Sports Illustrated South: A 20-page Compendium Of Vacation Delights Beginning Here With The Travel Editor's Guide To Some Odd Birds In Flight

So many Rookeries have sprung up across the 6,000-mile banana belt stretching from Maui to Martinique that a sun-seeker heading south in winter must decide just what sort of bird he really is. To ease the problem of selecting a place to roost until the icebergs melt, I have classified migratory types in a pocket-sized directory known as Sutton's Sunlit Syllabus and Self-assessor. While purebred types are indeed rare—most sun-seekers are hybrids—a man who recognizes his own personality in the tables that follow should have no trouble making the burnishment fit the clime.

THE ROTO-BODY-BROILER

The garden variety of wintertime toaster is, of course, the Roto-Body-Broiler. He sports the luminous look of a man who spent 14 years on the bridge of the freighter China Lady sailing fortnightly between Penang and Mandalay. If the truth be known, he had a February week in Barbados, which he has parlayed into a winterlong tan by hiding under the barbershop sun lamp. The mere thought of losing his tan makes him feverish. For the Broiler a sunburn has twin rewards. First, a winter week's relaxing in the South can camouflage three months' winter dissipation up North. Second, there is that exquisite moment when, having returned to the frozen wastes, he stands silently in the office until some miserable paleface finally asks, "Good God, man, where did you get that tan?"

Roto-Body-Broilers roast the corpus in two ways, requiring the touristologist to subdivide the Broiler into two categories. The first, or inert Broiler, is the SUN FLOPPER. He throws himself down at the sight of the first palm frond. His equipment is simple: all he needs is oil, shorts, a white plastic nose guard and a ticket south. He nests on the settees strewn around Miami Beach swimming pools, on the noiseless beaches of the Caribbean's Caneel Bay, alongside the swimming pools appended to the pink palaces of Palm Springs, or on the sands of Waikiki. If he stirs, it is only for periodic basting and to toast himself evenly on both sides. In short, his motto is Go Now, Peel Later.

A Flopper, when wound up, becomes a SUN HOPPER. The Hopper wants to tan, but he can't lie still. He toasts while trolling for tuna off Hawaii, while pursuing the bonefish in the flats off Bimini, while stalking rare birds in the Everglades. He'll walk a fairway backwards to keep his face in the sun and, like all Roto-Body-Broilers, come Departure Day, he is the man who stands on the ramp until they shut the plane door, chin upturned to the bountiful heavens, getting his last licks before flying away home.

THE DAWN-TO-DUSK DOER
Sometimes mistaken for the Sun Hopper, this type is in the sea before breakfast, on the links before lunch, on the courts before tea and in the sack before 9. All he needs, really, is a pair of sneakers. He has liniment, will travel. But he hops pour le sport and, if he happens to get sunburned enroute, ça va. The Doer inhabits the Arizona ranches, arising before the sun for breakfast rides into the purple canyons. He pulls lead paddle on the outriggers of Waikiki, and he is first off the tee of the Mid-Ocean Club in Bermuda. Tomorrow he may be back in the office, so he gathers his charley horse while he may.

THE DUSK-TO-DAWN OGLER
The Ogler is the compleat spectator sportsman. He wonders why Dawn-to-Dusk Doers spend the whole day jumping all over the place when they could sit comfortably and watch someone else jump all over the place. He, for instance, has been up late watching the wheels in Havana, watching the floor show at Don the Beachcomber's, watching the limbo dancers in Jamaica. Tomorrow he will consult the morning line—in the afternoon. He will have breakfast at Hialeah. The only thing that will get the Dusk-to-Dawn Ogler out of bed before the day is half shot is the prospect of a spectacular day of girl watching by the pool. He thinks the bullfights in Mexico are dandy. They don't start till 4.

THE FREE-PORT FREEBOOTER
Perhaps the easiest type to spot, the Free-Port Freebooter is a scavenger who inhabits the duty-free metropolises of the West Indies and is often found boarding a plane or ship carrying five bottles of duty-free rum and a huge woven basket bulging with bongo drums, mahogany salad bowls, an old coconut, a conch shell and a set of English bone china. Recently some types have been given to carrying rumba or calypso boxes, hollow wooden crates fitted with steel teeth which when twanged go "Bloom! Bloom!" Freebooters who bring home rumba boxes in addition to bargain booze and bulging baskets usually appear at the airport clutching their homeward ticket in their teeth.

There are, to be sure, several varieties of Free-Port Freebooters, notably the WHITE ELEPHANT HUNTER, the BLOOD-IN-THE-EYE BARGAIN BUYER and the PLACE-IN-THE-SUN DROPPER. The White Elephant Hunter is rather like a mountain climber. He buys what he buys because it is there: a pair of maracas engraved with the lyrics of Mama Don't Want No Peas and Rice and Cocoanut Oil, a coconut sculptured to look like a hyperthyroid monkey, a candelabra made by native craftsmen of old condensed-milk cans. But the White Elephant Hunter is most easily recognized by his fickle taste, a foible which has long been recognized by steamship companies operating West Indies cruises. Most cruise directors designate the last night aboard ship as White Elephant Barter Night, an evening dedicated to trading unwanted treasures only recently obtained for things a person should have bought three ports ago.

Much more dedicated is the Blood-in-the-Eye Bargain Buyer. For this type the southern seas are a Shangri-La with merchandise, all of it marked down. Nassau is a place where the trees bear Royal Doulton and the landscape is paved with Harris tweed. St. Thomas is bounded by Danish silver, Swedish glass and French perfume. And if you're looking for a watch, Curacao is a Dutch Switzerland with a sensible temperature.