Yet it makes perfect sense to me here in this Kodachrome ocean. Tom and I whoop and paddle like maniacs, digging in hard to race in front of a looming wave, on the edge of capsizing and laughing too hard to care. That evening we eat mahi-mahi cooked over the campfire's coals, vegetables, and corn bread baked in a camp oven. The night's greatest pleasure comes after dinner when we gather around the crackling beach fire under a moonless sky sparkling with every one of the galaxy's 400 billion stars. Venus rises, casting a shimmering path of light across the water's surface.
Meteors streak across the roof of the sky.
Then the night turns miserable. The tents become mini-saunas. I toss sleeplessly all night on pebbles that grow into boulders. Every frog and cricket and night bird and chittering insect on the island joins in a cacophony, trilling and twanging in an insomniac's opera. We spend the afternoon on the good ship William Thornton, a floating open-air restaurant and bar anchored just off the island's white beaches.