His beard was cut into a labyrinth. ‘Women love to seek the centre with their finger - or tongue,’ he said.
Large raindrops spattered his car. He smiled. ‘Even the sun has to wash its face sometimes. 'As the local song says, “Take me to paradise, Tortola, my island in the sun.”’
Smugglers Cove was rainy and wonderful. The white-beach bay was lined with jungle-overgrown volcanic cliffs, Flocks of pelicans dive-bombed shoals of fish. Despite their six feet wingspan, black and white masked booby birds are so agile, flying fish skimming the waves dread them. Also, masked booby birds circle slowly, high above, watching for when another bird has a fish in its beak. Then it zooms down like an Exocet missile, to harass and force the other bird to disgorge, and swoop and catch the fish before it hits the sea.
The rain was warm. Clothes dried faster than a Tortola Rasta’s smile. I just drank an extra rum cocktail to get an extra umbrella! Rum punch, made on the island since pirates of the 1600s, created fun happy hours. Even famous colourful beach cockerels were drunk. They scavenged and crowed, tottering more the more rum they drunk. Surely Paradise includes drunken cockerels.