Tonight I listened to another island history lesson, sitting at Bottoms Up (a bar/restaurant in the middle of a marina here in St. Thomas) with friends. Someone asked about the bar,so Chris Nye, who has been around here a long time (since leaving college and his aborted Ivy League future), told us some of the story. The bar at Bottoms Up is a boat, but not a fern bar boat, this is a real boat, the good ship Pinafore, built in Europe, owned by someone who abandoned her, and left her alone in the yard. Another man in the 70's who saw her on a thirsty day realized he could fill a need. He thought...this would be a good place to sell some beer. So he did. But another man, John Grant, thought a few more thoughts, dug a hole and moved her on skids another 100 yards closer to the water. Over time, she grew; the galley , cramped even for a large boat, grew into a regular kitchen; she grew a roof, a deck flooring, and a new owner, Bill Caton, which is how I've known the place. Bottoms Up, a boat on land where iguanas run out of the mangroves to investigate your crumbs, where Patsy cooks the finest ribs you ever tasted, where local sailors, shipwrights and old friends eat and drink. On a few nights, you can listen to music, and sometimes the occasional tourist stumbles in, glad they did.
Bill Caton, owner of the bar, sits on a stool most days, waiting for the morning crew of boat owners working on their boats (it's not called Independent Boat Yard for nothing), marina workers, and the odd and assorted, to finish with breakfast, coffee, and the newspapers, so he can do the crosswords. If it is a good day, the rest of us have left him at least one clean puzzle. On a bad day, we hear about it. Cap't Bob brings me a copy of the NY Sunday puzzle on Tuesday...someone in America faxes it to him because we don't like paying ten bucks to read about things we'll never see here. He finishes it in three hours, Tim and I work on it for days. That's how we like it. Cap't Bob stopped drinking a few months ago, so he could pay his dentist bills. We quietly cheer him on, while we lament the tips Rick (the bartender who looks like a Harley type, and can't talk about his sick dog becuse he'll cry) has lost, which will help finance his trip around the world with his wife, Cheryl, on their boat Fantasea. Fantasea sits in the yard, worked on between Rick's bar shifts and Cheryl's nursing shifts, and almost (it's always almost) ready to go back in the water. They will leave in June, and I will miss them very much. But I have learned it is like that here, always. You guard your heart a bit, even as you suck in all the joy of knowing each unique person who strikes your fancy. Everyone is here, and everyone leaves. As I will. But...and you know it, if it is the right sort, they always come back, to one island or another. I go back to St. Croix, where this island love affair started for me.
Chris, who told me the original story I started with, has lived here in the Virgin Islands since the early 70's. In America, not much social upheavel has happened since the 70's, speaking in the sense of roads, electricity, and Wendy's. Here it is like the New World. Much has changed, and I arrived at least 10 years too late for the true days and ways.There are islands south of here (we call that place collectively *down island*), where it is still much like it was here 20 years ago. They do not worry about Y2K. We don't worry much about it either, as a major outage of the electronic life would not be different than many days of unexpectedly having no power, no water, no services. Here, we call that Carnival...or WAPA being WAPA (Water and Power Authority). Letters to the editor call Y2K worries everything from a plot of the government to a plot of the devil. This is batted around endlessly, along with other devil inspired plots, such as the debate whether God does or does not want you to attend Carnival.
I want to be where there is no third world gloss. But, for now, I am here. I wake up each day, climb up the companionway of the Elinor Louise, the junk rigged schooner Tim designed and built, shoving Charlie, our lab/wolf, out of my way. I look around and see islands in the sunrise. I look down and see our resident spotted eagle ray gliding out into the early morning sun from the shadow of the boat. I laugh at Charlie, telling her we won't be going anywhere until Tim awakes, and she nods in doglike fashion, goes back down the steps and curls up on the settee, to doze. I read and smoke, and finally hear Tim call his ritual "Good morning, darlin', and it's the beginning of another day in Paradox.
Welcome to one pilgrim's progress in the living zone.
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