The Bass Ale was good. The cheeseburger even better. The menu dangling from the wall had one choice for dessert: a Ben and Jerry's ice cream bar. Boy did that hit the spot.

Skinny Legs had two TVs. Playing on one was the movie of the night. This was St. John's only cinema. On the other was the Olympics, specifically the U.S. women swimmers going for gold in the 4X100 medley relay. As the American anchor touched the wall first, everyone took time out from the movie to cheer and chat excitedly about another medal for the Americans. The scene was a commercial NBC could only dream of.

Skinny's roof was an old mainsail. The owners--two buddies from New Jersey and Massachusetts who moved down a decade or two ago--put the sail to better use than the members of the Coral Bay Yacht Club. Those people aren't sailing anywhere for a while.

The expressions on the locals' faces were priceless. The middle-aged men sitting around the bar--fully bearded pirates with crooked the teeth and beer bellies--looked satisfied with life and relaxed. Ditto for the women watching the movie intently.

And so after a taste of true paradise, we took the dinghy back to the boat, got some sleep and sailed off to find a good snorkeling spot at sunrise.

The last four days of our trip were spent on Tortola. On our final day we took the ferry across to St. John to see the parts of the island we had missed by boat--beautiful national parks, pristine beaches.

But they just didn't compare to the simple pleasures at Skinny Legs.

In our jeep, we found Coral Bay by land. We had a burger and another of those Ben and Jerry popsicles. We watched some more of the olympics.

No special goodbyes when we left. We knew we'd be back again.

We knew we'd be back again.