Progress in Paradise, Sort Of…
Once upon a time there was a large empty bay in the Caribbean called Nirvana Bay. There were a dozen local fishing vessels pulled up on the beach, some trash, a couple of squatters’ shacks—and not much else. It was quiet. Nothing important happened. There were no businesses. Nobody was making any money. But the West Indians who lived around the bay were laid-back and very welcoming—and soon a few international cruising vessels pulled in. One or two started headquartering out of the bay—as it was huge and very pleasant. Nobody noticed it happening, but the bay gradually became sort of a harbor—you know, a place where passing yachts regularly dropped the hook.
Each evening, some of the yachties would row ashore to share their sundowners with the local fishermen. Their laughter would gently waft across the still water. One recently arrived boat had a guitarist aboard. His playing was awful but his wife was a songbird—and they, too, started to come ashore each evening.
Occasionally, some of the boaters would invite the locals to a “potluck dinner” on the beach on a Saturday afternoon. Oh, how the laughing West Indian kids loved skylarking on the beach as their parents checked the level of their own rum drinks.
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Being a writer, I was especially interested in the local kids and their English. I carried around a bilge full of school supplies—mainly vocabulary and grammar books—to distribute throughout the Lesser Antilles.
One of the local fishermen was nicknamed the Pasta Rasta by an Italian boat—for his ravenous love of spaghetti—and he always attended these parties. He was a handsome fellow, with a wide grin. Soon he was doing little errands for the yachties—earning a couple of nickels here and there. His dream was to own his own fishing boat—a real one, with an inboard engine and everything. Once the yachties heard of his dream, they insisted on helping. They had a fundraiser right there on the beach, and managed to sell a ton of booze. Pasta Rasta managed to buy salvage rights to an old wreck and refloat it. The engine was useless but the hull was sound. It was temporarily patched and floated to the beach—where a bunch of us yachties huddled around it in rum-soaked bliss.
Each mooring at dawn, five or six lads dove in the harbor to collect a few conch for bait—so they could fish by hand-lining all day from their row boats. One of the yachties with some extra dive gear watched, rowed over in his plywood dory, and gave the guys a mask, snorkel, and fins. The generous yachtie did not need them. They were spares. Besides, their monetary value was little. And, perhaps, the mask might make a big difference in the guys’ lives.
It did. They could catch ten times the amount of conch they once did. People in the village were impressed. A different young fella got up the gumption to ask a different yacht—and he, too, soon sported a mask and two fins—which was also wonderful, despite the fact the fins didn’t match.
The Pasta Rasta was deep into his fishing boat project—and needed more money. With the help of the yachties, he opened Reggae Roost. It evolved into the nightspot for the local white folk, and the Pasta Rasta soon was selling T-shirts and sunblock too. One night, a drunk Jimmy Buffett stopped, and played a couple of tunes. Later, a passing powerboat left an amp and some cords—and soon there was nightly live music at Reggae Roost and Convenience Store.
There was one slight problem. The beach was kinda muddy. All the boaters had to get wet coming ashore, and some of the charter guest ladies—well, they didn’t like taking off their Gucci flip-flops.
…sensing a need, an older local fellow who’d once worked construction in the States built a rickety little dinghy dock—which was an instant hit. The smiling local kids would help you tie up. Some shallow-drafted French Ovnis on circumnavigation sterned-to for a while.
The smell of fried chicken was in the air.
The locals could now offload their fishing vessels with ease, and a fish market sprouted up in the parking lot (Yes, a few of the yachties had begun working ashore and had purchased autos.) between the road and the marina. Electric wires started dangling between mast spreaders and palm trees. During dock parties, someone would fire up a funky old generator—which you could barely hear, really, through the “we be jamm’n, jamm’n, jamm’n” of the reggae.
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One day one of the cutest of the little kids who helped tie up the dinghies was given a small tip—and immediately bought out all the candy at the little supermarket tacked onto the side of Pasta Rasta’s growing mall.
More and more bareboaters showed up—after all, this was an authentic Caribbean happening, for gosh sake! Cap’n Fatty aboard Carlotta dropped the hook. Fritz Seyfarth of Tumbleweed. David Wegman of Afrig’n Queen. My god, the word was out! Barefoot Davis and his band started opening on Friday nights. Was that drunken cowboy lassoing the local lasses really Kenny Chesney?
…but the more bareboaters that showed up, the more anchorage problems there were—mostly with boats dragging at night during squalls. So the Nirvana Bay Marine Association (NBMA) put in some stout, ecologically-installed moorings. These were immediately occupied, so more were ordered. Another organization called Bahn Heres put in some moorings, too, but in deeper water. Individuals, both local and yachties, immediately tossed down moorings—and one Aussie guy put in four of ‘em and supported his Mount Gay habit on the proceeds. Damn! There was money to be made! Soon even more moorings were hastily installed—now amid the coral.
A giant catamaran pulled in and spent three days drinking at Pasta’s—and at the end, dropped off six giant garbage bags on the dock. “Hey, mon,” said one of the local guys, “you can’t do dat, mon!”
The guy at the helm of the large center console inflatable wasn’t going to take any shit from a local lay-about. “We paid $22,000 US to charter that 97-footer out there—and we spent a fortune at Pasta’s. You can, at the very least, deal with our empties!”
“But,” said the local kid—but too late, the rich guy had roared off.
Now, the local bad boys used to not be too bad. Sure, they’d smoke ganja all day long—but they had to grow it to smoke it. And, there was no money in it—until now. So a grinning kid named Whiffy Spliffy now greeted every boat coming into the harbor with some pre-measured baggies of commercial grade ganja—and, on occasion, a couple of grams of coke.
During the annual fishing tournament, all the sport fishing vessels from Puerto Rico came—and complained about the stench from the fishing boats off-loading. Oh, the irony!
By this point, the thrice-expanded dock was so cheek-to-jowl crowded that its management team was forced to ban the dinghies—that weren’t paying anyway.
I, meanwhile, was away on my first circumnavigation. When I returned to the Lesser Antilles seven years later, I immediately headed for Nirvana Bay. It was a shock. First, there was no place to anchor, as all the depths under 80 feet were taken by moorings. Bars and nightclubs lined the beach. Touts for the various mooring rental outfits zoomed up in very fast, very expensive boats—as did the somewhat less aggressive ganja salesmen. The beach was divided up into gang-zones—it was five dollars to a large muscle-bound guy who’d “watch your dinghy” and not smash it to bits, maybe.
I immediately rushed to see the Pasta Rasta—as I knew he’d have the scoop.
“What the hell happened to this place,” I said when I caught sight of him. He was watching a large screen TV at the bar—live ESPN coverage of the Cannabis Cup of Holland.
“Oh, you mean last night? You hear ‘bout dat already? Damn! Anyway, some Jamaican kid was trying to, you know, take a local’s corner—so some idiot from the other side of de island busted a cap in face—stupid, eh?”
“What about your fishing boat?” I asked. “Did you launch it?”
“…sure, sure, we launched it,” said Pasta evasively, “but deres no money in fishing, Fatty. And I got the B&B under construction.…”
There was no money in fishing—and one of the reason was there were no fish any more. There were no more conch, either. And the locals blamed the yachties for that. “Dey come here and take, but they no give,” one local guy with very red eyes and a head full of filthy dreads told me. “When my fadder young, dere was no boats in de harbor and de bottom was littered with conch. Now, you can’t find a conch east of the Panama Canal. And dis government of we is weasels, me son! We tell ‘em we need the equipment to longline, and dey just laugh.”
The sad reality was that the local politicians couldn’t make any money off the local fishermen—but if they “sold” the local fishing rights to, say, Korea… well, they could pocket a good bit-o-change on the side, no one the wiser.
On the way back to my dinghy, a young girl with a dazed eye and a Heinnie tipped up to her mouth, slurred, “You wanna party, sailor?”
“Aren’t you Bethesda’s daughter,” I asked.
“How you know dat?” she hissed, attempting to focus on my face.
“I knew you when you were a kid. You lived across the bay—in dat green house with goats on the porch. I used to bring you and your sisters those LadyBird school books, remember? And I helped your fadder, Joe Jah, get the diesel engine of his first back-hoe running.
“…watch what you say ‘bout hoes,” shouted a teen-ager in the giggling, surging crowd behind her.
“…dat’s long, long ago,” she said. “Dat’s backtime, mon! Joe Jah is dead, and Bethesda too.”
She stared at me, and her stare was hard. There was a gulf between us. Nothing had gone exactly as planned. Brotherhood was supposed to be beatific, not sad.
I’d asked Pasta who’d ruined this paradise—as if it was someone else, some foreign bogeyman, some evil corporate conglomerate. But it was me. And him. And her, too.
I returned to my boat, hoisted my heavy anchor up from 100 feet of water, and steamed out of the harbor. Once outside the reef, I luffed up to hoist my mainsail. An incoming SunYerBuns bareboat swung alongside. Its crew had eager smiles. “Is this Nirvana Bay?” they shouted across the water.
“Not any more,” I replied.
Cap'n Fatty Goodlander has written for ALL AT SEA since 2005.
Worth your time?
Thanks — noted.
