In 1961, Tom Johnston and his wife Gladys left their jobs writing soft-drink commercials in Chicago in exchange for a life in the tropics. They settled on Bequia, a seven-square-mile island in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, an archipelago in the southern Caribbean. Then, as now, Bequia had largely escaped mass tourism. Hunters still chased humpback whales using hand-thrown harpoons from traditional wooden sailboats. It was worlds away from the nearby Mustique, where sunburned billionaires such as Lawrence Stroll, the collector and Aston Martin Formula One team co-owner, rubbed shoulders with Mick Jagger and the Bernie Madoff associate Walter Noel.
Even in the 1960s, Bequia was the island Princess Margaret—a Mustique devotee—chose for quieter swims. The main beach, where clear water laps golden sand and palm trees, still bears her name. Nearby, a small, colorful port named after her sister, Elizabeth, remains flanked by frangipani, bougainvillea, and tamarind trees. Bob Dylan, too, passed through, once working with a local shipbuilder on a custom wooden schooner called Water Pearl, delighted that the unbothered locals did not recognize him.
