Bare Boat Vacation

It was our first time chartering a sailboat in the Virgin Islands area. For two weeks we would sail the waters of the British Virgin Islands in a thirty-two foot Peterson sailboat. Life just doesn't get any better. After a leisurely sail from Benner Bay, on SE corner of St. Thomas, my wife and I decided to drop the hook in Christmas Cove, on the east coast of Great St. James Island. It was a delightful sail, one that we had looked forward to for many months. With the pressure from our jobs left far behind, we could finally relax, and truly enjoy the moment.

Once the boat was at anchor, we picked out a couple of steaks, put them on the charcoal barbecue, attached to the aft lifeline, then stowed our gearwe were now, officially, on island time. I don't exactly know what Island time' meansbut everyone down here says it. What I did know was that I never tasted a steak so tender and full of flavor in all my life, and the wine was excellent, a gift from the charter company. I made a mental note to get some more, when we cleared customs at Cruz Bay, St. Johns Island.

We sat in the cockpit and watched the pelicans on shore, catching their evening meal. Just then a trumpet fish swam by. It was a lovely shade of violet, practically transparent. Although the water was twenty feet deep, we could see the bottom clearly. Schools of tiny fish darted about, beneath our hull. We watched them, as though hypnotized, for well over an hour.

The tranquility of the moment was shattered, when the eyeglasses on my head went clattering across the deck, and ended up in the water. I had forgotten they were up there, I ran my fingers through my hair, in an effort to get it out of my eyes. I couldn't see them on the bottom; they must have landed in a patch of eelgrass. I 'd get them in the morning, when the light was better. We watched the evening clouds race by as the sky darkened in the east, nothing could upset the magic of the moment.

Right after breakfast I donned my mask and fins, and dove down to search for the glasses. The eelgrass was thicker than it looked from above. I gave up search for them after several minutes. I would live to regret it, later that day I couldn't even read a menu.

To this day, I have visions of hermit the crab', strolling along the Christmas Cove bottom, wearing my glasses.

Learn more about this author, James Bremner.
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