Caribbean Memories

by Kelley Lindberg

I’m looking at a photo of my son pretending to drink a “sandy colada” on the beach in St. Martin. It’s one of a couple thousand photos we and our Baltimore friends took while we spent a week together on a 46-foot catamaran sailboat exploring the Dutch and French West Indies islands in the Caribbean. We just got back a few days ago, and I think I’ve nearly gotten all the sand out of our duffle bags – but not out of our memories, like this photo.

It was an incredible trip. Combine two couples who’ve been friends forever, their four boys ranging in age from 12 to 21, a week of perfect weather (despite the fact that it’s the start of hurricane season… whew!), a sailboat, a million tropical fish, assorted sea turtles, sting rays, barracuda, a nurse shark (“No, really, Mom, they’re practically harmless!”), and a giant pile of snorkel and scuba gear, and you’ve got a recipe for paradise.

At least in my cookbook, that is.

We chartered the sailboat from The Moorings, a company that charters boats all over the world. One of the nice things about this company is that they provide you with a list of meals for the week, you select the food you want, and they’ll stock the boat for you when you arrive. On the menu list, I make copious notes about the food allergies we have in our group (my son’s peanut and tree nut allergies, and the other mom’s kiwi allergy), and they are pretty good about making sure the provisions they bring on board are safe. I always go through every item carefully to make sure nothing sneaks by, and if it does, the company is good about swapping it for something else.

We cook most meals on board, so that makes it easy to control any allergens. And when we eat at a bar or restaurant on shore, we can usually check ingredients labels or talk directly to the chef to make sure the food is safe. If not, I carry a load of safe granola bars as a backup plan.

We’ve found that as the years go by, more and more people are aware of food allergies, even in the more remote places where we travel. It’s slowly becoming easier to talk to chefs – they understand immediately the seriousness of allergies, and they are usually willing to suggest safe alternatives. And labeling is becoming universally more allergy-friendly, so even local brands are making an effort to indicate allergens or allergy-friendly manufacturing processes.

Things have changed a lot in the last ten years, for the better, making travel a little bit easier every year. Of course, I still have to read everything, check everything, talk to everyone, and pack a ton of my own food supplies…you can’t stop being vigilante, ever. But at least there are growing options and increased awareness.

And that makes me happy, because experiencing all the world has to offer is an irresistible goal for our family – and my son would rather live on two weeks’ worth of safe granola bars alone rather than risk missing out on swimming through tropical coral reefs and play peek-a-boo with a nurse shark. Me? I could live without the shark. But those iridescent blue parrot fish?… Never!

Caribbean Dreams

Re-entry is hard.

I love vacations, and I hate coming home. Coming home means piles of laundry, stacks of mail, a to-do list a mile long, looming work deadlines, and cold weather.

Sure, it’s nice to sleep in my own bed. I guess. Oh, who am I kidding? I much preferred sleeping on the 43-foot catamaran we just spent a week on while sailing through St. Lucia and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. Endless miles of turquoise water. Coral reefs teeming with fish in every color of the rainbow. Millions of stars in an unspoiled sky. Steel drum music wafting over the water from the nearby beach bar. Flippers and masks piled in the corner, ready for the next snorkeling foray. Rum punches. Conch fritters. Fish on the grill, freshly pulled from the water off the back of our boat.

I traded all this for gloomy skies, a messy house, and Christmas sale commercials?

Blech.

I’m a traveler at heart, and there’s no way around it. Right now, I’m sitting here with a handful of exotic coins in my pocket – they have scalloped edges and an old-fashion sailing ship on them. A giant conch shell, its inside pink and pearly, sits drying on my kitchen counter. My passport is lying open in front of me, its latest stamp a testament to my wanderlust.

I’m addicted to travel, and my addiction is apparently hereditary. My son has it, too. He got his first passport when he was 4 months old, when we went to Holland. At 2, he went to Hawaii and Sint Maarten in the Caribbean. He’s been to Mexico a couple of times, the British Virgin Islands, Belize, and now St. Lucia and the Grenadines. His wish list includes places like Pompeii, Japan, London, and Paris. Not bad for a kid who just turned 10. He’s gone through two passports now, and we’re about to order his third.

With his food allergies, we have to be a little more cautious and a lot more prepared than some when we travel. I carry a ton of food with me whenever we travel – lots of Enjoy Life! Foods granola bars, fruit snacks, and boxes and cans of things he can eat if we get stuck.

But the real life-saver is that since we chartered our own sailboat, we cooked most of our meals ourselves. Chartering a sailboat for a week is like renting a condo for a week – you have your own kitchen, so you can cook all of your own meals. The big difference is that you can’t usually sail your condo to another island when the mood strikes you!

Another good part about this trip was that our airline experience was positive – we discovered a benefit to the airlines’ recent cost-cutting measures! We flew American Airlines this time, and apparently they’ve done away with free snacks. No little packets of peanuts or trail mix! Instead, they have “food for purchase” on some of the flights. You can purchase snacks like chips, a cheese plate, or even a sandwich, but because they’re pretty expensive ($6), few people did. Personally, I felt a lot more relaxed on the flight because there simply weren’t as many wrappers floating around the plane.

Being able to control the food my son comes into contact with means my luggage is heavier, my planning is a little more complicated, and our meals might not be as spontaneous, but it does mean that we can still succumb to that wanderlust in our hearts.

Now if only I could feel as good about my return to reality. Where did all these bills come from, anyway?