I'll Follow the Sun

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But for all his good fortune-most of it made by putting himself out there-Gravelle has also had more than his share of bad luck. In 1990, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. Told by doctors in Melbourne that he had only a few years to live, Gravelle went back to Fiji and promptly resumed business as usual. The sky was still blue, as far as he could see.

'I don't live under a black cloud. I totally ignore it,' he declares. His only concession to the disease is the metal walking poles he uses to help him get around. 'Every couple of years, I dig the wheelchair out and try to derust it, but I won't sit down in it. I'm not terribly superstitious, but I think that would just be wrong.'

Maybe regular excursions to places the rest of us only dream about are tonic enough. When I got back, it took a couple months to get rid of all the chigger bites and all the creatures that had crawled under my skin,' says Gravelle of the ill-fated trip to the Solomons, where rats confiscated his shirt.

But even horrible trips, he notes, are worth savoring. 'Just getting out there gives me that edge of feeling like I'm still participating. I've been lucky to come here and do just that.'

And a whole lot luckier, Gravelle points out, than a guy dreaming about two weeks in the sun while shoveling snow off a driveway somewhere in Michigan. For this island romancer, 30 years out of the cold makes good sense.

'I'm not going anywhere else.'

FromEscape(April, 1999.) Subscriptions: $18/yr. (4 issues) from Box 462255, Escondido, CA 92046.

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