A Trip to the Beach

by Melinda Blanchard

“Okay, boys, roll it up now,” Errol ordered, and the sail was rolled and tied against the mast.

  “Now the boat,” Errol said, and everyone headed toward De Tree, which had been trailered to the edge of the beach. Several two-by-fours under each side propped it up from underneath. Gleaming in the sun, the light green boat still smelled of fresh paint.

  Rigby and several more of the crew arrived, and everyone now circled the boat. Errol dragged over two roller logs, and with much grunting, De Tree was skidded, rolled, shoved, and pushed toward the water.

  “Rusky,” Errol yelled. “Keep the rollers movin’.”

  “I movin’ them, Uncle,” Rusky said as he ran around, moving the logs along under the boat.

  After half an hour of concentrated effort, De Tree finally hit the water. As a small wave came up the shore it floated off the last log and was officially launched. Bob felt like cheering and applauding, perhaps christening its bow with champagne, but everyone else simply prepared for the next step, having done this many times before.

  They carried the huge mast out into the water and passed it up into the boat. “How are we going to stand that thing up?” Bob asked doubtfully.

  “We gonna hoist it up,” Errol answered, as though this was self-evident.

  The boat was now facing in toward the beach and rocking gently. One end of the forty-foot telephone pole mast, which weighed close to two hundred pounds, lay across the bow, while the other end rested on the shoulders of three men standing on the sand. A rope came off each side of the mast about one-third of the way from the top, while a third rope was tied around the very top of the mast. Errol and three other men held the end of that rope and stood in the stern of the boat.

  “Ready, men?” Errol asked. “Okay, pull.” He and his three men pulled on their rope, and the mast inched off the shoulders of the three men on the beach. “Pull,” he yelled again, and the huge timber rose a little further in the air. “Pull on ya rope, Rigby,” he yelled. Bob saw now the two side ropes were acting as guylines to keep the mast going up straight.

  “When she’s up,” Errol yelled, “Blanchard, you an’ Rigby gotta hold it from tipping over on top a we.”

  Bob suddenly felt responsible for the lives of the three men in the boat. What if the mast tipped over and crushed them? He dug his feet into the sand and clenched his teeth, preparing for disaster.

  Once the mast stood fully upright, Errol tied it in place with an inch-thick rope and announced the mast was up. Bob waded out into the water and climbed over the gunwale to see how this huge pole was attached inside.

  The mast didn’t really look attached to Bob. It sat in a hole that had been chiseled into a wooden block on the bottom of the boat. A heavy plank, resembling a bench, spanned the boat from side to side and had a notch for the mast to go into; the mast was tied around the plank, which helped keep it going straight up and down. Bob pictured the rope breaking and the mast tipping over onto the crew, killing everyone in its path. Errol assured him this was the way it was done and told him not to be concerned. “It cool, Blanchard. No problem.”

  The boom was now being passed up into the boat from the men onshore, and Errol began to attach it to the mast. It had a steel fitting on one end, which slid into another steel fitting on the mast, allowing it to swing from side to side. The sail was then unfurled and lashed to the boom. De Tree was now a sailboat.

  The sail swung back and forth in the wind, and Bob ducked as the boom narrowly missed his head. The men carried large, heavy rocks, pieces of lead, and sandbags out into the waist-high water, passing them up to Errol, who carefully placed each load in the bottom of the boat.

  As soon as the ballast was arranged to Errol’s satisfaction, he announced, “She ready, boys. Now less see how she sails.” The rest of the crew piled into the boat, and Errol skillfully turned it around, hauled in on the sail, and got under way.

  As the breeze filled the sail, De Tree tipped away from the wind, and the crew leaned far out over the other side in counterbalance. Bob hung on and leaned out with the rest of the men. Errol sat in the stern of the boat with one arm draped casually over the tiller. With his big, bare foot, he held the rope taut between the mainsail and a cleat on the bottom of the boat. As De Tree clipped along, heading out toward the open sea, Bob watched the shoreline of Anguilla get smaller and smaller, and he wondered how far out Errol would go before turning around. As if Errol had read his mind, he announced, “Get ready, boys, we comin’ about.” He pushed the tiller and as the huge sail slackened, De Tree turned. Errol pulled on the rope, hauling the boom in, and as the boat turned the long boom swung over the crew.

  All thirteen men ducked as the boom passed over their heads. Suddenly the whole crew scrambled to the other side of the boat, and without stopping to wonder why, Bob moved with the rest of them. As the wind filled the sail again De Tree picked up speed in a new direction, but still headed out to sea. The crew once again leaned out over the side of the boat.

  Bob had never been in a sailboat before and was fascinated by how fast the heavy boat could go. It was also surprisingly quiet. The only sounds, other than the men bellowing out commands, were the creaking of the ropes, the wind swooshing into the sail, and the splashing water. As the wind pushed on the giant sail the boat tipped so far over that the lower gunwale skimmed the tops of the waves. Water cascaded into the boat; salt spray covered the crew and added to the water already in the bottom.

  “Rusky, bail,” Errol ordered, and Rusky, at fourteen the youngest member of the crew, slid off the gunwale, grabbed a plastic bucket, and started throwing pails of water over the side. Bob hung on for dear life as he watched Rusky methodically fill his pail and toss the water back into the sea. It was a losing battle, as more and more water came over the side of the boat. As the bow crashed through the waves great splashes of water continued to soak the crew.

  “Come up to the wind, Errol. Come up to the wind,” Sam yelled. Sam seemed to be the navigator, and because he was the oldest man aboard, he commanded a certain respect from the rest of the crew.

  “Yeah, bring her up to the wind,” said Rigby.

  Bob wasn’t sure what “come up to the wind” meant, but he watched as Errol pulled on the rope and tightened up the mainsail. He also moved the tiller slightly, and Bob felt De Tree tip further onto its side. Now the lower gunwale was practically submerged, and as more and more water came into the boat, a second man jumped down next to Rusky and started to bail frantically.

  “She sailin’ now,” said Errol with a big grin.

  It was definitely sailing now, Bob thought as they crashed through the waves and water continued to fill the bottom of the boat. “I just hope she isn’t sinking now,” he muttered to himself, eyeing the two men bailing furiously.

  “Bring ’er up to the wind,” said Sam, and Errol pulled once more on the mainsail and adjusted the tiller.

  “Sandbags,” yelled Errol. Rusky stopped bailing and grabbed one of the bags of sand in the bottom of the boat. The bag outweighed Rusky by a hundred pounds, and he grunted as he rolled it up toward the crew’s feet. He slid back down in the bottom, grabbed a second bag of sand, and rolled it up next to the first. He continued until he had five bags lined up by the crew’s feet, helping counterbalance the boat.

  “Okay, bail,” Errol yelled at Rusky, who promptly stopped moving sandbags and went back to bailing.

  Bob continued to balance his upper body out over the water, glancing from time to time at the shoreline, which looked very far away. The swells were getting bigger as De Tree headed out to sea. Bob’s arms were aching from hanging on to the gunwale.

  “We goin’ clear down to Tortola?” Rigby asked. Apparently Bob wasn’t the only one wondering how far in this direction they were to continue.

  “Les bring ’er about,” Sam said.

  “Sandbags, Rusky,” Errol commanded, and Rusky rolled the sandbags back down into the center of the boat. Each bag settled on top of the rocks and irons, which were lying in about
a foot of water.

  “Ready, boys? We comin’ about,” Errol said.

  It took several hours and multiple crisscrossings to get back into Sandy Ground’s protected harbor. Until that day, Bob’s image of sailing had always been very romantic. It involved a captain sitting comfortably at the wheel, pipe in his mouth, passengers and crew sprawled on deck, as a sleek, smooth craft glided quietly over the water. De Tree did not fit that image. Its interior was completely unfinished, with no floor and no seats; Bob had a difficult time just keeping his balance on the steep sides of the slippery boat. After leaning backward out over the water for hours, braced against the gunwale, his back and his bottom throbbed in pain. By the time he climbed out of the boat and staggered up onto the beach, he was exhausted. His arms and legs ached, and he was sunburned and hungry.

  He sat down on the sand and watched as the crew began to dismantle the sail and unload the ballast. They dumped the sandbags over the side and passed the heavy boulders and pieces of iron out of the boat and carried them up onto the beach. After removing the boom, they lowered the mast and carried it up onto shore. They positioned three logs under the keel, and, again with grunts and groans, they pushed, skidded, and rolled the heavy boat up onto the sand. Using two-by-fours, they propped it up at the edge of the beach, where it would remain until the first race.

  “Only a week to Carnival,” Errol said. “First race be Sunday, but it more a practice run. The big ones be on August Monday and August Thursday. I’d be puttin’ some money on De Tree, Blanchard. She gonna have some sweet finishes.”

  “I’ll be here,” Bob said.

  “Later,” Errol said as he climbed into his old jeep.

  Bob and I walked to the restaurant one morning following a small band of mourning doves alongside the road. Their heads bobbed back and forth at lightning speed, and it was the first time we’d noticed that they had a little hint of rose on their brown heads. We stopped with them for a minute as they circled around an older man stooped in his yard. He was filling a bottle with motor oil, using a rolled-up sea grape leaf as a funnel. The doves cooed good morning and continued with us down the road. As we passed the salt pond one of the birds stopped to check out a big crab at the edge of the water. I glanced over long enough to see its purple stripes but was distracted at the sight of Lowell and Clinton squinting up at the tall coconut tree in our parking lot.

  “Man, we got a lotta coconuts,” Lowell said. “You guys drink the milk?”

  “I’ve never had it,” Bob answered.

  “There’s a kid up the road name Skipper,” Lowell said. “He climb trees real good. You wan’ me to bring him down an’ get those coconuts?”

  “You go for Skipper,” Clinton said. “We all wait here.”

  Five minutes later Lowell returned with Skipper. “Wait till you see this guy go up that tree,” Clinton said. “He the best.”

  Skipper hopped out of the jeep and kicked off his shoes at the base of the tree. He was a wiry kid, about eighteen years old, and Clinton was right. He could really climb trees. Within thirty seconds Skipper had shimmied up the trunk and was hanging on by his legs, which were wrapped around the tree. Both hands were free, and he began dropping coconuts onto the ground. Once he’d picked it clean, he called out from his perch, which must have been at least twenty-five feet high, “I comin’ down.”

  “Watch this,” Lowell said as we all kept our eyes on Skipper. He turned himself upside-down and proceeded to slide down the tree headfirst. At the bottom he put his hands to the ground, let go with his legs, somersaulted over onto his feet, and landed with utter nonchalance. Clinton began chopping off the ends of the smooth green coconut shells with a machete. He handed one over to Bob and me and said, “Drink.” We looked at the thin milky liquid inside.

  “You first,” Bob said.

  I watched Skipper, who was draining a coconut, and it reminded me of going to Trader Vic’s in New York as a child. My mom and I would share a ridiculously large tropical drink with straws sticking out of an imitation coconut shell. I could use one of those long straws now, I thought.

  I lifted the coconut to my mouth, tipped it up, and took a sip. It tasted like sweet water. I passed it to Bob.

  “You like it?” Clinton asked.

  “It’s not bad,” I said. “I think I’d like it better if it was cold.”

  Bob and I finished ours, and Lowell, Clinton, and Skipper divided up the rest. They were going to take them home to grate the meat for coconut cake. Those little bags of shredded coconut I’ve always bought in the store all of a sudden seemed precious as I pictured the labor of thousands of Skippers harvesting coconut trees all over the world.

  Anguilla’s entry into the space age was the topic of conversation later that night in the kitchen. Everyone was discussing the unlikely subject of rocket ships and launch pads. News of an entrepreneurial Texan planning to lease Sombrero Island and turn it into the next Cape Canaveral was the subject of the latest in-house debate. Owned by Anguilla and only thirty-five miles away, Sombrero is surrounded by some of the richest fishing waters in the area and has nothing on it but a lighthouse and a large colony of booby birds. Anguilla fisherman have set their pots out by Sombrero for years and consider it to be a sort of wildlife refuge. No buildings, no tourists, no development whatsoever.

  But now the natural rhythm of the island was being threatened by a Texan who thought he’d found a launch site far from anyone who would care he was there. Anguilla itself, he must have thought, was a small island in the middle of nowhere. Sombrero was just a desolate island that earned Anguilla no income and would be a perfect place for his rockets.

  “You ever been Sombrero, Mel?” Hughes asked.

  “No.”

  “I hear this guy gonna cover it up with concrete for he rocket ships,” Bug warned. “If you wants to see Sombrero, you better go soon.”

  My mind filled instantly with images of Apollo 13 streaking to the moon with a blaze of fire behind it and a thunderous roar shaking the ground below. I shuddered at the thought of visitors to Anguilla lying on the beach with a good book and a rum punch and then, bang, they look up in the sky and see a rocket blasting off over their heads. Ozzie explained that the Texan was only planning to launch one rocket a month and that the government would earn many thousands of dollars from the project. Still, what if on that one day a travel writer from the New York Times happened to be sunning on peaceful Anguilla?

  The debate continued throughout the evening and I was careful to steer clear of questions. “They ain’ gonna lettum launch rockets from here,” someone said. “Oh, yeah,” answered another. “They gonna launch the rockets an’ Anguilla gonna have more money than ever before. You’ll see.”

  Apparently the decision to rent Sombrero to the Texan was not finalized, and he was meeting more resistance than anticipated. International environmental groups were fighting to protect the booby birds, and local fishermen were fighting to safeguard their source of income. The future of little Sombrero Island made headlines from Los Angeles to London, and my guess was that the dispute would continue for quite some time. Cape Canaveral right here in Anguilla . . . that would take some adjustment.

  “Local ice cream. Get your local ice cream, for true.” We heard the loudspeaker from the road booming through the kitchen door. Talk of Sombrero and rocket ships was forgotten, and Ozzie began taking orders for ice cream from the staff. The owners of the ice cream parlor in town had a vehicle resembling a golf cart with a house over the top that they used to visit various villages and scoop ice cream. On Saturday nights they came to the west end, and Blanchard’s was always one of their stops.

  Ozzie and Garrilin distributed cups filled with every flavor: guava, passion fruit, coconut, kiwi, banana, and rum. We continued serving dinners while eating the ice cream, and I tried hard to pick up on the next conversation that had started. I was getting better at understanding the local patois, but at times it was still a foreign language to me. I caught bits and pieces ab
out a man who was apprehended at the airport with $450,000 taped to his body under a wet suit. I heard something about drugs and smuggling and a private flight to St. Kitts. It was a touchy subject—and not something I thought I should know more about. I didn’t ask any questions.

  July 31 was our last night for the season. We were shutting down for August and September, along with many of the hotels, since it was peak hurricane season. We served only a few dinners that night and spent the evening emptying and scrubbing refrigerators and giving away the remaining food to the staff. We packed up the linens in plastic bags and cleared the dining room of all the candleholders and wine buckets. We carried the potted palms outside, where they would get some light and rain during our two-month vacation.

  “We gonna miss all you,” Bug said to Bob.

  “We’re gonna miss you too,” Bob said. “But we’ll be around for another week. Jesse’s coming down tomorrow so we can all be here for Carnival. I wouldn’t leave before the boat races, you know. De Tree is gonna win.” Bob knew his prediction would spark a boat race debate, and he grinned as it began.

  “No, man,” Lowell jumped in. “Light and Peace gonna win this year.”

  Bug’s voice was louder, and he said, “Light and Peace, nothing. Bluebird the boat to beat. Can’t touch Bluebird.”

  “De Wizard sailin’ sweet, ya know,” Alwyn countered. “We be lookin’ over our shoulders at all you.”

  Everyone was yelling at once, and they were speaking so fast and so loud that Bob and I could barely follow what they were saying. We smiled at each other, enjoying the last kitchen squabble of the season.

  It was hard to believe we’d lived in Anguilla a whole year. I thought back to building the restaurant with the Davis brothers, the opening the previous fall, Thanksgiving, then the high season. I looked at Clinton, who had gone from being a mason to a dishwasher to a prep cook and was now my sous chef. He had no idea how proud I was of him. And Lowell, who was Bob’s right hand, had moved up from being a waiter to practically running the dining room. He had a key to the restaurant and would be responsible for checking on it regularly while we were up in Vermont visiting friends and family. I watched Miguel polishing a wineglass. His knowledge of wine had expanded immensely over the year; he could talk confidently about everything from puligny montrachet to zinfandel.