There really are such things as desert islands, and not just in the South Pacific. There is one just off of St. Martin in the Caribbean that carries a particular memory for me, even as it stretches back to 1994.
Ile Tintamarre, or simply Tintamarre, is just two miles away from the crowded and crazy tourist zones of St. Martin. It is only 1/3 of a mile wide and boasts some of the finest beaches in the Leeward Islands. While it may have been inhabited in ancient times, that is no longer the case. Immediately after WWII, a small French cargo airline made their base there, and even built a crude, concrete runway, but by 1950 the airline had gone bust and their outpost and airstrip surrendered to the wind and the weather.
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| Up there in the right-hand corner, if you squint, you can see it. |
Although no one now lives on the island, a French woman with a disdain for Americans [I told her I was Canadian so that she would serve me] would boat over in the mornings with the tide, set up a plank of driftwood on a couple of barrels, and serve drinks from some coolers ["Drink Gatorade!"] to the nomadic yachting crowd who would inevitably find her and her establishment.
At the time, I was crewing on board the S/V Polynesia, a 120 foot schooner out of Miami Beach. As I was searching for good stories and anything cold to drink, I found myself engaged in a two-hour conversation under a palm tree with the past commodore of the famous Bitter End Yacht Club in Virgin Gorda who had sailed over 200,000 nautical miles through the Leeward and Windward Islands. He regaled me with stories of his adventures both at sea and on land, and gave me a flavor of what life may be like when one surrenders to the wind. It was enthralling, of course, and almost enough to encourage me to quit teaching philosophy at a dreary boarding school in New England and never leave the Caribbean.
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| The S/V Polynesia |
When I got back on board the Polynesia, I mentioned to another crew member that I had met the commodore. The crew member gave a derisive snort and said, "He's no commodore. I don't think he can even sail. He probably rowed over here in that...thing." He motioned to a small, disreputable rowboat on the shore that looked more like a poorly re-purposed bathtub. "That's Whiskey Pete. He's always around somewhere. Everything he says is complete bosh. He used to sell hardware over in BVI. I don't know what it is, but every port seems to have a Whiskey Pete. They're fun to listen to, and they tell great stories, just know it's bosh."
I eventually found that to be true; there was and is a Whiskey Pete in every port. There should be one in every airport, if just to entertain delayed travelers. Honestly, I don't find them as annoying as did my fellow crew member and, as my wife sometimes notes, I seem to serve as a magnet to them.
While there are tours from St. Martin, enriched by vague and inaccurate stories about pirates and healthy [or toxic, depending on whom you ask] mud baths on the less visited portion of the island, it still tends mostly to attract the yachting crowd who enjoy lounging under the spare palms along that glorious beach. If only Tintamarre had surfable waves. Ah, well.
The S/V Polynesia, which began life as a cod fishing vessel for a Portuguese company, and was later featured in a 1950 Australian documentary made on behalf of National Geographic, has since disappeared. When the American company that owned the ship when I crewed aboard went bust, it found its way back to Portugal, where it was last sighted five years ago moldering away in a shipyard awaiting a refit. I have no idea whatever happened to her since, but I suspect her brass fittings and interior woodwork have made their way to other boats, ships, and marine salvage yards by now.
I never saw Whiskey Pete again, even though I made my way through the islands in various craft over the next several years, but I certainly have encountered his spiritual cousins. There is something about the remote places that brings out the marginal people, and it's only lately that I've begun to realize that I'm one of them.