten the bad habit of asking for "ten cents" for any sort of verbal favor rendered. We ignored their requests, but knew that even if one out of ten tourists would oblige them, it would pay them to continue, and we cursed the typical tourists. Around Barrouallie we passed a smoking barn and decided to stop when an old woman waved us to come in. Everyone again stopped work and stared as we entered, Valda in white sleeveless shirt and green shorts that did nothing for her broadness, Madge in pink slacks and pink and white candy-striped short sleeved sweater, and we three fellows dressed rather alike in short sleeved shirts and shorts and various forms of sandals and sneakers. They were manufacturing copra by scraping out the meat of the coconut and charring it by burning it over a fire made from its own shell, so that nothing was wasted. Then they shipped it to England to be used in the manufacture of soap and oil. They were willing to answer questions, and Madge ran into trouble when they asked "What is your title?" and when she didn't immediately respond they inquired "You don't want to tell us your title?" Then she gave her name. We talked for a couple minutes and left, feeling somehow sheepish. Again, their stern frowning faces seemed not so much friendly as condescending to tourists. THEY knew who belonged on the island, and who didn't, and who made the most money, and who worked harder. It wasn't a terribly pleasant feeling, though there was absolutely no indication that they didn't like us. Back to the car and it started raining in earnest, and John and I both got used to the idea of having wet trouser-sides and arms, where we were hanging onto the sides and the roof to prevent being jostled out as Brian went, however slowly, around the unending turns. Around Mangaroo where the mountains took some time out for a spreading valley, we met fishermen with their catch in a large bowl: the tri-tri which had been served at last night's meal. They caught them, they said, with cloth nets in the brackish water where the river joins the ocean. We looked at the hundreds of them jumping around in the water-filled bowl, and said "Oh." About this time I got two cocoa pods which bumped around in the car for the rest of the way. It was getting onto 2:45, and again the fear of driving back in the dark was upon me. It was spectacular in the beginning to look out from the cliffs and see stretches of absolutely abandoned beaches with surf pounding in as it had, undisturbed, for eons, and the vistas were more and more amazing, except that it was beginning to get cloudy, and some super-spectacular views were just about invisible. We had wanted to go to the end, but when we got to Chateaubelair and the rain became sheets of waterfall-like spray, we decided to turn around and return. And then we had to wave at ALL the people we had passed before. There was no way back but the way we came, and the excitement of discovery was rapidly being quenched by an excess of water. Then going around a curve we heard a chunk-chunk-chunk from the wheels which increased as we accelerated and didn't sound as we coasted. Brian got out and poked around at the tires, but could see nothing wrong until he found the tool kit and pried off the hub cap: the tire bolts were loose. With great relief that he HAD found it, he tightened them, then went around tightening all the others, though none of the others were loose. We all had visions of the wheel bouncing off as we topped a hill, then bottomed it. The muddy waters gushing in the gullies made us fear washouts, and we had heard that flooding on Barbados and Dominica the previous week had seriously washed out some of the roads. But the tires held the road very well, and though some of the edges looked rather the worse for the rain, there was never any real danger through the rest of the trip. I got terribly tired during the last part, and asked Madge to sit forward; so that I could lean back and rest. She held up remarkably well, though she did very little to hold up her end of the conversation. But usually there was always something to chat about, particularly the road cress working on in the rain, waving to us cheerily as we went past. As we got into Kingstown the rain became a real flood, and we got lost in the turns of the town. The worst part of the trip was going back across the airstrip, since the wind chose that time to blow the hardest, and since it was along the strip, and since we were cutting across it, there was a complete gust of wet wind through the cab, and I was thankful for the towel I now had over my shoulder, but my arm was still cold from continual wetting. Brian held up very well, his warm body gradually drying his shirt wet from tightening the tires, and now again he was wet, but I think I avoided his eyes as I watch his face in the rearview mirror. We actually got back to the hotel just at 5:30, and again the way back was shorter than the way out. Others had checked into the hotel, including Steven from Trinidad and Arther Quinn from Washington, and Madge and I got Steven, who filled out ears with the glories of Trinidad. His voice was pleasant to listen to, but only for so long, and no longer. Again the loud night, but I had no trouble sleeping, even without mosquito netting. There were insects on the walls, but the coil of burning punk cleared the air, even though Madge ended up bitten and marked for weeks after the trip was over.
Friday, December 9: It was still raining in the morning, raining without any sign of letup. After breakfast I asked if they had cards, and John and some dotty pleasant plump girl, Ginny, maybe, played cards with Madge and me, like Oh Hell and Hearts and rummy. The morning went quickly, and Brian and Valda sat together and read, I'm sure annoyed by what would sound like perfectly reasonless gales of hilarity bursting from our group every so often. But the time went very quickly, and we had to clear away for lunch. Afterward it stopped raining, but the sky was still lowering. Brian didn't want to go anywhere, it was too cool for swimming, so I asked what was over the hill, and Mrs. Stevens told us how to get to the White House which had been rented to Mr. Moon, who hadn't like it and had left. We walked down the muddy fields past the grazing cow, across the road and to the blue lagoon, fording steams with difficulty, across lawns and to a gravel road which ld to the white house. From a cliff-edge nearby I could sit and look out over the tumbled coastline of the start of the windward coast, but the sharply slowing wind began to bring pellets of rain, and we ran back to the hotel, carrying palm to protect us against the rain as the natives had taught us. But it was VERY hard to get through the fibrous pulpy stem without a knife, and the edges looked non-natively frayed. Finally Brian said we would go out again, and this time we drove to the house, and ended up at another hotel, where we had lunch of tasty omelets, though I'm sure some day is confused here. Dinner again, boredom setting in, and I almost didn't look forward to the interminable conversations, though John had interesting tales to tell about his travels in the Grenadines, and to bed.
Saturday, December 10: After breakfast I probably concentrated on reading the "Brother's Mad" which was the only thing of interest I could find, without getting involved with the lawyer for another interminable conversation. Fought against an admittedly short-lived impulse to write post cards---the heck with it! I think THIS was the day we ate lunch at the Grand View Hotel, and then about 2 PM decided to see how far we could get up the Windward Road before the rain set in. Got all the way up to Georgetown and the Rabaca dry flow before we stopped. Her at the end, there was a bulldozer willing to push us across, but we didn't go, and afterwards, watching the fun with a bus that almost got washed away, we were glad we didn't. The continual cloud cover made it impossible to see Soufriere Mountain, and I guess I have to take the map's word that it exists, since clouds also surrounded it when we flew off toward St. Lucia. We just never saw the thing. Stopped at one of the black-sand beaches on the way up to see if there were shells, but there were absolutely NONE. The waves didn't seem much different on the windward side from what they were on the leeward side, but whenever I mentioned wanting to swim on this side, there was some sort of comment from Brian or a guide or someone that swimming was treacherous over here: what with the power of the waves, the strength of the undertow, and other factors which weren't immediately apparent from looking at the innocuous waves. The blackness of the sand was intriguing, but the absence of seashells made it look even more sterile than its typically volcanic appearance. The contrasts of the white-foam waves against the black beach were interesting, but we could never really get close enough to the rocks against which the waves dashed with vigor so that I could see these sights. This side of the island was somewhat flatter than the other side, which meant in part that the road was less winding and could end up farther from the sea, and in part that there were more small villages scattered along the road, not only where a river came down to the sea, as on the western coasts. Since there were more people, there were more people to wave at, and there was an almost constant stream of smiles and waves following after the six-person filled Moke. John sat in the middle of the front, between Valda and Brian, and his place was taken with the surly, scarred-faced fellow who looked as if he enjoyed very few of the moments in his life, another example of what money can't buy and what loneliness can produce. Whenever I found myself wishing that I hadn't come with Madge, I only had to think that I would feel worse MOST of the time without someone to compare notes with, without someone to eat and walk with, without the other half of the "couple" which the islands seemed dedicated to, unless in the case of John Dennison, you attach yourself to a couple, and that seemed rather awkward. The same was the case of Mr. Moon in the rented house: he grew impatient with the lonely life in his empty house, even with the native girl cooking and taking care of his physical wants. He ended up taking off to Toronto and his familiar club, leaving the place, rented, standing vacant on its windy point of land over the foaming sea. Then Steven, the bulky Trinidadian, figured he'd leave early back for his home and wife and daughter---he must have married late to produce a ten-year-old child at 45, and he made some point about his father, who had married even later, and then had no real chance to be a father to his son before perforce becoming a sort of a grandfather because of advancing age. Since the road was easier to navigate, even with the necessity of John working the shift-stick when Brian accelerated as a signal for John to shift, and space went past much more quickly. The skies were cloudy, but the day seemed to hold out the chance of getting all the way up to the end of the road at Sandy Bay, until all progress was blocked by the torrent of the Rabaca Dry Flow. We stood on the edge of the tufa-lava flow, black swatch through the green jungle, watching the peril of the bus in the current, and then turned back toward the south and home. It got darker rapidly, and soon rain began pelting down on us once again, and we resigned ourselves again to the idea of being wet, and the impact of a desert-jungle island deepened on our minds. There were many jokes to be made about Brian's activities as the driver. The typical Moke driver must have somewhat more than four hands: one for shifting, which job John performed with increasing smoothness, until the driver and shifter began to work as a one-instincted unit; the second for steering in the places when the wheel didn't require BOTH hands; the third for the horn to keep the increasing traffic out from under the wheels; the fourth had to keep snaking around the edge of the windshield to operate the windshield wipers to help clear some of the rain off the spattered windshield. No amount of fussing with buttons and switches could move the windshield wipers. And then the optional fifth could be used for waving to the passerby. There was some cause to be grateful that Brian didn't smoke! This would leave a hand free for such luxury movements as wiping the side of the face with a handkerchief from the rain, or blowing the nose when there would be a sudden sneeze, though no one seemed to come down with anything more serious than a permanent memory from the trip. I began counting off the descending numbers on the milestones---it was a lot of work, since there were two and sometimes three to the mile---in order to fill the gaps in the conversation. Both Valda and Madge were on the silent side, except once when Valda lashed out at Brian with great anger when he drove too close to the edge and swiped Valda across the legs with some bushends. All did not seem to be well with that family, despite the light touches afforded by their enormous Alaskan husky who gradually took over the house from his little corner of the basement. Their living with Valda's sister seemed rather like too pat a ménage à trois, and then Madge one evening for lack of anything else to do searched his palm for something interesting, we both quickly saw the secondary love line above the primary one. I then saw that that line COULD mean something other than homosexuality, since I'm sure he never was, though by no means sure that he wouldn't enjoy it if the occasion arose, so simply physical and opportunistic he seemed to be, and Madge seemed to think it meant without a doubt that he was also servicing his sister-in-law, and others besides. Stud Brian! The other fellow in the back seat said even less than the girls, so that left John and Brian and I to ramble on about anything to keep our minds relatively free of the miles going under the tiny Moke wheels, and the sprays of water being sent up from the sides of them. The rain-catching roof sometimes seemed a liability as we swung around a curve and a stream of cold water would plunge down the side of my body. The lights worked, finally, and we pulled up to the house almost in darkness, which leads to the thought that we must have stopped at the Dexter's the previous day, where John and Brian talked interestedly about buying property on the island and building a house. But something like $900 for four or five power poles to bring up electricity seemed to typify some of the more outrageous expenses in the island paradise. We changed again, I getting somewhat tired of the limited array of sport shirts and slacks I brought with me, though the problem of underwear was neatly solved by not wearing any on many days; it just wasn't necessary because of the heat and the wetness (both humidity and rain) of the climate. I was feeling rather tired and looking forward to an early evening, but was reminded that tonight was the nigh of the Bamboo Band, and that we wouldn't get to bed much before midnight. We had almost gotten into another island entertainment on some of the previous evening following dusk as we sat around on the grassy hilltop aside the sugar Mill, talking in the bat-filled twilight. It must have been the first night, Tuesday, that in sitting on top, we heard what sounded at first like a small party, then like an agreement, then like a community sing taking place down in Calliaqua. We expected it to stop at any time, but it continued part of the way through dinner, so the next night Madge and I went down to see what we could find. We didn't take a flashlight with us, so the road down from the hotel was so dark that only the sense of touch in the feet prevented us from walking off the road. On the main street things were a bit better: starlight could come down more easily out there where the trees were less overhanging the road, and lights from the houses helped a bit to cut the gloom. We walked down the hill and into the lighted village, and there were many people walking about the streets; there were even one or two street lights, but we couldn't see any sign of the festivities of the previous evening. We walked past the town, looking in at the pleasant tiled houses we'd admired the previous day while walking to the Aquatic Club, but were rather saddened to see what looked like two families of five or six each sharing the quarters. Back into town and Madge suggested we ask at the local police office where the party was. I was shocked at her directness, but since she wanted to do it, we did it. The police were amused at our questions, and told us that there was a rehearsal of carol-singing for the Christmas season, that it wasn't happening tonight, it wasn't planned, and when it happened, it happened. Listened to some of the street noises of smaller gatherings and walked back up to the hotel, where the conversation on the lawn was going on much as it had when we left. Dinner was probably as fancy as it was during all the nights at the Sugar Mill, the food in general being very well prepared, and the menus were imaginative and entertaining. I even found myself eating lobster and bits of crab along with the steak and chicken and lamb and veal and pork. Desserts were many times triumphs, and even the flaming cherries jubilee was brought off with brilliant success. When the other couple left, with mock tears from the wife at the thought of leaving us---though she DID have to get on three days to the Virgin Islands where they could pick up their duty-free gallon of booze---the managers of the hotel thoughtfully provided Mateus wine for the departure, and since the tables were all together, the wine was served to all. It made a series of very pleasant final dinners as they left one evening, Arthur and Steven left on Sunday and thus were wined on Saturday, and then we left on Monday and thus were wined on Sunday. It made the evenings glow with friendship and alcohol. During the last of the dinner we heard the humming of bamboo instruments tuning up, and when we adjourned to the sitting room for tea, there were others in the bar from the English colony who had come up to the hotel on this Saturday evening for the social session. The first few pieces were played without dancing, and the quartet was entertaining enough just to watch: on the left was the sexiest of the lot, a heavily-thighed fellow who shook the maracas with drugged tempo, looking straight across the floor with heavily-lidded black eyes. Next to him was the flutist, who seemed the leader, the piercing notes skipping up through the night to reach the highest parts of the hearing range, birdlike and piping. The guitarist was not very good, and the one on the mandolin(?) who served to keep the tempo, seemed drugged with the monotonous beat. Their bodies twisted with the melodies, and soon the floor bounced with three or four couples from the bar who undulated across the floor in practiced steps, shoulders graceful with the native rhythms. Madge coaxed me to my feet, and reviewed the rumba for me, and I caught on rather quickly---after the third lesson-set, after Mozelle once and Madge once before at the Chinese ball, I would hope I fell into it somewhat more easily. Then Madge insisted on showing me how to cha-cha-cha, and for the longest time I simply couldn't get the idea of the step, the idea of stepping twice on the same foot instead of the strict alternation threw me for a complete loss. Then she, from a position which I assumed to be center, and was confused when a backward step from the center was followed by ANOTHER backward step, and only much later when I began to think of the center TWO positions as defining a central AREA, from which the body alternatively went forward and back, the step began to make effortless sense. Madge many times aid that her brother had no sense of rhythm and was very difficult to teach, but that she had the patience to teach; patience she needed with me! After a while I could almost get to the point where I could follow the sense of the music with my body without caring WHICH foot was doing what, something which seldom happened to me, and it actually became fun, except that I was tiring quickly, the other dancers were so much better than I was, and no one else from our group was dancing. Toward the end of the evening, after everyone had bade us goodnight, Madge even requested a waltz, which they improvised freely on, but over the basic waltz tempo that permitted us to perform some rather feeble graceful sweeps across the floor. They could take any rhythm and make it perkily cocky with the peeping pipes of the flute. We tried a few more dances, but I felt that I stank something fierce, and about midnight we went to bed, but the music continued, the chipper flute even piercing the wax earplugs stabbed into my ears.
Sunday, December 11: The day dawned almost brightly, and we were the first ones into the dining room and looked out over the life-slice hillside while a rainbow rose gently out of the storm-clouds at the right, high in the hills, swept grandly in its perfect arc over the crest of its circle, and then finally swept down through the misty air above the horizon to dip into Young's Island, and even to appear closer than that, superimposed on the rooftops below. Gradually, at the height of the color arc, a second rose majestically above the first, and almost made it to the zenith, but broke and reformed somewhat to the left. The Hoars joined us late to see the end of the vision, and we felt that this was a fitting tribute to our final day in St. Vincent. I hovered around Arthur Quinn, stuck to him during the previous evenings' tales of the forests, piranhas, and huge freshwater ayepuchos, or whatever the freshwater grouper-like fish of the Guyana forests were. I listened to his tales of life in Washington, his balding head gleaming above large animal-brown eyes, and I was certain he was gay. I pocketed a card of mine to give to him, and as he stood on the porch waiting for his cab, looking strangely civilized in his suit, we chatted about meeting, and as he gave me his card I gave him mine. We made plans for the next day at the Sandy Lane, where he was staying as a lawyer for the sugar interests for a sugar convention, where Madge and I could call him for an afternoon's entertainment possibility if we found we had to spend some time in Barbados due to missed airplane connections. We had spent previous evening deciding that we would leave Monday morning, catching the LIAT flight out of St. Vincent to Barbados, hoping to get space on the BWIA flight back to NYC that same morning. For the first time on the trip, I rather hoped that my luck as a ship-sider would NOT hold out for once, and that we could spend a pleasant day with the bachelor lawyer. He went off, and the clouds still held off their rain, so the Hoars took the Moke down to the beach for another session of snorkeling, and Ginny and Madge and I rode down with Pat in the hotel car to join them. This was the day that the cruise ship was due in, and the hotel was frantic in its preparations for dinner there by some of the passengers. We tentatively decided to go into town and turn the tables by having dinner on board ship, but it didn't work out. The early part of the day was rather bright, and I took the opportunity to swim out past the familiar setting of the near reef---though I still couldn't find Mrs. Whatsis' octopus which was always supposed to be in the same place---around the point into the deeper water, through which there was very little to see, and then into the next little cove, where there were cottages, it seemed, almost solely inhabited by single males. Just around the point was an innumerable swarm of something like the minute tri-tri, a mote-cloud of unguessable vastness which I cut through with no effort. Kicked rather swiftly across the sandy bottoms out to the next reef-side, but it was much like the first, and I paddled about for much of an hour and a half, looking over the scenery and getting finally rather tired of the swimming effort. Back across the expanse and down the reef-side as three fellows stumbled along the rock-cut-walk to "our" beach, and found that the place was crowded with fellows who were reputedly crew members sunning themselves, couples shouting for photographs of themselves in crazy hats and crazier faces, while up in the club, the bandstand was filled with the fifteen or so pieces of a steel band whose music floated down the beach toward us. We walked up to look at them for awhile, and Ginny took to the water like a seal, borrowing my snorkel set while we stood on the beach. As we came back, there was a flurry when some native boy reached down to Madge's bag on the beach, but Steven's shout of discovery frightened him and it dropped back onto the beach. Madge saw that her purse was still there, but later found that some money was missing, though she didn't think the boy had gotten it. Then she recalled to me what she had said about Patricia: how she had been found in her room more than once, and how strange a girl she was. Madge only lost about $20, and had no way of knowing how it went, but it was only a sad anticlimax to a carefree holiday. We had grown to trust the Sugar Mill with gratitude when the doors weren't locked, and everyone was assured that everything was safe, and in fact I left large sums of money relatively in plain sight, but nothing was ever taken---except the loss of the pen to the hotel which overcharged anyway. One of the local policemen said that it was sad, but that this happened whenever the ships came to town, and we could easily see someone who would return to their ship on the evening and discover their loss only fifty miles or more at sea. Then what could be done? Sad how tourists can affect the natives, in no ways toward the good. We MEAN to be kind and generous, but this only leads toward worse evils and terrible envy. Sad. Swim about a bit more, and then there's the news that Pat's back to pick us up for the hotel, so we're into the car and back to the palm-covered buffet table where the central attraction is the shrimp curry with its many sauces of chopped peanuts, coconut shredded, chutney, relishes, raisins, and other little dishes that I sample even though I don't have the shrimp but the chicken. The table of tourists from the ship is sad and old and too loud, and we feel very superior to them. Back to the beach after lunch via the Moke, and cruise over to Young's Island, and this time I take off around the right side of the island, past the boat dock and around the point of the island to the degree where the ocean current is beginning to rip past, sending up clouds of sand-clouds that obscure the vision and almost seem to hurt the body with the stinging notes. Never did take the opportunity to snorkel between the back of Young Island and the rock, where the rowboat seemed to be needed, but then the clouds hid the sun most of the time, and the water wasn't at its best. On the way back I was delighted to spy five fish who seemed to be swimming toward me, but one of them was swimming backward and they were small squid: purplish gray in color, about six inches long, sailing along in formation, their head fringe rippling in a way that had been described to me, but which I couldn't picture; then I saw it, so now I can. They swam along as I followed them, but when I dived to get closer, four veered off and I chose to follow the single, rapidly lost it, and searched in vain for a sight of the rest of the flock. Saw a foot-long gar poking the bottom, and looked for other strange sights, but saw none. Was happy that it was cloudy because of my back, however, since I was about running out of suntan lotion, and had already started to peel. My face was darker, but I didn't realize how much darker until some of the people back at work started making their comments. After much swimming around and peering up to see that the sun was going down and the evening breeze was getting cooler, I was almost relieved to see that my exhausting snorkeling day was drawing to a close. Back across the water for the last time to St. Vincent's, and we passed a huge ocean-going yacht that epitomized the idle rich: lovely women and handsome men stood at the rails, and as we passed, one particularly gigolo-looking male raised his glass in a mute salute to Madge; and I had the fleeting thought that he was probably more gay than straight, but knew he had a picture to fill, and was filling it. Get past the flock of taxi-drivers waiting on the shore, and even suspect that we could have been charged for the ferry if we'd answered "The boat" instead of "Sugar Mill" when they asked where we were from. How the tourist must get taken, as we hear of the reports of doubling taxi-rates when the ships come into town. We didn't even get to see the boat, though Brian said he saw it sailing out to sea. Back up to the hilltop and I sit watching the light fade from our last tropical sky. Madge comes out to question what I'm thinking, and I'm too embarrassed to tell her that I'm not really thinking much of anything at all, merely looking at the sky. This evening the wine is for us, and the table's grown much smaller, and tomorrow all that will be left are the Hoars, and when they leave on Wednesday, the rumor has it that beginning the next day, on the fifteenth, the place is booked solidly through the "season." Then no quiet dinners next to the window, but rattling conversation everywhere. No ability to get everyone into one largish circle in the sitting room or out on the lawn, but probably rushing for seats and jostling in the hallways. How much better off-season! John Dennison also took off, and we plead that we have to pack and leave the group. Keep forgetting to call for reservations, but finally take the chance of going absolutely unannounced. Mrs. Stevens, Pat says, has certainly called for the taxi at 7 AM to take us to the airport, and if not, Pay herself would drive us. We pack and get to bed, I leaving some of the tasks for the next day, which I'm sure I'll greet early. And I light the last punk spiral to smoke me through my last night on St. Vincent and on the islands in 1966.
Monday, December 12: I'm up at 5:30 to tend to the last of packing, and shave and shower and greet Madge at 6:30. Pat had fixed coffee and fruit for us the night before, putting it on a tray in my room. We go out to the sitting room and wait for the taxi, which come promptly at 7. We'd paid the bill the night before, a rather whopping $165.25 US for the both of us, but when you figure it comes down to $11 a day for room and breakfast and dinner, it's not bad at all. Sydney himself is on hand to drive us to the airport, and the sun is bright and warm, so there's no doubt that the plane will be flying, but will there be room for us? Get to the airport at 7:15, and buy the official map of St. Vincent which I fold and put into the convenient luggage rack set aside for the tentative ship-siders. There's quite a crowd, both waiting for the incoming plane and looking for the outgoing passengers, and again there's no idea if we can go or not. But then we get called to the desk and our papers are checked, and we're off! The sun is very hot, and there're a few loiterers who snap pictures as they leave the plane, and we get on separate seats for the flight to St. Lucia, I on the right, Madge on the left. The wing is in the wrong position on the flight out to see the "Sugar Mill Inn" written on the hotel roof, and the clouds are too thick to see Soufriere, and again we're out over the ocean and soon over the forests of St. Lucia. Fly directly over the island, so I can't see the Pitons again, and we land with the familiar Blue Waters Hotel right on our right. Sit while the passengers and crew shuffle back and forth, and I'm captured by a Hercules of a Negro who's cutting the grass along the runway. Standing relaxed, bending working, his body is beautifully defined in the sun's light, and I say good-bye to the work-hardened bodies of the islands. The flight out to Barbados is short and above clouds, so there's not much to see from the windows except the purple banks of clouds over the waters. Again fly over the point of land that holds the Barbados Hilton, and then over residential areas right next to the ocean's surf. Land at the airport with a twisting rush which I convince myself is good, since the twists help the plane slice more quickly through possible areas of turbulence. Into the airport, and THIS time I have my passport and vaccination papers, so I get the Barbados cachet immortalized in my book. Quickly across the airport to the BWIA desk, and there's long line that I leave Madge in and get back to pick up the luggage from the LIAT flight. Carry it myself across the incoming terminal, through the doors into the central courtyard surrounded by shops and a murky pool clogged with decaying lily pads, along a curving walkway joining the two terminals, around a corner and through another door into the waiting room area, past the counter for information and lottery tickets, and to the end of the long line of ticket agents in this lengthy airport. By this time I'm sweating, and the nerves are beginning to build. Was glad that I'd managed to get reasonable sleep the previous night. The line moves so slowly we begin to fear missing the 10 AM flight. Again our names are put on a waiting list, and we wait in the crowded terminal, knowing that all we need is one more bit of luck for a perfect record on the trip, and when in a couple of minutes our names are called and we find we CAN et on the flight, our luck is complete. Rather discouraged to hear that we'll have to stop in Antigua, but there's nothing we can do. Into the waiting area, and I'm too mentally and physically exhausted to even consider getting a quart of the cheap booze, not even Barbados rum. Sit paralyzed as the few flights before us come and go, and I take up my terrible habit of counting the flights and the hours and the minutes and the breaths left in the flight. How I wished it was over! Finally our flight is announced and we're onto the plane, passing the area where we'd stood, before, watching the jet taking off, and here WE would be taking off. Find seats vacant way in the front, in front of the wing, and happily get into them, finding that there's great complimentary map of the area, and I hope we can catch some of the island on the way up to Antigua. Finally cleared for takeoff, and it's only 55 minutes to Antigua, and I start counting the seconds. We climb with a fantastic twist and raise, but beyond that the flight is uneventful. Soon catch sight of a shadow on the left, and it's Martinique, and in silent procession beneath us pass Dominica and the twin-winged island of Guadeloupe. Off to the right must be Montserrat, and then we sweep low over the shores of Antigua. I think of the remarks on our last night with the newsmen from Look out to hunt for the four "lost island" paradises in the Caribbean, which were Martinique, Dominica, Bequia, and Bonaire. Hardly did I consider these as lost islands. Martinique, they said, was poor and uninteresting, but Dominica was really wild and fantastic, and I put Dominica on my list. We flew over the entire island of Antigua, and it looked level, farms and factories, and not very interesting. The clouds caused bumps in the air and the plane wheeled and roared and twisted on its way down to the land. I sat paralyzed in the window, watching the square of workers militarily lining up before taking care of the luggage, and I glanced through some of the "Beachcomber" magazine, and Madge loaded my lap with tourist books from the racks on various islands. Finally the half-hour stopover was over, and we again settled down, but this time for the last flight. The screaming ascent into the air, and then the only thing left was the landing. There were quick distant, featureless glimpses of rocks in the water which were St. Kitts and St. Martin, and then the featureless ocean closed in. At first there were clouds to obscure the bottom, and then, as the hours dragged on, the clouds cleared and the fantastically calm waters appeared. Looking closely, I seemed to see small floating islands, of what looked to be seaweed, and I thought of the old stories that had fascinated me so strongly about the Sargasso Sea, with its mythical center where all the ships which had drifted into it stood rotting in their hundred-year age. When I first saw the oval shapes in the water, I thought fantastically that it might be a school of whales lying near the surface of the water, but then there were more, stretched out, and I couldn't think of anything but clumps of seaweed. There seemed to be not a bit of wind below, and the sun glinted off the surface of the water. We ate dinner and I closed my eyes a bit, but opened them again, hoping to look at something to cause the time to go faster. It crept toward our landing time. Every so often a ship appeared below to break the monotony, and then the angle between the polarized sunglasses, the window, and the sun got to the proper angle so that rainbows of color began to appear on the water, and small low clouds broke up the pattern to make the vision even more fantastic. We looked out for about a half-hour at these visions, and then the announcement came that the flight had been a bit longer than usual, and that we'd land about 2:30. The last hour dissolved into the individual minutes, and still my stomach didn't knot. I still thought of the terrible landing from the South American trip, and was only happy that I could SEE where we were. When land finally came into sight, not on the left where I'd expected to see Long Island, but on the right where I could only think it was New Jersey. The straight shoreline passed below, broken by breakwaters, and something that looked like what must be Sandy Hook. Again over waters, and the smoggy fog make us wince about getting back into NYC. The plane turned and lowered and roared, and I could only think that the terrible landing patterns of Kennedy Airport could be responsible for this tortuous landing. Roared about in the air like a wounded eagle, dropping lower and lower, and finally what looked like the marshes at the lower end of the Rockaways came into view, and I think Rockaway Park. Quickly down now, so that we didn't get to see too much of the city, and quickly landed at Kennedy, the last of the trip! The jets swooped backwards great gulps of air to slow the ship, and then everyone was gathering everything and putting on sweaters and jackets and coats in preparation for the cold of the north. Finally out into the sun, and quickly through picking up luggage and through customs, who didn't even ask that we open our bags. Get out to an empty Carey bus, and sit for over half an hour waiting for it to fill while Madge said we should have taken a cab. There just doesn't seem much to say, so for the most part we sit quietly. And I figure the strain of the trip has drained me, or that the habit of yawning fits I get when I fly made me truly tired. The bus was terribly hot, the traffic was slow, and I was too stupid not to go to the driver and say, "Hey, it's HOT in here." Wend the slow way into the city, and get to the terminal, grab our luggage out of the bottom, and get out to the lines waiting for cabs. Get a particularly surly driver at his having to make two stops, and he simply can't understand that it's not THAT far out of the way to take me, then Madge, home. We look about the city, and he grumbles as he turn down 71st, down Second, and down 70th. I say good-bye to Madge, hoping she can handle the grumpy driver, and get in to find my mailbox filled with mail, so I assume he had no trouble getting everything in. Up to my apartment, and it just feels awfully good to be home, and at a time of day when there's time to get everything put away and get relaxed in time to get a good night's sleep for the next day's work. Put all the clothing away and get to the store to restock my refrigerator, and spent the rest of the evening messing around the apartment. Again thought of what John said about how a series of one-weeks' vacations doesn't allow you to acutely unwind, that you need a longer time for the mind to recover from the tensions of work. I wasn't sure, but I was looking forward to other weeks in the islands, until that, too, got boring, and I began looking around for something else to do. But that's part of another tale, and shouldn't be gone into here. This 80 pages is 2 less than the 82 for Around the World, and that was a thirty day trip, and this only took ten days. I'm getting wordier.