From the bow of this spirited sailing ship, my view of blue water and green mountains framed by white canvas, I think that this must have been what it was like when Columbus sailed the Caribbean half a millennium ago.
Well, almost; I'm pretty sure the Admiral of the Ocean Sea never roamed decks thronged with naked people collectively swathed in 10 gallons of SPF 45 sunscreen.
This is a typical day on a cruise sponsored by Bare Necessities Cruise & Travel, an Austin, Texas-based company that transforms cruise ships into floating nudist camps. This particular cruise is a weeklong voyage from Antigua, south to Union Island aboard S.P.V. Star Clipper, a 360-foot sailing cruiser.
We're following Star Clipper's usual itinerary, stopping at five lush, mountainous islands in the eastern Caribbean though the ship usually travels in the traditional clothing-required manner rather than in the no-shirt, no-pants, no-problem mode. For this week, Bare Necessities has availed itself of a standard practice in the cruising industry: If you rent out the whole boat, you can make your own rules within reason. And the guidelines for this cruise are well within reason. This is no floating Sodom and Gomorrah. Bare Necessities adheres to the rules set by a decades-old national group called the American Association for Nude Recreation. While they prefer that clothing be optional, the group is relatively conservative and sets sensible guidelines. No overt sexual behavior is the rule, and it's strictly followed by AANR affiliates, including Bare Necessities.
Why go bare? When asked, most of the passengers say, ''Freedom.'' But I'm the only one asking questions. Everyone else is feeling the rush of letting the salt air and warm sun caress their skin every inch of it. To be sure, there's plenty of Mai Tai-guzzling, but no more than I've seen on the Disney Magic. In most ways, the cruise is very ordinary only the passengers are nude. If there is a difference, it's in the instant camaraderie; nudists have a collective spirit not unlike what you'd find at summer camp. They tend to be folksy types, given to pipe smoking and telling stories on the foredeck. This makes for a group that's congenial and homogenous, mostly upper middle class professionals. Our company includes college professors, a doctor from Miami and a quiet man who's reluctant to tell me his profession. Turns out he's an Anglican priest from Canada.
These passengers are well-suited for a week filled with days of (clothed) hiking in remote island forests and canoeing tropical streams. Starting from Antigua, we hit Dominica, a lush volcanic mountain of an island, where we take a boat trip along the Indian River and snorkel in an emerald pool beneath a mountain waterfall. From there it's on to St. Vincent and nearby Bequia, and then to the southernmost point of our journey, tiny Union Island in the Grenadines. On our return north to Antigua, we stop in Martinique and the ultra-French island, Iles des Saintes.
If you like that itinerary but prefer to keep your shirt on, Star Clipper ships sail the eastern Caribbean in winter and spring. But if you long to try what Columbus could never do, Bare Necessities operates an ambitious schedule of cruises throughout the Caribbean, turning luxury ships into clothing-optional zones, one week at a time.
Posted online 07/20/01.
