Sailing Away to Buffetville

There are no frozen daiquiris. There are only pretty sunsets, friendly people and damn good cheeseburgers.

Welcome to Coral Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, where they'll keep your beer mug full, but they don't take American Express.

In fact, folks down here gave up credit cards long ago. You see, this is Jimmy Buffet territory, where people sick and tired of paying bills and answering phones anchor their sailboats for a night.

Those anchors never come up.

Forget the cocktails on Tortola and the snorkeling off Virgin Gorda. They were great. But on our sail around the Virgin Islands, the cozy night in Coral Bay was second to none.

We thought about leaving our anchor down for good. However, we figured the folks from the sailboat charter company were a little better at finding runaway clients than the creditors from up north. We were lucky enough to have one night in this peaceful place.

As we pulled into Coral Bay's little harbor at dusk, we knew right away it was Buffetville. No other charter boats in sight. As we weaved our way around other vessels searching for good anchorage, we noticed animals scampering around some of the boats.

These weren't boats. These were people's homes.

One couple stood up on deck, watching as the newcomers floated by.

"Let out a lot of chain so you don't have to worry!" yelled the woman, stroking her chubby cat. "It's pretty good anchorage here...good solid mud."

That mud had certainly held her boat in place for a good, long while.

Good place to eat around here, we asked, trying not to sound like tourists.

"Skinny's--right over there," she responded, pointing to a shack on land. "Best burgers and sandwiches around."

Considering that Skinny Legs Restaurant boasted the only dinghy dock in town and that our fish and steak were frozen to the bottom of our boat's fridge, we decided to follow the advice.

As we sat down to dine, Skinny's regulars tried to hide the fact that they wondered who the hell we were. They were new in town at one time too.

The Bass Ale was good. The cheeseburger even better. The menu dangling from the wall had one choice for dessert: a Ben and Jerry's ice cream bar. Boy did that hit the spot.

Skinny Legs had two TVs. Playing on one was the movie of the night. This was St. John's only cinema. On the other was the Olympics, specifically the U.S. women swimmers going for gold in the 4X100 medley relay. As the American anchor touched the wall first, everyone took time out from the movie to cheer and chat excitedly about another medal for the Americans. The scene was a commercial NBC could only dream of.

Skinny's roof was an old mainsail. The owners--two buddies from New Jersey and Massachusetts who moved down a decade or two ago--put the sail to better use than the members of the Coral Bay Yacht Club. Those people aren't sailing anywhere for a while.

The expressions on the locals' faces were priceless. The middle-aged men sitting around the bar--fully bearded pirates with crooked the teeth and beer bellies--looked satisfied with life and relaxed. Ditto for the women watching the movie intently.

And so after a taste of true paradise, we took the dinghy back to the boat, got some sleep and sailed off to find a good snorkeling spot at sunrise.

The last four days of our trip were spent on Tortola. On our final day we took the ferry across to St. John to see the parts of the island we had missed by boat--beautiful national parks, pristine beaches.

But they just didn't compare to the simple pleasures at Skinny Legs.

In our jeep, we found Coral Bay by land. We had a burger and another of those Ben and Jerry popsicles. We watched some more of the olympics.

No special goodbyes when we left. We knew we'd be back again.

We knew we'd be back again.