A Trip to the Beach (18 page)

Each and every ballot was pulled out of a box and read aloud while someone held it up for verification in front of the TV camera. The live telecast continued throughout dinner, and more than once I heard Clinton chime in to the rhythm of the count:

Osbourne Fleming . . . the hand

Ronald Webster . . . the hat

Osbourne Fleming . . . the hand

Osbourne Fleming . . . the hand

Ronald Webster . . . the hat

Then, counting another district:

Franklin Connor . . . the bird

Hubert Hughes . . . the tree

Hubert Hughes . . . the tree

Hubert Hughes . . . the tree

Franklin Connor . . . the bird

And on it went for hours, seven districts, sixteen candidates. It was hypnotic—so much so that Clinton and Shabby would mimic aloud the counting process for weeks to come. It was though they had fallen into a trance. When the results were finalized that night, half our staff was cheering and the other half was silent. It was the first time we'd ever seen Bug without a smile.

We figured that was the end of elections for five years. We figured wrong. That night everyone again was out by the road, cheering and jeering. The winners were driving the entire length of the island in one last colossal motorcade, thanking their constituents for their victory. I reckoned elections were really over now and I had five years to figure out how to make campaign buttons.

The traditional food for Easter is salt fish, and Roxana wanted to make sure I sampled her mother's recipe. She, Garrilin, and I met under the Saturday food tent where I'd tasted the bull-foot soup. One of the women from the church heaped a mound of what looked like yellow shreds onto our plates; we pulled out bottles of water and soda from a cooler, and before I picked up my fork, Garrilin wanted to tell me what I was about to eat.

“The fish ain' from here, ya know. It imported from up by all you. Up there in the States. It codfish that be dried, and it keep forever—that why we like it. It come too salty, though, so we boil it in water with some sugar to sweeten it up. The sugar dissolve the salt—you know 'bout that?”

I had no time to answer before Roxana chimed in, “Mommy cook it twice. After she cook it in the water an' sugar, then we all help to remove the bones. Mel, there a lotta bones in that fish, ya know.”

I took my first bite and wished they had used even more sugar. Garrilin and Roxana were eating steadily, obviously not at all bothered by the salt.

“Mel, here some ginger beer to wash it down,” Roxana said, handing me a cup. I'd tasted ginger beer before and knew it was strong. It's made from fresh ginger soaked in water with just a little sugar, vanilla extract, and a drop of lime juice.

“So anyway,” Garrilin continued, “after all the bones outta the fish, we chip it up and cook it in a little oil with celery, peppers, onion, garlic, and a little curry, and let it stew to mix all the flavors. Mel, every house in Anguilla cook salt fish for Easter. It a local . . . what that word you use?” She thought for a moment. “It a real
delicacy.
That the word I try to think of.”
Delicacy
wasn't the word that came to my mind. I was happy to have a johnnycake on the side, to help cut the salt.

Easter Monday is an official holiday in Anguilla, set aside for the national sport of boat racing. The tradition developed a hundred years ago, when ships came down from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean laden with lumber and salt cod and sailed back north with rum, sugar, molasses, and cotton from more prosperous islands such as Antigua and Barbados. Anguilla, the northernmost of the Leeward Islands, was their final stop, where they'd top off their cargo with salt from the ponds before leaving the West Indies.

The schooners from Nova Scotia were faster, lighter, and easier to sail than the European boats that were also picking up goods from the region. Several industrious Anguillians replicated this schooner design and built their own fleet to transport cargo throughout the Caribbean.

Since work on Anguilla was always limited, people looked for additional income off island. Sugar companies from Santo Domingo set up a recruiting station in Marigot on St. Martin, and on the first or second day of every year hundreds of Anguillians, along with people from surrounding islands, piled aboard the sleek cargo schooners to go cut cane on the rich sugar plantations.

Sails would fill the harbor, and the schooners would all weigh anchor for the four-day journey to Santo Domingo. Competition was inevitable as captains and crew sailed off into the sunset. Even more passionate still was the race back home, when the men returned to Anguilla after months away. Hundreds of families would wait on the beach, cheering as the sails appeared one by one around the point at Sandy Ground. The speed of each schooner became public record, and the competition became even fiercer. Boat racing as a spectator sport in Anguilla was born.

The love of racing spread, and it is said that every day was a race day in Anguilla, with the local fishing boats chasing each other back home after a day at sea. By the 1970s, however, fishing boats were fitted with outboard motors and were no longer fun to race, so people started to build boats specifically for that purpose. Today Anguilla's racing boats still resemble the old fishing boats—the largest are twenty-eight feet long—and are completely open, with masts that soar up to fifty feet into the air.

Bob and I had listened to boat talk in the kitchen for months and were eager to witness our first Easter Monday race. The skillfully handcrafted wooden vessels gathered that morning at Sandy Ground; some sailed in from Island Harbor, while others were hauled overland by trailer. We walked up and down the beach admiring each boat as the crews assembled the rigging. The huge sails were spread out on the sand; ropes were threaded through rows of grommets and then lashed around the mast. Once ready to launch, logs were placed under each boat, and a dozen hot, grunting men rolled and skidded the boats along the sand and into the sea.

We spotted Shabby pushing a bright yellow boat named
Stinger.
His massive shoulders were propelling the boat toward the water in forceful jolts; the rest of the men were helping, but when Shabby leaned into it, the Stinger really moved. Bob went over and offered his assistance, and Shabby said, “Yeah, man, grab hold. Okay, now push.” The heavy wooden boat skidded a few feet. “Push,” Shabby called out, and it moved again.

I sat down on the hot sand to enjoy the action. I counted fourteen boats up and down the beach and watched as hundreds of people gathered round for the race. The smell of fresh paint from the boats mingled with that of barbecued chicken and ribs from the dozen or so grills set up on the beach. A steady thumping beat boomed from Johnno's Beach Bar, where a group of people milled about, hips swaying and heads bobbing, many with a Heineken in one hand and a grilled chicken leg in the other.

Stinger
floated off the beach, and Bob came back to tell me he'd seen Lowell's boat. “It's called
Light and Peace,
”he said. “It's a beauty—shiny gray with a yellow stripe at the top.”

Lowell saw us coming and waved from the boat. He was sitting on the gunwale along with seven other men, all wearing life preservers with the boat's name printed on the back.

“We goin' out to give 'er a try,” Lowell yelled, using his hand as a megaphone to make himself heard over the crowd. As the big sail swung around, all eight men quickly ducked, the boom narrowly missing their heads. The sail filled with wind, and
Light and Peace
skimmed away from shore with her crew leaning far out over the side.

Lowell's captain maneuvered around the sailboats and yachts anchored in the bay, then tacked back and forth, testing the wind, before returning to shore. The crew jumped off and waded up to the beach. Lowell grabbed a shovel and began filling a nylon bag with beach sand. “She need more ballast,” he said. “She too light.” The men carried the sandbag out into the water and handed it up into the boat, where the captain placed it in the bottom along with the lead weights, rocks, and other sandbags.

“Why do you need ballast?” Bob asked. “Doesn't the keel have lead in the bottom?”

“No, man,” Lowell said. “All the boats got live ballast so we can haul 'em up on shore when we done. They be too heavy if we couldn't take the weight out. Besides, on the way back, we sometimes throw some of the sand overboard to adjust for the wind. I gotta go. We startin' at eleven o'clock.” He waded out to
Light and Peace,
pulled himself up over the gunwale, and took his place with the crew.

All fourteen boats were now in the water, sails unfurled, and the crowd on the beach was gathered at the water's edge for the start. Mr. Cool, the island's refrigeration authority and owner of one of the racing boats, was in charge. He marched up and down the beach with the start gun, asking if all boats were ready. Once satisfied that they were, he raised his pistol in the air and fired. The race was on.

A roar came up from the crowd as the boats pulled away in a rainbow of color. Bob and I watched as they got smaller and smaller, and soon all we could see were fourteen little white triangles, all tilted the same way, all headed west.

I stood with my feet in the water, wondering what it would have felt like a hundred years ago if Bob had been on one of those boats going to cut cane for six months in Santo Domingo.
I don't suppose they had suntan lotion back then,
I mused, picturing him fried to a crisp in the cane fields.

“I'm hungry,” Bob said. “Let's go have some ribs.”

We wandered back toward the grills. One ambitious operation had erected a series of tentlike structures, with two-by-fours sticking up out of the sand covered with blue tarps; plastic tables and chairs were set up underneath. The tarps overhead snapped in the wind as we ate and listened to people speculate about which boat would win. After lunch the boats were far from sight, and the crowd on the beach dispersed to form a caravan of cars that climbed slowly up the hill from Sandy Ground. Curious, we followed.

The procession continued west, tracking the race boats and stopping periodically at viewing points along the road. We, along with hundreds of others, spent the entire afternoon following the race by road. Nobody's property was private during a boat race in Anguilla. We stood on people's cisterns, on hotel balconies, in the back of pickup trucks, and even climbed onto someone's roof for a better vantage point. Everyone pointed and guessed who was in the lead.

“
De Chan,
she up fron',” I heard someone say.

“No, man,” replied another spectator. “She headed too far south. Hear me now.
Light and Peace,
she gonna win this race.”

From so far away, the boats looked the same to me, but everyone else could identify them all. They rounded the western tip of Anguilla and then sailed nearly the length of the island, around a buoy, and back again. The Anguillian police boat monitored the race, making sure everyone sailed around the buoy, and at least a dozen more fishing boats, loaded with cheering fans, followed along for support.

It was four o'clock by the time
De Chan
came into view at Sandy Ground, followed by
De Wizard
and then
Bluebird.
Nell the taxi driver owned
Bluebird
and had been at Blanchard's the night before, boasting about his new sail from St. Thomas. Alwyn sailed on
De Wizard,
and we were excited to see one of our staff place in the top three. But
Light and Peace
had fallen back, and
Stinger
was nowhere in sight.

The crowd had returned to Sandy Ground to cheer for their boats as they came in. Bets were collected, and arguments broke out over the amount of ballast a boat did or didn't have, whether a particular tack had been a good decision, or if a new sail was needed before the next race.

That night the excitement continued in the kitchen.

“We woulda won, ya know,” Shabby said. “But our boom bent as we came by Blowing Point.”

“Shabby, you always think you gonna win,” Bug said. “That boat ain' nothin' compared to
Bluebird.
Our new sail is the best in Anguilla.”

“What happened to you, Lowell?” Ozzie asked.

“
Light and Peace
the best boat, ya know,” Lowell answered. “She just go a little too far south, that all.”

Alwyn's boat,
De Wizard,
apparently hadn't placed for a long time, so he was glowing. Everyone debated whose boat was in the best position to do well in the August Carnival races. These were the biggest of the year, with a week of qualifiers leading up to the Champion of Champions. Shabby said he and his brothers, along with a few other guys from Blowing Point, were thinking of building a new boat for Carnival.

“I'd love to help build it,” Bob volunteered. “Do you think anyone would mind? Actually, what I'd really like to do is go out in a race too.”

“No problem,” Shabby said. “You know how to sail?”

“No, but you can use me for ballast.” Bob smiled.

“You can' beat
Bluebird,
”Bug jumped in.

“Aya, Lawd,” Shabby said to nobody in particular. “Bug think he gonna beat us in August. He ain' gonna win.”

That night I fell asleep listening to Bob talk about boats. It reminded me of when our lives in Vermont revolved around ski racing and I spent countless days freezing at the bottom of a mountain watching Jesse compete. Sitting at the finish line on the beach in Anguilla had opened up a whole new world of competition.

After Easter the island slowed down even more, and Bob took the opportunity to fly north to visit his father in Vermont. He was going to stop in Miami on the way back and buy a pickup truck to ship down. Our little red Suzuki had served us well but was having transmission problems, and we needed a replacement.

He'd been gone for two days when the break-in occurred. I came home from work around ten-thirty and noticed the sliding glass door looked crooked as I went up the steps to the porch. I opened the front door but backed right out again after glimpsing the mess in the living room. My desk had been ransacked, drawers were open, and papers were strewn across the floor.