Rough Life On The Caribbean Sea You Can Get A Lot Of What You Wish For, If You Look Hard Anough And Share Enough Beers

My plan was to hitchhike from Florida to Venezuela, yacht to barco, island to isla, rum and Coke to cuba libre. It was a romantic notion. Maybe I’d seen too many episodes of “The Love Boat.”

I got a tip that the marina in Fort Lauderdale was a good place to start. I went to the docks with my backpack and started asking people for rides “down-island,” which is Caribbean sailing jargon for “south.” Several sailors were quick to point out that it was almost hurricane season, so there weren’t going to be many boats headed in that direction. In fact, yachting traffic was coming the other way.

I wandered up and down the marina, talking to every captain I could find. After two days pacing the docks, I finally got a ride - 20 minutes in the back of a station wagon to Hollywood, Fla. This “captain” dropped me off at my cousin’s house, where I popped in unannounced and stayed a few days.

I decided to try the Miami marina. I don’t know why I was obsessed about working on a sailboat in the Caribbean. After telling people about it for a week or two, it had somehow turned into a mission.

In Miami, I heard the same story. One of the captains who had just come up-island told me that several boats were sailing around the Caribbean, “but you have to get there to get on the boats.” He suggested I hop a charter plane to St. Thomas. I took his advice.

When I landed in St. Thomas, I immediately fell in love with the island. The sky was blue, people were smiling and, most important, I could hear reggae from every direction - and I hadn’t even left the airport.

I hitchhiked from the airport to Charlotte Amalie, the main city on St. Thomas. If they ever start giving out prizes for stupid city names, my vote goes to Charlotte Amalie. It reminds me of people who give their dog two names, like Mister Frisky or Bucky Snoopers. Charlotte Amalie, as it turns out, is a friendly port of call to gold-necklace-buying cruise ship passengers, and a stinking crime pit to everyone else.

I went straight to the docks. Same story: No one was headed down island. Worse yet, hardly anyone was headed anywhere.

The captain of a junk (and I’m not talking about a Chinese boat here) offered to let me stay on board for $10 a night while I was looking for work. I told him I’d think about it. Then, from behind me, another captain asked if I wanted to stay on his decrepit boat for $10. I couldn’t believe it. There were two boats right across the dock from each other renting out beds by the night. I noticed the bottoms of both boats were covered with crustaceans dating back to the Pre-Cable TV Period. Neither had set sail for months, if not years. I thought it was funny that the men who managed these floating hotels kept calling themselves “captain.”

I met an Australian in a bar that night who had been crewing on boats for the last two years. He explained the facts of sailing life. “If you’re a ship’s cook, you work your tail off for 14 hours a day in the kitchen and you don’t see the light of day. If you’re a crewman, you work your tail off, see too much sun and don’t get paid bugger-all. And most of the captains are idiots. The decent ones don’t like to hire people right off the dock.” I realized that I didn’t want any part of it.

So much for the glamour of sailing the Caribbean for free. I was ready to give up on my dream.

The next day, while I was plotting my next move with a quickly diminishing financial reserve, I heard some people seated next to me in a bar talking about taking a 10-day sail around the Virgin Islands to celebrate the Fourth of July. They planned to stop at St. Johns for fireworks and the carnival.

I weaseled my way into the conversation and eventually, after several beers, got invited along. The captain was a 23-year-old South African woman and the boat was even better; an 80-foot custom-made catamaran with a Jacuzzi, large screen TV, windsurfer, oak table that seated 12, cabins to sleep 15 and a water-ski boat - all of which belonged to her parents. I kept preparing myself for Allan Funt to jump out, yell “You’re on ‘Candid Camera’!” and escort me to a rowboat.

I pinched myself a few times before we set sail the next day, just to be sure. I helped pull up the anchor and hoist the main sail. But my primary title during the journey was “Crewman-in-Charge-of-Finding-Good-Music -on-the-Radio.”

Finally, I was roughing it on the high seas. I never made it down island to Venezuela, but then again - to the best of my knowledge - neither did the Love Boat.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO BOOKS “Caribbean Companion: The A to Z Reference.” Dyde, Brian. “The Nature of the Islands.” Barlow, Virginia. “Deck with a View: Vacation Sailing in the Caribbean.” Ware, Dale & Davidson, Dustin. “Sailor’s Start-up: A Beginner’s Guide to Sailing.” Werner, Doug. Tracks Publishing 1994. “The Cruising Catamaran Advantage.” Gibbons, Rod. Island Educational Publishing 1988.

GUIDEBOOKS: “Caribbean Islands Handbook.” Passport Books, 1995 “Caribbean Hideaways. 7th ed.” Keown, Jan. Macmillan Travel, 1995. “Best Sailing Spots Worldwide.” Robinson, Bill. Hearst Marine Books, 1991.

OTHER: http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/dest/cam/eca.htm