Crammed together 24 hours a day into 400 square feet—without telephone, television, e-mail, or fax—this voyage could easily have been an existentialist nightmare. Instead, we revel in our minimalist lifestyle, finding time to do the things that at home get shoehorned between meals, chores, and homework. Not once does Henry utter his usual "What is there to do?"
Because creatures are less easily spotted here in the mangroves than in wildlife-saturated Flamingo, each sighting becomes proportionally more precious. We see only one alligator—a seven-footer snoozing on a mud bed—but we also spy a turkey vulture above a distant mangrove, a scruffy-headed kingfisher scooting low along the water, and a sentinel-still great blue heron in the shallows. One evening, when Henry and Anne are heading back to the mother ship in the kayak, a pewter-colored fin breaks the surface of the water not 10 yards from them. "It's a dolphin!" Henry yells with delight. "It's dolphins!" Spouting from their blowholes, the dolphins circle the inlet, then disappear. All is still again, save the pounding of our hearts.
On our last night, we anchor near Hell's Bay, the gnarliest-looking square inch on the entire map ("Hell to get into, hell to get out," grumbled early explorers). It's the same place where Anne and I spent our last night in the mangrove wilderness 15 years ago. After dinner, all four of us climb into the canoe. Susannah in the bow, Anne in the stern. We don't go far, and the children are a bit fractious, perhaps unsettled by thoughts of our impending departure. In four days, we've traveled 21 miles, caught three fish, been bitten by too many mosquitoes, and seen 18 species of wildlife. We have suffered no mutiny, and though we scraped bottom twice, we've had no real mishaps. It's been every bit as much of an adventure, in its way, as the trip Anne and I took here when our own relationship was still uncharted.
In the gathering darkness, three dots of light gliding toward us become white bills belonging to a trio of coots. A cloud of sandpipers wheels low over the water. As we head back to the houseboat, the first star is visible across the bay. There are so many things to wish for—among them, that another 15 years will not pass before we come back. Filled with gratitude at how much our lives have changed since we were last here, Anne and I watch as Henry lazily trails his hand in the water and Susannah, nearly a young woman, paddles hard toward the fading light. n
George Howe Colt, a former staff writer at Life, lives in western Massachusetts. His memoir, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home, will be published by Scribner next June.
