A half hour later we reached Bimini harbor, arriving at the same time as a Chalk’s seaplane, which got there from Miami in about 25 minutes (this is known, among us nautical sea salts, as the Wussy Method). The harbor was full of huge recreational boats that cost millions of dollars and burn hundreds of gallons of fuel per afternoon so that sportspersons, equipped with thousands of dollars worth of tackle and tens of thousands of dollars worth of electronic equipment, can locate and sometimes even catch fish worth up to $3.59 per pound.

A lot of people go to Bimini to find fish, especially the wily bonefish. There are many local guides who will take you out looking for bonefish; they’re all nicknamed “Bonefish,” as in Bonefish Willie, Bonefish Sam, Bonefish Irving, Bonefish E.E. Cummings, etc. While in Bimini I tried hard to get my traveling companions to refer to me as “Bonefish Dave,” but it never caught on.

It turns out that Bimini is part of the Bahamas, which is, technically, a completely different country. This meant that we had to go through Immigration and Customs. I have never understood the point of this process. I assume they want to make sure you’re not bringing in bales of cocaine, or an undesirable person such as Charles Manson, or some agricultural threat such as the Deadly Bonefish Rot. But in most places they hardly even look at you. In Bimini they didn’t even look at our boats. Instead they handed us a bunch of forms, which we spent about an hour and a half filling out and getting stamped by various uniformed officials. (They’re big on stamping things; I imagine that about once a week a big ink tanker steams into the harbor to replenish the supply.)

If I designed Customs forms, they’d have questions like:

1. Are you bringing in any cocaine?

2. How about Charles Manson?

And so on. But the Bahamas’ forms didn’t ask anything like this. Instead, they asked—this is a real question—”Has plague occurred or been

suspected among rats or mice on board during the voyage, or has there been unusual mortality among them?” How are you supposed to answer a question like that? Go down into the bowels of the boat, locate a spokesrat or spokesmouse, and say, “Any unusual mortality around here?” So I answered: No. I figured that if Buster contained any kind of animal life, it would be spiders, and they would be too severely vibrated to cause any problems.

The worst part of the Bimini Customs and Immigration procedure was that periodically one of the officials would ask me, in front of other boaters, the name of my boat (or, as they put it, my “vessel”). The other boaters all had bold masculine boat names like Sea Biceps and Testosterone Torpedo, so I felt inadequate:

CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: What is the name of the vessel? ME (quietly): Buster Boat. CUSTOMS OFFICIAL (loudly): Buster Boat? ME (very quietly): Yes. CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: And you are the master of the vessel? ME: Well, I was steering it, yes, but I was basically following Steele, because ... CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: What is the name of the vessel again?

Finally they decided that we were not a serious threat to the Bahamian national security, so they let us in. And I’m glad they did, because Bimini is wonderful. The most wonderful thing about it is that, because of the prevailing winds, currents, tides, rum supply, etc., Bimini is located smack-dab in the center of what scientists believe to be the world’s most powerful Lethargy Zone. It is extremely difficult to remain tense there. The moment you arrive, lethargy waves start washing over you, seeping into your body, turning your skeletal system into taffy. You stop worrying about things like your job, your mortgage, your kids, whether the recession will last, whether your fly is unzipped, etc. You function on a more basic level, concerning yourself with issues such as: Should I scratch my armpit now? Or later? If you stand in one place too long, you can become so relaxed that you sink to the ground and form a very carefree puddle.

“See that puddle over there?” people will say, pointing to a blob of flesh on the dock. “That used to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He was supposed to stop in Bimini for just a couple of hours—this was in 1958—but the lethargy got to him before he even got off the dock. We think there’s still a pair of wing-tipped shoes under there somewhere. Twice a day we pour a pitcher of daiquiris on him, and he’s happy.”

If you want objective proof of the Lethargy Zone’s effects, take a look at the famous photograph of Gary Hart in Bimini, sitting against a dock piling with Donna Rice on his lap. Notice how relaxed his body is. Notice the goofy smile on his face. Here’s a guy thinking, “OK, on the one hand, I have a serious shot at becoming president of the United States, leader of the Free World, the most powerful person on the face of the Earth; on the other hand, I can sit here with a hot babe on my lap.” On Bimini, this is an easy choice.

Geographically, Bimini is divided into two major parts:

1. The water.

2. The land.

The water is clear and warm and blue and beautiful. It contains numerous scenic fish as well as some highly relaxed conchs and the occasional airplane that crashed while attempting to bring in illegal narcotics at night back in the Bad Old ‘80s, before the government cracked down, when smuggling was a major local industry. (I wonder what those pilots put on their Customs questionnaires? Maybe: “There was unusual mortality among the mice and rats caused by the plane hitting the water at 120 mph.”)

But the land is my favorite part. It’s really just a few little islands, altogether less than 10 square miles, with about 1,500 residents, 75 liquor licenses, and a group of friendly, casual, closely related dogs. Most of the development is on North Bimini, along a strip of land narrow enough that you could probably throw a rock from one side to the other, if you weren’t feeling so lethargic. At the south end of the island is Bimini’s metropolitan hub, Alice Town, which consists of a few dozen stores, T-shirt stands, restaurants, and Hat-out bars. Most of the buildings’ front doors open right onto the narrow street, which has no sidewalk, so that when you step outside, you’re basically standing in the middle of the main island road. “Never step out of a bar in Bimini without carefully looking both ways, especially if you have been drinking the legendary Bahama Mama rum drink,” is one of the Coast Guard’s Rules for Walking Around Bimini.

Fortunately, there’s not much traffic, and the drivers, many of them on motor scooters, cheerfully weave and beep their way through the pedestrians, usually missing everybody, which is a lot more than you can say for drivers in Miami. People in Bimini are friendly. This is a generalization, but it’s true, anyway. People tend to say hi to you even if you’re a flagrant tourist.

The Bimini stores give new meaning to the term “small business.” Some of them could easily fit into a dressing room at Bloomingdale’s. The window displays are eclectic—Bimini mugs, T-shirts, conch shells, a roll of film manufactured during the Carter administration—generally covered with a nice, relaxed layer of dust. A number of buildings are boarded up or missing key architectural elements such as a roof. Men were working inside one bright blue building called The Chic Store (“Bimini’s Oldest, Established 1935”). A hand-lettered sign in the window said: SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE. CLOSED FOR RENERVATIONS.

The Chic Store was just down the street from Melvin’s Fashion Center, which featured a nice selection of T-shirts, and Priscilla’s Epicurean Delights (“To Thrill the Gourmet Palate”), which featured conch. Conch is one of Bimini’s major palate thrills, served in fritters and salads, or as a main course. It’s delicious, especially if you don’t think about what it looked like before they cooked it. “Never think about the fact that a conch is basically a large underwater snail” is one of the Coast Guard’s Rules for Eating Conch. Bimini also has a locally baked bread, sweet and heavy and highly addictive.