The Sultan of Jungle Beach

The Martha's Vineyard Nude Beach Story

The Day
It was a steamy hot Vineyard day, in the leeward side of August. The kind of humidity that made your clothes hung to your body like damp cloths.

I was going to break free of the work ethics of New England life and spend a day on the beach with Jim, a friend of a friend who thought we two had a lot in common, and would probably both like to travel up-island together and get out of the stuffiness of Edgartown on this hot August day.

The Man
Jim was a self-employed artist who was able to do what most of us other artists were never able to do -- create art which people were willing to pay money for. He sketched pictures of what people in New England loved most – boats. He painted limited editions of sailing boats. He had identified a target audience and every summer delivered a new product. He would first make a few pencil sketches of boats, then ink them with pen. Then he’d have them printed in limited quantities on watercolor paper, carefully destroy the negatives, and then watercolor the prints and add a number to each one to make them special.

With a willing audience of buyers waiting his new, limited-edition prints on the gallery circuit up and down the New England coast all summer, Jim became quite a celebrity. Sometimes he’d get a free stay in a room above the gallery while his paintings were on exhibit.

The Car
But Jim’s car, a rare, mind-blowing, mint-condition, 1941 Cadillac, was his most impressive feature. Probably one of the last Cadillacs made before GM turned over its assembly lines to tank production for World War II. It reeked class, with a capital C. It was a spit-shined bright black, with giant white-walled tires, and fender skirts so wide they hid most of the rear wheels. It had a rounded coffin-nose hood, and balancing on its tip was a gleaming chrome naked angel, wings swept back, poised forever in a leap forward. The giant front fenders were swept back so dramatically that they extended to the front doors. No surface or edge on the car was still, but curved and swept back gracefully, so that even stopped, the car remained surging forward. There were giant horizontal bars of chrome along the massive front and rear fenders. The grill had the trademark Cadillac chrome horizontal egg-crate grille and the headlights were mounted in the fenders – not on top. The rear window was a tiny square inside a large rounded top -- which made the car envelop you with the feeling of privacy – even though everyone was staring at you as you passed by.

Jim said the interior was genuine mohair. Mohair is the luxuriant fleece of the Angora goat. Sitting on Mohair seats in your swimming trunks is quite an experience. It’s so soft; it tickles your legs and makes you giddy.

This car was nothing like the pickup trucks and old rusted-out sedans I’d seen on Martha’s Vineyard throughout the winter of 1973. It made my old pickup look shameful. With its polished burled walnut dash, this was a car from another age, right out of a time machine. Napoleon, Mussolini, Stalin, Patton, or Eisenhower would have been proud to be seen in this car. It was an extreme machine, and it had, as I was soon to find out, a magnetic quality on the minds of humans – especially female humans.

The Fishing
As we headed north out of Edgartown in our fantasy mobile, I noticed Jim was selectively hunting for, and picking up, hitchhikers. I say selectively hunting, because he only stopped for really good-looking girl hitchhikers. Guys were completely ignored, as well as girls with guys. He only stopped for girls in their early 20’s that looked like they could double for fashion models. The girls all seemed wowed by Jim’s classic car as much as the girls wowed Jim with their looks or bodies. The car seemed to operate as a giant lure. And as we headed to the beach that day, we seemed to be trolling down the highway. And the trolling was working, for our catch was abundant. This day we had become fishers of women. I couldn’t believe our beautiful catch would be hitchhiking to the very the same beach we were going – which I had never heard of before, but everyone else seemed to know.

The first two girls we had picked up around the Edgartown airport. One appeared sturdy and well built. Her girlfriend was thin and small and looked a little like Maria Muldour (a popular 1970’s singer). To me they looked like gypsies, with loose-fitting skirts, and their hair in scarves. Next, we picked up another two girls in West Tisbury. They reminded me of girls lost somewhere in the 1960’s. We picked up our fifth passenger somewhere along the road soon afterwards. I couldn’t believe this old Cadillac would cause the girls to stare with that dreamy look in their eyes when we’d stop for them. It was as though General Eisenhower had just pulled up and asked them if they had wanted a ride.

Finally arriving at the beach, I noticed that the girls had all gathered clan-like around Jim. They headed for the beach like a small patrol, Jim in the center of the patrol and I in the rear guard position. We crossed over the dunes and through the trees and bushes leading to the secluded shoreline. Then, as we crossed the last dune, I found dropped clothes. I looked ahead, and was too stunned to move anything but my eyes.

Grunions in Reverse
Jim and his clan had stripped completely naked without a second’s hesitation. They jiggled out to the water’s edge like grunion in reverse, frolicking and laughing without a care in the world. And they weren’t alone. There were hundreds of other naked frolickers there too, even my art teacher from Adult Ed, Ms. Entwhistle was running around playing Frisbee in her nakedness. And by gosh – she really was a true redhead. There were short ones, tall ones, even ones with New York accents. There was a young couple next to us in the sand with love in their eyes for each other. Love expressed so vividly that it caused the girls in Jim’s clan to point and giggle.

I suddenly felt uncomfortably shy. Being from the West Coast I had always assumed that East Coast people were conservative and unforthcoming. Yet, here they were cavorting in the nude at the water’s edge while I was still hiding in my bathing suit, and feeling like a 60-year old “fuddy-duddy” from some southern state. I just wasn’t ready to dance the dance. I can’t explain the feeling, but I watched them from a distance, and envied their sense of freedom. That distance stretched for eons in my own mind. There was no way I was going to hang my butt in the wind – not in front of all these people.

The Harem
The troops eventually returned from the shoreline and Jim poured them wine. They talked and laughed and as I watched from my distant hiding spot I could see Jim thoroughly enjoying himself. Smiling and laughing, he’d chase off any poor guy who approached his little harem. Guys would sneak up with a lame excuse to start a conversation -- they’d ask for cigarettes, a match, sunscreen, any excuse they could find to make conversation with one of the five girls. Jim would do his best to run them off with the grace of an elephant seal.

And yet, as I looked at Jim smiling and laughing and entertaining these young nubile girls, I really envied him. He had everything a single guy could ask for: a great job where he could use his own ingenuity and creativity to make however much money he needed, a chick-magnet car that everyone seemed to want to be seen in, and at this moment a whole harem of naked girls who had to be nice to him to get a ride home.

The Sultan
With his t-shirt folded up over his head and his beard waving in the ocean breeze, I could see Jim as a kind of Sultan, (a kind of fat Buddha Sultan) pouring wine and protecting his butt-naked harem from marauding bandits, Bedouins, and pick-up artists. Right then, and forever in my mind, he was the Sultan of Jungle Beach, the sheik of the burning sands.

Bill Grote
1/04

Read more about Martha's Vineyard Nude Beaches at Gay Head Moshup Beachl

Volunteer Opportunities• Book Reviews•Bookstore • Books on Legal Help• Books on Helping Aging Parents• Books on Retiring• Links• About Boomer Books• Senior Health News• Dementia Symptoms• Selecting a Nursing Home . Blog