God Made For Man to Rest
On a breezy tropical morning at about 10 o'clock, the yacht JOLIKRIS gingerly navigated the narrow channel to a remote and uninhabited island in the Grenadines, called The Tobago Cays. As second mate, my job was to lower the anchor under captain's orders, and then get the rubber dinghy ready for going ashore. As we got closer to our selected mooring spot, I asked the captain to hoist me up in the bosun's chair (a small canvas seat on the end of a rope), to half way up the rocking mast, since I had realized that a truly wonderful photograph was in the offing. I grabbed my Nikon FM2 camera, with a 24 mm lens, and a short 24 exposure Ektachrome slide film and held on tightly as my father cranked me aloft using the mainsail winch. I was thrilled to see how clear the Caribbean turquoise water was, so clear that the shadow the nearby boat cast on the seabed, made it look as if it were flying. The captain had to lower the anchor himself and when I had exhausted the short film, I shouted down to be returned to deck. Eager to go ashore for a swim at the deserted beach, whilst chilling out, we met a local conch fisherman who dives the shells for their meat and souvenir shell handicraft. While chatting to the local, he sighed and murmured "this place is so peaceful, I would say that God made it for man to rest". I remembered that remark when I got the slide back from the processing two weeks later, and decided that the photograph really deserved that title. As it turned out, I sent the slide off to the Nikon Photo Contest and was very happy when it was chosen from among the 60 thousand pictures from 50 countries that year, to be on their company calendar, adorning the month of July, 1984. Many people have visited those lovely cays and I even know a man who returned there three times to try and equal this wonderful photograph. My Dad. Naturally, to no avail. It was really a case of being in the right place at the right time.
Another friend of mine ordered a print to hang above his desk, and when I asked him what it was that he found so magical about the shot, his answer was that, at different moments during the day, he would stop work and gaze at it, and think to himself, "It reminds me why I am working".
Geolocation - 12°38'08.4"N 61°21'43.4"W • 12.635668, -61.362061