About a thousand paddle strokes ago, I lost track of where the sea ended and I began. I was aware only of rhythm – the pulsing of waves passing beneath me and the steady dip and pull of my double-bladed paddle. In front of me, my kayaking partner functioned as a colorful metronome. We stroked together, first on one side, then the other, shoulders turning in a choreographed dance, blades flashing in the Caribbean sun. The ocean was restless, seething and splashing around us, and the tiny froth at the kayak’s bow was a dubious sign that we were moving forward.

    We were part of a tiny flotilla of five bright white sea kayaks bobbing like seed pods in a world of Picasso blues. Beneath us was the cobalt bowl of the sea, above us a dome of cloudless turquoise. We were in the middle of the Sir Francis Drake Channel, bound from Peter Island to Tortola, largest of the British Virgin Islands.

    "Largest" isn’t very big. If you glued the 60-odd islands and islets of the BVIs together, the land mass is slightly less than the area covered by Washington, D.C. And the BVI population of 20,000 would be swallowed up in the mass of hurried humanity (600,000) that is our nation’s capital.

    Which is precisely why we had fled Washington in the ugly grey grip of January to paddle kayaks from island to island in one of the most pristine areas of the balmy Caribbean.

    Only 16 islands in the BVIs are inhabited, and most of these sparsely so. The rest are deserted, randomly shaped scraps of paradise – volcanic peaks topped with lush vegetation and ringed by white beaches, clear waters and an underwater zoo stocked with colorful sea life. Shallow coral reefs protect most of the islands from the approach of conventional boats, but our kayaks provided us with unlimited access. We planned to pitch our tents on any beach or snorkel any reefs which caught our fancy. . (more)