101 uses for an old spinnaker

Another Antiguan night, another party. This one is at the Nicholson's, the family that established yacht chartering in the Caribbean. I'm chatting with Marie Colvin, a veteran foreign correspondent at the Sunday Times. She loves sailing. We have plenty of people in common and worked on the same stories a long time ago, but I don't think we have met before.

She's wearing a bikini and, like some of the other girls who have been crewing alongside her this week, she has a sarong fashioned from strips of day-glow red spinnaker that was ripped apart in a race the previous day. Not Versace, but think Versace prices then add a bit. Spinnaker fashion could catch on. A Frenchman is wearing a spinnaker thong. Nothing else. He's not part of the crew but wants to fit in.

Marie wears a black eye patch these days, pirate style. Someone suggests it's part of the costume. "An RPG took my eye out in Sri Lanka, left some shrapnel in my brain," she says. Now that's a line you don't hear every day over cocktails. The party goer nods vaguely. Whoosh. Her remark has gone completely over his head.

I like Marie. She has guts - an old school war reporter, who tells the story how it is, where it is. This is how she got the wound. I know she would rather it never happened but the patch seems part of her and she can wear it with pride. They don't give journalists medals for reporting from the front line. Just scars.

Everything ends in the Pindar pool next door. But wasn't that the other night too? There's a bright Caribbean moon and the water is baby bath cool. I'd warn trousers, shoes, socks even, to be proper. But a pool is a pool and there's more rum and coke. I'm back early at 3am, up again at 7am staring in the mirror at panda eyes and a tongue that looks in need of a shave. My liver is demanding recognition for all his work. He's called Sarson's.