Subject: [The Simple Life]
John A. Smith
Caribbean Compass Article

Not long ago while enjoying an "eighth" of rum with a flat Coke and no ice in a small rum shop adjacent to an upscale restaurant, a tourist approached the bar and asked for a diet Coke. "None here," I said, "Life is too short to diet."

"I'd like to be as thin as you are," he said, then immediately asked me, "What do you do for a living?"

The fella did not ask me how I got by. He did not ask me if perhaps there might be a bit of sacrifice required to live what appeared to him, while now on vacation, to be the good life in paradise. He wanted the advantages, the security and the accoutrements of his American lifestyle—plus he wanted to know the joys of "the simple life."

I own and live aboard a homemade (rough, not crude) wooden sailing vessel of some 20 tons displacement, and have been aboard this particular vessel for 22 years. Prior to this vessel I have owned four others and, except for living in the Swedish cemetery in St. Barths after being shipwrecked in 1975, I have lived aboard a vessel since 1968.

My boats have never had engines, refrigerators or marine toilets. I do not have boat insurance, life insurance or a pension plan. I do not own a car, have a drivers' license, own a house or any land. I do not have a bank balance because I have never had a bank account. I do not have a TV, a VCR, a microwave, shower, Jacuzzi or for that matter running water.

But I am very mobile and have frequently spent over 250 days a year engaged in my favorite activities—fishing and sailing. I have no major health problems (tap wood) or ulcers; I have all my teeth and all my hair. Plenty of hair. I do drink, occasionally to excess, but not frequently. I smoke about one pack of cigarettes a week and most of the time I am barefoot. Except for shorts, shirts and hats, clothes are not very important.

Right now mangoes, avocados and bananas are ripe and this morning at the government market I bought eight avocados, six mangoes, ten bananas, sixteen passion fruit and a dozen limes for less than US$6. I regularly purchase fresh jack-fish for US$1 a pound. (I do have to clean and cook them myself.) I never tire of fresh vegetables, fruit and fish. I rarely eat meat or ice-cream, go to restaurants or smoke Cuban cigars.

But I did not take the time to explain all that to this particular tourist, knowing that it was not what he really wanted to hear. So I told him I ran machine guns and drugs, and he seemed relieved—his pre-conceptions and prejudices had proved well founded. He believed somehow that only by either being "immoral" or by tying myself to his particular work ethic could I exist as the free man standing before him.

jasmith/Mermaid of Carriacou

PREVIOUS • NEXT