Destination: Caribbean : A Little Play, a Little Work : Phone Calls and Faxes Followed 4 Women to St. John, but They Still Managed to Relax

With absolutely no case studies to back me up, I’d like to offer a brazen suggestion for the weary working women who wanted it all, went out and got it all and now have to live with it: Start packing. I have just returned from the future, and there’s a vacation in it for you.

You’ll have to make sure that a fax and answering machine are part of your accommodations. And you probably won’t be comfortable on the beach without a cellular phone in your bag. But if what I just experienced on a Caribbean jaunt with three of my high-tech girlfriends is any indication, this could be the wave of travel to come.

Here were four women, three of us mothers, who left behind a complicated accumulation of husbands present and past, children in diapers, children in adolescence and children in line for diplomas. Not to mention deals and deadlines and debts. Yet from a villa on a hill overlooking the water on the island of St. John, we wielded the kids, the men, the jobs and the snorkeling equipment without missing a beat, laughing for a week like a gaggle of 12-year-olds watching “Wayne’s World.”

Let it be known from the top that we are all control freaks, something some of us are trying like crazy to work out in therapy. But no doubt it was this collective characteristic that helped pull off our getaway.

First, I lined up my friends Esther and Joanne in New York. Then Joanne clinched our friend Katie, who lives in Chicago. Esther booked the cheap airline tickets and a villa with a fax, answering machine and porta phone. (We agreed to leave the cellular phones at home, later considered to be a lapse in judgment.) I got trip insurance policies. Esther agreed to bring the zoom-lens camera, Joanne the SPF lotion Nos. 15, 20, 25, 30, 40. Katie packed the bottom half of her bikini.

A warning: The planning stage does not run smoothly. Fathers of children and business associates may balk, credit card limits may be exceeded and uninvited friends may feel hurt. We ran into complications like that. But once at the airport, we aimed to leave the stress behind.

Even for four hyper women, it’s hard not to relax on St. John. This mountainous island of 20 square miles, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, is about two-thirds national parkland, with delicate stretches of white-sand beaches, vistas of the nearby island of Tortola, starry skies and spicy food. The temperature in February hangs in the high 80s; the sea feels as comforting as a bath.

We arrived in Cruz Bay, the main little town with most of the hotel and restaurant action, on a ferry from St. Thomas, where our plane had landed. We were met at the dock by David Crowell, a dapper developer who is planting houses on the barren east end of the island. He had rented us his first completed villa, a pink two-bedroom, two-story house with wraparound porches and a matching detached guest cottage with a couple more bedrooms and baths.

What we hadn’t realized in advance was that it was a 45-minute ride from house to town over steep and twisty mountain roads cluttered with goats. Or that we’d be driving on the left side of the road in an open-air Jeep (part of the villa rental) with the steering wheel on the left. (Even though this is a U.S. Virgin Island, it was settled by the British.)

Each night, after having dinner at some of the island’s best restaurants, we would enter the villa and all stand around the answering machine. Then we’d negotiate who would get the porta phone first, depending on the bedtime of the kids at home or the urgency of the late-breaking problem at the office.

We also had a routine in the mornings. President of a furniture company based in Italy, Katie would get the phone around 8 and call overseas from a hammock on the upstairs porch. Joanne, a broker who rents commercial space in Manhattan, was working on a complicated deal and liked to call her client in his car around 8:30. And Esther, a real estate broker in the Hamptons, would meet with local agents around 9 to discuss land sales on St. John. By 10, the faxes would start flying. Around 11, things would calm down for an hour or so while we had coffee on the porch and sat hypnotized as the day unfolded in Hansen Bay.

Then Heather, who (surprise to us) came with the house as a kind of concierge/guide, would arrive with croissants and fresh fruit. While we four talkaholics blabbed about money, men and leg waxing, Heather made the beds, washed the dishes and did the laundry.

Then she’d load us into the Jeep and head for a beach. One day, she took us to Lameshur Bay, down a steep dirt road on the south shore where we snorkeled out to the reef and lazed under the sea grape trees. (Beach time was sacrosanct; no business talk allowed, although we cheated a lot.) That day, we had lunch outside at Miss Lucy’s in Coral Bay, a West Indian restaurant with curries and conchs on the menu.

Another day, we visited Salt Pond Bay, a short hike down a rocky trail on the south shore, but we were put off from returning there because a park ranger approached us on the beach and warned us that island teen-agers often jump out of the bush and rob tourists’ belongings when they go swimming.

Heather introduced us to the beach of our choice on the north shore, the little-known and unmarked Gibney Beach, between the famous Caneel Bay resort and Cinnamon Bay beach. While both Cinnamon Bay and its neighbor, Trunk Bay, are the most scenic and have semi-famous snorkeling, they are usually packed with day-trippers off cruise ships and should be avoided by anyone looking for a patch of privacy.

After we sunned body parts never bared to light before, the late afternoon energy kicked in. It became our mission to find a phone booth. And when we did--once at a firehouse in Coral Bay, once at a T-shirt shop, another two times in a hotel lobby--we lined up for the voice mail segment of our vacation.

One, two, three, four, we all called in to our answer phones and took care of business. Then we were free to watch the sun set.

Perhaps the epitome of this working-mom’s vacation came on the Sunday that we chartered a boat out of Coral Bay, the Breath, to sail around the nearby British Virgin Islands. Before we left the house at 8 a.m., the phone rang for Esther. The news was that her little son had been up vomiting during the night. Her guilt was palpable. Feeling far away and helpless, we nevertheless decided to go forth with our plans, knowing the child was in good hands with his father. What else could we do?

Once on board, seven-foot seas left everyone feeling queasy and looking green (sympathy nausea?), and we eagerly jumped ship and waded ashore when we reached Peter Island, a bitty patch of land inhabited only by guests of a very expensive (and very overrated) resort. We sat down for lunch at its beach restaurant, but Esther was clearly agitated. With bare feet, she walked across acres of burning hot sand and pleaded with a sullen phone operator at the hoity-toity hotel to put out a call to the States. She came back smiling; her 3-year-old was running around the house as if nothing had happened.

Two days before our projected nine-day vacation was over, Joanne and Katie bailed out. They had relaxed about as much as they could. They were tan. They had finished their shopping. And they were crazed about being away from their offices for so long. So our sisterhood was reduced by half, and Esther and I spent the last 48 hours with the unwind button pushed in--filing no faxes, calling no kids, answering no voice mail--you know, having an old-fashioned kind of vacation.

Robins is Newsday’s Travel editor.

GUIDEBOOK: A Villa in the Virgins

Getting there: There is no airport on St. John. Visitors must fly to St. Thomas, then take a taxi to one of two ferries: in Red Hook (about a half hour from the airport and $3 one way to St. John) or in Charlotte Amalie (about 10 minutes from the airport and $7 one way to St. John). Warning: The ferry ride can be choppy.

Renting a villa: Several agencies book fully equipped villas and condos on St. John, most with water views and many with pools. Prices run $1,000-$6,000 a week, depending on size and season.

Our villa rental was handled by Bryan Burns at Privateer Bay Estate, 136 Bayview Ave., Salem, Mass. 01970; telephone (800) 229-USVI (229-8784). Besides villas on the east end of the island that come with Jeeps, Burns handles dozens of other properties around St. John and provides concierge services at all of them.

Other agencies: Catered To, P.O. Box 704, Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI 00831 (tel. 809-776-6641); Caribbean Villas and Resorts, P.O. Box 458, Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI 00831 (tel. 800-338-0987); Private Homes for Private Vacations, Mamey Peak, St. John, USVI 00831 (tel. 809-776-6876).

Getting around: A Jeep is a must to get around. O’Connor’s Jeep Rental, tel. (809) 776-6343; St. John Car Rental, tel. (809) 776-6103; Spencer’s Jeep Rental, tel. (809) 776-6628, and Cool Breeze Jeep Rental, tel. (809) 776-6588. Drive on the left.

For more information: U.S. Virgin Islands Division of Tourism, 3460 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 412, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 739-0138.