How a mechanical debacle and too many holidays led us to a nudist beach

By the time the mechanic finished disassembling the engine and figured out what parts to order, the shops in the U.S. were closed for Thanksgiving. Two weeks passed until we received the parts, but then we lost another day to a local holiday (National Heroes Day). Don’t you love holidays? And then we had to wait for another shipment because we received a wrong part. We’re talking about international shipments, so you don’t receive your box as a nice present. No, that would be too fast and easy. What you get is a bunch of papers and forms, and you have to hire a “broker” to get the shipment out of customs (and somehow there’s always a weekend in between).

After five slow weeks the reassembled engine came back to the boat with the help of the yard’s crane. It run for a whole minute. And it died. A most definitive death, because this time we’re not trying to resuscitate it. The only way to make sure things are going to run for more than a few minutes is to get a new one. Which means of course more waiting. Extended, aggravated, painful waiting, courtesy of my least favorite time of the year: that irritating 52nd week.

Having run out of things to fix on the boat (although as I write this I’m recalling there’s a door that doesn’t close) we had plenty of time to kill in our hands, and the excitement of our last adventure had long worn out, so we looked for more. We didn’t have to do much research to find an unquestionable target: the one and only nudist beach on the island. Little did I know that we were going to get more adventure than what we asked for (but not of the kind you’re thinking!)

We first tried reaching the beach in our dinghy. It was far enough to make it our farthest dinghy expedition ever. To make it even more challenging, we left the outboard engine behind, and made it a sailing excursion. Wisely, I didn’t fully trust these reputedly unfaltering trade winds, so we brought the oars.

While threading through anchored boats on the outer harbor in very light winds we had to reject several towing offers from good samaritans riding fast motorized dinghies. Can they not understand that we’re going slow for fun?

After exiting the harbor we turned right and had a nice downwind sail for about one hour across the next bay. (Wait a minute! Downwind? That makes the return trip an uncertain endeavor. Oh well. Adventure!) The wind was not blowing in the direction we expected.

Once we got close to land again it wasn’t much longer until we could see the nudist beach, but from the distance the breaking swell seemed incompatible with the elegant arrival I had envisioned. The picture of us crash-landing in our flamboyant dinghy among naked people suddenly looked like the wrong kind of thrill. And even if we had taken our clothes off before arriving, we wouldn’t have quite blended in, I reckon.

We convinced ourselves that the more protected beach we just had passed was much more beautiful, so we landed there instead. It was indeed a beautiful and peaceful beach.

The route back was not only upwind but also against a current we didn’t even know it existed. We started actually making negative progress, getting closer and closer to a huge and luxurious motor yacht strategically anchored in front of the nudist beach. There was only one thing to do: row! We kept the sail up under the illusion it would help us. If it wasn’t helping we didn’t want to know because, being a windsurfing sail, it would have been a hassle to bring it down. The scene must have looked quite awkward, with barely enough space for a fully sheeted-in sail, a rower, a passenger, and the tiller, which had to be held above the passenger’s head.

Against all common sense and against Kathy’s admonition, I kept refusing towing offers with a “this is how we motorsail” response. I guess Kathy doesn’t have a sense of pride, and will probably live longer because of that. The return trip was three times as long as the outward trip, but we made it back. Right at dusk.

We considered the expedition a success, in that it was exciting and, most importantly if you look at our past history, nothing broke. However, there was still an unmet goal: the nudist beach.

We decided to check that one off in what we thought was going to be a conventional and uneventful way, and rented a car. Again, little did we know. Other than a wrong turn or two, we got there without much trouble but, as with the previous attempt, the hard part was the return trip.

The beach was so gorgeous and relaxing that we stayed there until sunset. When walking back to the car I realized there was a little problem. I had only brought my prescription sunglasses, which are not exactly designed for night driving. And Kathy didn’t have the required temporary driving permit (and she was not going to drive on a left-hand traffic country anyway).

It wasn’t a long distance to cover, but it was still a good half an hour of sheer terror, more stressful than anything I’ve done as a captain. Picture this: dark glasses and badly illuminated, very narrow streets with no center line marked. Open trenches on the side. Pot holes everywhere. Barely marked speed bumps. Unfamiliar place, unfamiliar traffic rules, unfamiliar left-hand driving, unfamiliar car (I kept switching the windshield wipers on instead of the turning lights). Busy, end-of-the-day traffic. Parked cars blocking your lane. Worse: parked cars blocking your lane and facing you; when you pass on the right of them, your brain recognizes that pattern as right-hand traffic and wants to make the switch. Pedestrians sharing the street with cars because there’s no sidewalk. A chaotic convergence of all things moving, including quadrupeds (most likely dogs, but what do I know if I could barely see?).

We survived with no damage, but I won’t ever laugh again at someone with sunglasses in a dark place.