After a few hours of sailing, we dropped anchor in a beautiful cove that bore a suspicious resemblance to the beautiful cove we had recently left. The four guests jumped overboard and swam away. When we got back, we could smell our boat. It smelled like caramelized onions and lavender. I could swear that the masts of the few other boats nearby leaned toward the Aurora. “Lunch!” we cried and paddled harder. For each of us there was a beautiful tomato tart with a melting coin of goat cheese, its heat balanced on a crisp salad. Rich and Sam ate the same tarts we did, but they ate them down below. Whether that had to do with the size of the table or the propriety of service or their desire to have a quiet moment of their own, I do not know.
When I’m eating in a restaurant, I know that there is someone back in the kitchen cooking my food, but I don’t see them do it. And anyway, they aren’t making the food for me. They’re cooking the next order on the line. Even when the kitchen wall comes down and the chef becomes the evening’s entertainment, I don’t look over the hot stove and think, “Hey, that’s my dinner. He’s doing this for me.” But on a boat, the world is reduced to a postage stamp. Sam began work on dinner the minute lunch was over, and I knew exactly who she was cooking for. Plates were set down and whisked away by two people I was quickly coming to think of as friends. I understood that we were paying for our vacation, but the inequity of labor began to eat at me. Maile and I begged to chop peppers and wash pots, and were kindly and consistently denied. The Perrier flowed like, well, water. Would we like some nuts? More tapenade? Could they get us some more ice? I made our bed each morning and cleaned up the cabin, but after a swim I noticed that the sheets were tucked in tighter and that the pillows were no longer askew.
“Sam,” I pleaded, “you cannot clean my room.” While the three husbands sailed, Sam and Maile and I told each other about our previous boyfriends and our issues bra shopping. We managed to do yoga in a space too small to play a game of Twister. This was not a Four Seasons, this was intimacy on fast-forward. This was a boat, where after you swim and sleep and read you are still left with 12 to 14 hours of straight-up conversation a day. We sailed to another island, and then we sailed to the other side of it. We swam down to see the tiny yellow fish and the larger ones with blue stripes. One of the husbands saw a giant spiny lobster, and far out in the water I spotted a small shark lying still on the sandy bottom. I swam slowly, avoiding splashes, until I found Maile, and we went back to tell Sam our adventures.
One morning a tall, blond surfer pulled his loaded dinghy up beside us and sold Sam fresh arugula and mangoes while the rest of us bought T-shirts. Later that day, the arugula and mangoes made a bed for smoked-salmon cakes filled with smoked-marlin mousse. It was a better meal than anything I have ever made in my life, and she was serving it for lunch on a Thursday after swimming.
The six of us talked books. We played Scrabble. (Never play Scrabble with people who live on a boat. They have a lot of time to read the dictionary.) Sam made Rich show the DVD he made for her last birthday, pictures of the two of them sailing in Alaska, Australia, the Grenadines. It ended with his marriage proposal up on the screen in big, block print. We sat on the couches and cheered.
The trip was a success. Maile never did get sick, and I worked through my claustrophobia by taking long swims. In fact, the only thing about sailing I couldn’t get over was watching Sam work so hard. I also couldn’t stand to see Rich washing all those dishes, filling all our cups while we stretched across the deck like a bunch of sunning lizards. Surely one of those British Virgin Islands had a decent restaurant. On our last night, I offered to take everyone out to dinner.
The restaurant was, of course, a sad way to end the greatest culinary week of my life, eating lukewarm soup that wore the satiny skin of a bisque kept waiting. But it was worth it to see Sam in her staggeringly high heels and ruffled halter top. It was worth it to see someone serving her for a change. I can only imagine the brilliant final meal she would have made for us had we stayed on the boat. I like to think our sacrifice was a small gesture toward equality and friendship
To book a boat with captain and cook, contact Antigua Yacht Charters (268-463-7101; caribbeansail.com; weeklong sails (for two) in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean from $5,900)
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