Embarrassment Of Mangoes

Who hasn''t fantasized about leaving their job, saying goodbye to the rat race and escaping to some exotic destination in search of sun, sand, and a different way of life? Ann Vanderhoof and her husband did just that. In the mid 1990s, the author and her husband were driven, forty-something professionals who were desperate for a break from their harried, deadline-dominated lives. So they left their jobs, rented out their house, moved onto a 42-foot yacht called Receta (''recipe'' in Spanish) and set sail from their home in Canada for the Caribbean. AN EMBARRASSMENT OF MANGOES is Ann Vanderhoof''s intimate account of this two-year midlife interlude during which she and her husband travelled more than 7,000 nautical miles, dropped anchor in 16 countries (and 47 individual islands), and adapted to a new life on ''island time''. Exchanging suits for bare feet, they leave the stresses of their old life behind and become caught up in a world that is simultaneously simpler