THE SARONG

Scottish Kilt of the Tropics

I hope you enjoy this little dance through the past with recommendations that few of you will ever take. Having become so threadbare as to be inappropriate, there was a solemn and joyful ceremonial burning not all that long ago. Try one, buy one; you’ll have to trust me, and I know you do. Like Scottish Kilts, no matter your age, race or gender they’re sexy, for both the wearer and the observer. ~J

Penned on the Winter Solstice 2021

On the shortest day of the year a warm breeze ruffles my tattered sarong. This faded purple wrap is my favorite, purchased long ago in Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico, an island just east of the Yucatán Peninsula, when I first fell in love with the color of Caribbean water and tropical breezes, when I first understood that they would draw me forever. I bought a house there, stayed until the winds, whims and needs took me to other places.

I own many others but just keep cutting the stray strings off this old thing. Should have thrown it away years ago, perhaps. I tend to step on the bottom, tasseled edge, creating yet another tear...because I wrap it crookedly, too quickly, as I go up through the hatch anticipating sunrise, or moonset, or on a truly great day, both. That same tattered edge drags through the salt on my decks, the sand on my beaches. But I cannot throw it away.

I don't remember liking purple twenty years ago and it's the only item of that color I own. The coverup with white and green fish all over it is part of my story now and has gone with me to the other side of the planet; Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, the Cook Islands as well as all the beaches and dive sites in this hemisphere I could get to.

People who don't wear sarongs haven't had a chance to experience and understand the freedom. They are the kilts of the lower latitudes. Those hot, masculine Scotsmen understand the cooling power of a skirt. The versatility. The movement they allow. Laughing now, are you? Just remember it's the little things in life that make it better. Grass skirts in the South Pacific serve the same purpose. Can you imagine the pleasure of that tropical breeze tickling the parts underneath my sarong? Right now the cool air is counteracting the humidity that dropped heavy dew as dawn approached. I sip my strong, sweet coffee and smile. The brilliant sunrise just faded and the barely waning Cold Moon is setting on the western horizon of the Bahama Banks.

"Spooky. It can be spooky," the grew-up-here sailor tells me, "out here all alone. Just the wind in the trees and the water slapping on the bow." He has taken me by surprise with that observation. "I love it," I tell him, a rookie by comparison.

The sun shines on STEADFAST’s rigging that very morning.

There is only the sound of the elements with the occasional splash of an unidentified ocean dweller that got too excited, too ambitious, too adventurous, and broke the ceiling of their world. Even if they feel it only briefly, imagine the stimulation, the adrenaline, the energy, the fear, when, for a split second, they feel air instead of water. There was a stranded flying fish on deck this morning, poor little guy, planning on re-entering the water when fate would have us passing by at exactly the wrong moment. A fish out of water is a slow end, gasping, wide-eyed, flopping on the teak, trying to rectify the environment that they do not understand; I feel a twinge as we toss the stiff little body with stiff little wings back into the water to be some other scavenger's next meal.

Filleting Snapper on the Banks. That day, top o’ the chain.

We interrupted the food chain, the natural progression, or did we? As travelers on the sea we are part of this world, we don’t take advantage, we take sustenance from, and give the rest back. The parts we don't partake of, are returned to the depths. Our love and respect is given, too. I thank Mother Nature for her gifts as I clean lobster and filet fish. Nor do we harm, by taking what we eat; the rest of the parts are quickly consumed by small creatures as an easy meal. Or a circling shark, cleaned in turn by a Ramora, whose waste sustains shellfish, and algae, and… the food chain.

addendum Summer Solstice 2025

In a time when the more powerful are taking advantage of their positions, it’s nice to consider that simple pleasures still matter; cooling breezes, soft fabrics and beautiful colors. They’re not petty, they’re not selfish, and I wish them for everyone. ~J

SPARRING with predators and tides.

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