Pleasures of Palm

At a mere 135 acres, Palm Island is not just small, it's almost microscopic, the Lichtenstein of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, that dreamy chain of isles in the southern Caribbean. Beyond the talcum powder-fine beach lies a marshy interior that has somehow evolved into a five-hole pitch 'n' putt golf course. There's not much in the way of topography, just three small hills, more aptly described as large mounds, that sit in counterbalance on opposing rocky points covered with clumps of Turk's head cactus that look like gatherings of red-headed gnomes. Godzilla-sized iguanas amuse themselves by skittering from the underbrush to scare the hell out of unsuspecting visitors.

There is no actual town here. No cars, just a few golf carts. Life revolves around the Palm Island Resort, which owns the entire island. The 200 or so people who populate the island at any given time-a maximum of 80 guests, the resort staff, a daily visitation of vagabond yachties-are what passes for indigenous culture. There are two policemen, nattily uniformed resort security guards who pedal their bicycles along sandy paths, ever ready to fight crime that doesn't exist. You can walk from one side of the island to the other and back again in 20 minutes. And that's if you dawdle.

So considering it is such a tiny place, I figured three days on Palm Island would do it. Stay any longer and the tropical equivalent of cabin fever might set in. My wife and I had a week to celebrate our anniversary; and we also wanted to visit some of the neighboring islands.

But as our launch set out from Union Island for the 10-minute ride to the resort, I realized I had made a grave tactical error. The view in all directions-north to Mayreau and distant Mustique, south to Petit St. Vincent, east to the Tobago Cays-was so pretty it hurt. And as Palm Island grew larger, we began to see its charms: a perfect striped palette of blue, white and green as sea led to sand and sand yielded to palms; the pink and yellow sails of windsurfers; the shaded terraces of cottages sequestered behind flaming orange-red hedges of croton and ixora.

My wife sighed. I sighed.

"I know just by looking at it that I could stay here the entire week," my wife said.

Then we both sighed again.

It's only fitting that one of the Caribbean's most romantic outposts should be the result of a world-class love story. It all began in World War II when a young American soldier named John Caldwell was stationed in Australia, where he fell in love with and married a young woman named Mary. After the war, Caldwell found himself stranded in Panama, pining for his wife. Unable to book passage on a freighter that would take him to Australia, he bought a sailboat and set course across the Pacific. One small hitch: Caldwell didn't know how to sail. Somehow he made it almost 9,000 miles before a hurricane wrecked his boat in Fiji, a harrowing tale that inspired Desperate Voyage, Caldwell's book about the experience, which remains a minor classic of maritime literature.

After they were reunited, the Caldwells bought another boat and, during the 1960s, began an island-hopping sojourn in the Caribbean. They eventually came across a barren little spit of sand that was known as Prune Island. After convincing the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to grant them a 150-year lease, the Caldwells began building a small resort that soon became a popular stop for the yachting crowd. John Caldwell also began a massive project, planting coconut palms all over the island and earning it a name.

After Caldwell died in 1998, the resort was bought by entrepreneur Rob Barrett, owner of several upscale resorts on Antigua. Barrett launched a multimillion-dollar renovation of the resort, adding a new swimming pool and open-air dining room, along with upgraded cottages. My wife and I checked into one of the treehouse cottages, which sat on stilts amid some of the palm trees Caldwell planted years ago. It was exactly 16 paces from the sea to our cottage, although actually pacing off that entire distance was way too much effort on my part. It was far better to approach it in stages: Start off by wallowing chin-deep in the warm water, then bask in a chaise lounge on the silky white sand, take respite from the sun in a teak chair on the cottage terrace and, finally, nap on the double bed beneath the gauzy canopy of mosquito netting draped from ceiling to floor. Yes, one must rest up if one intends to vegetate in serious fashion.

Call us slothful, call us idle ... just don't call us late for dinner. Our days were measured by mealtimes. There were breakfasts of banana pancakes, lunches of lobster salad and dinners of fresh red snapper. To ward off starvation, afternoon tea came with an assortment of fresh-baked cookies and cakes.

The thatched-roof bar offered its own form of sustenance. I've had more wretched rum punches in the Caribbean than I care to remember, thin and overly sweet concoctions that may as well be poured straight from a can. But Palm Island's punches have substance. One of the bartenders, a Union Island native appropriately nicknamed Bash, shared the secret: Make the simple syrup base out of brown sugar, not white, and use three different rums, not just one.

"It's a rum punch that could make God happy," said Bash. For mere mortals, it brings giddy calls for another round.

It would be a crime to travel all the way to Palm Island and not pay a visit to what are perhaps the best snorkeling grounds in the Caribbean. So one morning we wrenched ourselves out of blissful indolence to join another couple-honeymooners from San Francisco-on an outing to the Tobago Cays. Boarding the resort's 24-foot skiff, we embarked with two able crewmen, Leroy and Ricky, on a 20-minute ride to a cluster of uninhabited islands smaller even than Palm Island and surrounded by clear shallow waters dappled with the dark cauliflower-like outcroppings of coral heads.

At anchor in the channel between two of the islands sat a classic three-masted schooner, its deck rising several stories above the water. And as we knifed past to negotiate the cut, we heartily returned the hellos and waves from dozens of passengers on the schooner's deck.

"Oh, mon, it's them," said Leroy.

"Best close your eyes now," laughed Ricky.

It took a moment before we realized that none of the waving passengers were wearing any clothes. Let's just say there was a whole lot of jiggling going on aboard the schooner. Our friendly waves froze in the air.

"It's the nude cruise," said Leroy. "Comes around a couple of times each year."

We turned our eyes to the snorkeling grounds where, for a happy hour or so, we finned around with nude fish and lobster, a far more comely crowd. So stoked were we by the snorkeling that when it came time to dry off and motor up to the beach at Petit Rameau for lunch, we paid little attention to the 50 or 60 other people already there, paddling in the shallows and sunning on the beach. Only as we waded ashore did we see that the naked cruisers had invaded the island.

But that didn't stop Leroy and Ricky. In the mottled shade of a grove of coconut palms they unfolded a picnic table, covered it with a linen tablecloth and set out a small feast: fresh fruit, locally caught fish, a fine selection of cheeses and bread and, to top it off, a nice pinot grigio. We sat down to eat in civilized chairs, feeling almost Victorian in our bathing suits and T-shirts. There were naked people to the left and naked people to the right, and, sadly, not a one of them was easy on the eyes. We raised a glass and offered a toast: So much cellulite, so little shame.

Then we hopped in the boat and sped back to Palm Island.