Caribbean Glow

EVEN BEFORE I OPEN MY EYES in the darkness, I know I’m in the
Caribbean. There’s the smell of warm rain and night-blooming jasmine. A rich soundscape of chirruping coqui frogs. A gentle breeze stirs the mosquito net overhead and, in my belly, there’s a Christmas-morning
sensation. It’s 3:55 a.m. and I’ve beaten my alarm clock. Fifteen minutes later, I’m drinking French-press Yaucono coffee and sliding
eggs onto a plate, next to thick slices of fresh bread slathered with butter and preserves.

These simple pleasures at Hix Island House are by design of the owners (and accidental hoteliers), Canadian architect John Hix and his wife, Vancouverite Neeva Gayle Hix, who broke ground here 20 years ago.
The guest houses sit atop high ground on Vieques, a lozenge of an island about nine kilometres off the east coast of Puerto Rico. They’re loft-
style modern structures that meld into the environment, completely devoid of glass windows, air conditioning or even a roof over the showers. Hix didn’t build the first bunkers on the island-Vieques was once the site of a controversial U.S. naval bombing range. The military departed in 2003, leaving a relatively undeveloped corner of Blue Lagoon-style paradise. Previously blitzed white sand beaches remain uncommercialized; a massive tract of jungle is now the largest wildlife preserve in the Caribbean.

My breakfast done, I flip-flop through the grass to the front gate, where guide Garry Lowe pulls up in his rusted-out blue Durango pickup (1993 vintage), a couple of Wilderness Tarpon open-faced kayaks lashed to a rack and fishing rods jutting out the rear of the cab. Inside, flies and lures are hooked into the peeling dashboard and ceiling upholstery. "My rod cost more than my truck," Lowe says. "But I’ve had millionaires, billionaires in this truck."

Lowe is "Canadarican" (Puerto Rican mother, Canadian father), and began guiding on Vieques a few years ago, as a refugee from corporate life. The lanky 38-year-old is too young and handsome to be a curmudgeonly old salt, but is still hell-bent on gathering a lifetime’s worth of local fishing knowledge, quick. We’ve already spent some
idyllic early mornings paddling in the kayaks and standing knee deep in the shallows, far out on the flats. Lowe tried to pass on the subtle skills of the roll cast and false cast, the basics of delivering a hook cloaked in string and feathers, with just the right movement to convince a sceptical and skittish bonefish or tarpon to bite. Instead, I would whip the surface to a froth, scaring sea life senseless for miles around. More often than not, Lowe would pry the fly rod away and replace it with a spinning setup. I didn’t mind. I had almost forgotten what we were supposed to be doing out there-sipping a molasses-sweet Malta, enjoying the
perfect ambient air temperature and bath-warm water was enough for me.

This particular morning we have a different mission. A generous moon provides movie-quality silver lighting as we lumber down a dirt road through the jungle to the water’s edge. We launch the kayaks out into the bay, the moon and backlit clouds reflected on its placid surface. Lowe lifts his paddle and a bluish-green light cascades off the blade. I pull my own paddle through the black water and carve a phosphorescent swath. This is one of only a few bioluminescent bays in the Caribbean, and one of the largest and brightest in the world. I scoop up a handful
of liquid teeming with the microscopic, light-emitting organisms and electric droplets sparkle down my arm. Below, a fish zipping through
the water leaves a cloudy contrail of light dust behind it.

The sky starts to brighten; the luminescence fades. I feel the desire to hold on to what is by nature ephemeral. Though I know that this
happens every morning, I wonder: For how much longer? Change seems inevitable on Vieques and development threatens to upset the fragile balance that sustains the bioluminescent bay. I had shared my short-hop flight over with one of Puerto Rico’s biggest land developers and his entourage. A W Hotel is planned. "These are dying days. It isn’t always going to be like this," Lowe says during a lull in the fishing action. I
close my eyes, the warmth of the emerging sun on my face, willing as much of it to soak in as possible. wl