Caribbean -- An Innocent Abroad Ends Up In Nudist Club

My wife and I had always dreamed of a Caribbean vacation, a dream that inevitably foundered on too little money or two little children who didn't seem ready to savor the joy of reading bad novels on the beach for a week.

But one day last fall, out of the blue, a benevolent uncle offered us a free week at his resort cottage on St. Martin, in the French Antilles. We snapped up airplane tickets, persuaded the boys to sit still for passport photos, and the arrangements quickly fell into place.

One evening I was slicing salad vegetables while my wife and I discussed our destination, the Club Orient resort on the windward side of the tiny island. Casually - too casually - my wife mentioned that the Club Orient was a ``clothing optional'' resort.

What does that mean, I inquired. My wife didn't mince her words: ``It means they don't wear clothes.''

My body jerked, and I nearly sliced off my hand with the vegetable knife.

We all feel the same about nudity, right? It's fine for little kids - up to about age 3, the experts say - and there's no denying that the ``clothing optional'' option suits, say, an Ellen Barkin or a Michelle Pfeiffer.

Nudity is supposed to be natural. (Stung by unfavorable publicity in the 1950s, nudists now call themselves ``naturalists.'') And some activities can be carried out only in the nude - conjugal delousing, for instance - but vacationing isn't one of them. What do you pack? Saran Wrap?

Before we had much time to worry, there we were, roaring into Club Orient on a gorgeous Caribbean afternoon, nervously fingering our collars and belts as if we might never feel them again.

The moment we arrived, my wife and two sons ran off to the beach, fully clad. I stayed in the cabin to unpack my suitcase.

So far, so good, I thought. The taxi driver had been wearing clothes, as had the desk clerk at the Club registration counter. The hotel's variety store did feature an odd inventory of nude Santa Christmas cards and bumper stickers that read ``Happiness Is No Tan Lines,'' which I wrote off to playful exuberance.

Then suddenly, through our bedroom window, I saw what looked like a huge pink blimp float by, tugging a life raft on a rope. At first, I thought the man (who I later learned was a partner at a major U.S. accounting firm) was wearing a pink body stocking.

Finally, the awful truth hit me: He was naked. Seeing him was like catching sight of the first star on a cloudless night; the longer I looked out the window, the more our neighbors came into view. And they were all nude.

We spent the first evening with our clothes on. Our aunt and uncle, mercifully clothed and providentially leaving the next day, offered to escort us to a happy hour reception at the resort restaurant, where we found a scene resembling a Manhattan cocktail party, scripted by Woody Allen.

A few men had twisted thongy leather ``tobacco pouch'' G-strings around their hips, while some women sported pareos, gossamer cotton sarongs wrapped at the waist. At this most dressy of Club events, about half the guests wore nothing at all.

Hesitantly at first, we mixed. Our fellow holiday-makers were friendly, hailing from what the British would call ``the professions,'' generally childless and quite conventional in everything except their vacation habits.

Although a Dutchman had founded the 10-year-old resort, most of the guests were Americans, a disturbingly high proportion of them from Massachusetts, our home state.

``We're escaping Puritan guilt,'' said a young couple from Weston, Mass., in what seemed as plausible an explanation as any other for their presence.

The next morning, for reasons that had as much to do with the Edenlike surroundings as with the conformist imperative, our clothes came off.

The children never noticed. Our 5-year-old occasionally donned Batman pajamas - in daytime, of course - to wow his friend Tomas, the 6-year-old son of a Japanese banker. The 3-year-old cast off his diapers and emerged toilet-trained; what better argument for the naturalist way of life?

And what about us? We loved it.

For one short week we cast aside the vanity of appearance and cloaked ourselves in the prejudices of veteran nudies, reviling the day-trippers from the cruise boats who came to ogle and photograph us.

Dressing was one less thing to do in the morning, and our laundry bills were zilch. The few times we wore clothes - nude restaurant dining was one threshold we never crossed - they felt unnatural, cloying.

When our week was up, we dressed for the return plane ride to Boston with the joyless hands of the condemned. We want to go back to Club Orient, the sooner the better. We want to be free again.