Between the Lines

The Caribbean is the place where Americans go to get rid of their inhibitions," notes Bill Barich. "But what about people who don't have any inhibitions?" Such is the unsettling question posed by the case of Jim and Penny Fletcher, a wealthy American couple who spent nearly two years sailing around the Caribbean, stirring up a series of controversies that culminated in their arrest last year for the murder of a local water-taximan on the island of Bequia. Now, as the Caribbean heads into peak holiday season, the Fletcher case remains a bitter and much-talked-about subject, underscoring the region's strained and utterly dependent relationship to American tourism. A contributing editor of Outside during the magazine's fledgling days, Barich is the author of many books, including the novel Carson Valley, which appears in paperback this spring from Vintage. Barich's report is richly complemented by the images of Brooklyn-based photographer Michael McLaughlin.

Seattle writer Jonathan Raban has lately been plying the gelid, blue waters of the Pacific Northwest in a 35-foot ketch christened the Penelope. "I thoroughly dislike the name, which I inherited from a previous owner," says Raban. "But it's unlucky to change a boat's name. And when it comes to sailing, I'm deeply superstitious."

Susan Enfield spent much of the last two years trekking through Mexico, Asia, and British Columbia before settling in as Outside's new research editor. Hunkering down to a desk again got her thinking about those sturdy souls whose jobs have them constantly on the run — and in Olympian good shape. "It's nice to know there are still seriously fit people for whom 'working out' is an alien concept," says Enfield. "I see a new fitness craze: physical labor."

With Luc van Lierde's last-minute decision not to defend his title in this year's Hawaii Ironman, the whispers that his rookie victory may not have been kosher grew inevitably louder. The precise Belgian triathlete has been the object of much fascination because of his spectacular rise in the sport, and contributing editor John Brant travels abroad this month to huddle with Van Lierde — and finds him not quite as unambiguous as his reputation suggests. Van Lierde's portraits were shot by London-based Dan Burn-Forti.

Author of The Billion Dollar Molecule, Barry Werth this month profiles a certain political thoroughbred who's poised to become the best-known environmentalist in America, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "It's refreshing to write about a Kennedy who isn't immersed in a marriage annulment or problems with underage babysitters," notes Werth. Meanwhile, Outside Television is preparing an hourlong documentary with Kennedy on the battle to clean up the Hudson River, to be broadcast early next year on the Outdoor Life Network.

New Mexico writer Laura Hendrie is the author of the critically hailed novel Stygo and has worked as a radio dispatcher, a dog-walker, co-owner of a stoneyard, and a forest firefighter. Hendrie finds herself working her way down the untamed Ìoruh River, in the most religiously conservative part of Turkey. "It was a lot like rafting in New Mexico," she says. "Same high desert scrub, same snowy, serrated peaks. It's the Muslim Rio Grande."

A few timely postscripts: This month the PBS program Newton's Apple will broadcast a documentary special on Oregon high schoolers Morgan Beasley, Michelle Olson, William Gunderson, and Dan Solmon — and their exploration last August of British Columbia's Mount Sir Sandford, an expedition sponsored by the annual Outside Adventure Grants. And finally, concurrent with our 20th anniversary year, we're pleased to announce the release of Exposure (Westcliffe Publishers), a collection of our finest photography, and The Best of Outside: The First 20 Years (Villard), a hefty anthology of the magazine's most compelling writing. Both volumes hit bookstores this month.