It's the day before spring break and you've turned in your last blue book. You throw your Chem 17 textbook into the corner, pick up your bags and hit the door. Two and a half hours later you've landed on some sundrenched airstrip where tropical island breezes blow all thoughts of midterms from your mind.

Think you've left Harvard behind? Think again.

Sharing the sun, sand and surf with you are the Din and Tonics, the Krokodiloes, the Opportunes, the Pitches and Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

A cappella groups--don't leave home without them.

Maybe it's the proximity to the Bermuda Triangle, but vacationing Harvard students say their classmates are eerily ubiquitous on an island about the size of a Dunster single.

"The island is small enough that you can't avoid anybody," says Ian R. Liston '96, business manager--and second tenor--of the Harvard Din and Tonics.

Members of the island-bound Harvard groups say tropical spring break performances are the high points of the musical year. "I'm so psyched," says Opportune Anne B. Allison '97 on the threshold of her departure. "That's a given."

The appeal of the performing arts spring break is simple: It's warm and it's free. But it's also a chance for group members to get to know each other outside of their weekly rehearsals.

"It was really the point last year where we pulled together," Liston says of last year's trip.

Of course, the appeal may be more than the promise of musical camaraderie. With low or non-existent drinking ages, some performers say it is easier to hold a steady pitch than to walk a steady line.

"You try not to be drunk for the concert," says Amy B. Brown '97 of the Opportunes.

'That Sort of Arty Thing'

The average spring break day in the life of a Din, says Mahau Ma '97, means getting up to "a fantastic brunch," and hitting the beach for "sand [and] waves." In the evening, the group heads to the restaurant or hotel where it will perform that night.

Like the Dins, the Kroks' vehicle of choice is the moped. "We form this really long caravan of 12 guys in tuxes," says Daniel Gallisa '94-'95 of the Kroks. "Sometimes cars honk."

Although the dress if black-tie, the Kroks' performances tend to be, in Gallisa's words, "laid-back."