Happy Birthday Pat !! ---- Joe Bailey and Gail Frank 3/6/2010

As Time Goes By

You’ve probably never heard of a place called, Carriacou. It’s one of the Grenadines, a chain of tiny islands in the southern Carribean that run from St. Vincent all the way down to Grenada. The nearest big city is Caracas, Venezuela, 500 miles by sea to the west.

Although the weather, the water, and the beaches are more or less the same throughout the Carribean, it divides itself almost evenly into North and South. The difference is the people who go there.

The north/south dividing line of the Caribbean are the French islands of Guadeloupe, and Martinique. They form a kind of barrier. (Nothing keeps Americans away like the possibility of having to deal with the French.)

Up north, in the mega-resorts of the Bahamas and the American Virgins, Type A’s vacation in a blur of tennis games in the morning, golf games in the afternoon and craps games all night in the casinos. In between, they text their brokers and change clothes six times a day.

Down in the south, the atmosphere and the people are completely different. The islands are smaller than their northern counterparts. Many don’t have enough water to support big hotels and condominiums. Most vacationers travel by sail boat. That, alone, changes the tenor of the place. It’s hard to be a dynamo when you’re cruising the Carribean at a leisurely eight miles per hour. The atmosphere can only be described as laid back languid. (Carriacou once had a revolution and nobody knew about it until it was over.)

The local West Indians are basically small town people with solid small town values. They think all white people are crazy, sent here by God for their amusement. And, based on the white people they’ve seen, it’s hard to argue with them.

Firstly, you’ve got your adventurous types, rugged individualists who are single-handedly sailing around the world on a 35 foot yacht. In the West Indies, a yacht is any privately owned boat. I’ve seen trans Atlantic "yachts" as small as 19 feet. Yachting down here is cut-offs and t-shirts, not blazers and cocktail dresses.

Then you have the crazy central Europeans who answered an ad in a magazine for plans to build a concrete sail boat. (No kidding!) They build them in the back yard, shove them into a canal or river and head for the ocean, which most of them have never seen. They sail down the European and African coasts to the Canaries, where the Atlantic is only 1500 miles wide, and head west. Those that make it turn up in the Grenadines.

The rest of the "yachty community" is made up of aging hippies, misfits, drop-outs, romantics, odd balls and smugglers of all kinds. In short, my kind of people.

My wife, Gail, and I discovered the southern Caribbean over a quarter century ago, when neither of us had grown up jobs, and instantly fell in love with it for all the above reasons. In the dead of the New York winter, We would hang out in the French islands for a couple of weeks. (My French is lousy, but I don’t give a damn. For some reason, the French don’t either.) Then, we’d hook up with out dear friends Pat and Ed.

The four of us would charter the Shazam for a week. The Shazam was a 50 foot ketch skippered by our old buddy, Dave Robinson who now owns a bar on the Mediterranean island of Minorca. We’d head south past the islands of St. Lucia and St. Vincent to the Grenadines.

We would spend the sun washed days lounging in the Shazam’s cockpit. Dave had introduced us to Jimmy Buffet, then the troubadour of the Carribean yachty community. I’d love to get you on a slow boat to China . . . Heinekens in hand, we’d sail from one little tropic island to the next, laughing and kibbutzing in the warm Carribean sun. After three or four beers, Pat and I would chant our own private sailing mantra: Deeper and deeper into the Caribbean!!!

Now, Gail and I were aboard an 80 foot ketch called the Shaitan of Tortola. It had been over 20 years since we had been in these waters. A lot had changed since the four of us partied there.

The island of Bequia, which used to be accessible only by private boat or the ancient schooner, Friendship Rose, now boasted an airport as well as a gas station and a hospital. Enormous car ferries run back and forth to St. Vincent all day long.

Union Island now also had a proper airport. In the old days, the main street in town did double duty as the island’s only runway. It made for some interesting shopping.

Now it was March 6, Pat’s birthday. We always celebrated Pat’s birthday when we were here in these islands: Watching the sun set, barbequing on the stern with tropical cocktails, or picnicking on a beach.

However, today was different. Today, we were here to scatter some of Pat’s ashes in this part of the world she loved so well.

Pat successfully fought cancer for ten years. She said she wanted to see her sons grow up. And she did. Pat was so heroic about it, we lost all fear of it. It was like, "Pat has cancer and she likes her coffee luke warm." But the cancer finally caught up with her. We held her funeral on her birthday last year.

But it was impossible to think of Pat in these islands and be maudlin. I half expected to see Pat, clad in the white cotton pajamas she wore against the sun, her red hair peeking out from under her Paddington Bear sun hat, scampering out of the gangway. She had loved and laughed in these islands so much, and now she would be a part of them forever. That just seemed so right.

Pat and Ed had always planned on taking their sons, Matt and Judd, sailing the islands with us some day. But we never got the chance. So on this trip, in memory of Pat, along with Ed was their son, Judd, Ed’s sister, Anne, and her son, S.J.

Across the channel from Carriacou is a little split of land called Sandy Island. It’s about a city block long and maybe 75 feet wide. Nobody lives on Sandy Island. It’s where the people of Carriacou go to escape the stress and strain of living on Carriacou. We had once picnicked there for Pat’s birthday.

All Sandy Island has to offer is a sugar sand beach and a stand of palm trees. Hurricane Ivan had taken down most of the palm trees. But they were coming back. Everything grows back in the Caribbean.

So here we were on the Shaitan, anchored off the beach of Sandy Island where we had celebrated Pat’s birthday so many years ago. It was a perfect late winter Caribbean day. The sky was azure blue. The sun was warm. The water was turquoise. You couldn’t help but smile. Gail and I were standing on the deck of the Shaitan waiting for the rest of the gang to form up and go ashore.

A slick reggae number was playing on the Shaitan’s stereo. Impulsively, I grabbed Gail and started to dance on the deck. After a few moments, we heard a trumpet somewhere playing Lullaby of Birdland.

Someone on one of the other boats anchored near us had seen us dancing and decided to join the fun. But the other boats off the beach were too far away to distinguish who might be playing a trumpet.

We shut off the stereo and danced to the trumpet. It was one of those southern Caribbean moments. Where else would you find some nut on a sail boat playing Lullaby of Birdland on a trumpet? Pat would have loved it. Then, the unseen musician segued into Besso Me Mucho. We continued to dance. Finally, he segued into As Time Goes By. When he finished, he got a standing ovation from all the boats anchored off the beach.

Then Gail reminded me that at Pat’s memorial service, the video presentation ended with Pat singing an arpeggio rendition of As Time Goes By. And so, we knew the spirit of Pat was with us. And I wish my best to that unseen trumpeter, whoever and wherever he is.

Then it was time to go ashore. It’s a unique experience, deciding where to bury a friend’s ashes. I’ve only done it a couple of times before and I certainly don’t want to get good at it. Ed and Judd picked their place. Ann and S.J. decided on their location.

Gail and I found a spot between two sapling palm trees. I love palm trees and I commanded the two if them to grow tall and strong to shade Pat.

Gail and I will always love that part of the Caribbean. But now, when I think of the very special little part of the world, I’ll know that my dear, dear friend Pat will always be a part of it.