This started as a particularly pedestrian blog post.

Now I’m writing it sitting on the leeward berth, the laptop sliding off my knees as we race south – and it is a race: Me and Samsara against the “tropical disturbance” which may or may not develop into a tropical storm or even a hurricane. One way and another, it is not to be trifled with.

But it is stomping across the Atlantic at 20 knots – straight for me.

I am relieved to report that the map shows it is still 1,500 miles away. But there is no doubt that it is coming and since I am rather new to sailing the Caribbean during the hurricane season, I have convinced myself that it is coming for me!

So, this is not going to be a post about how these delightful islands are becoming as familiar as my local high street. I was going to say that Instead of the Co-Op for Pringles and Timpson’s for more front door keys, it is St Lucia for the watermaker and Dominica for the Kindle repair. Actually, it was supposed to be Martinique for the watermaker repair but the company there was useless (never returned calls, didn’t acknowledge emails, had no idea when they might get round to it…)

So, as you might try the cycle shop if you can’t get what you want in the hardware store, I sailed over to St Lucia where Jon White of Regis Electronics fixed it in no time at all (and told me I was operating it all wrong).

I stayed just long enough to give it a quick test in the marina and drink several bottles of Piton aboard a big boat called Stargazer with some lovely people called Andy, Jo and Jo’s sister Vicky. Jo had given Andy Old Man Sailing and now Andy gave me all the electronic charts for the whole world!

After that, it was time for a proper sea trial of the watermaker.

Also, the Kindle needed to go back to the repair shop in Dominica. They said they’d fixed it a month ago – and it packed up the very next day on the way to Antigua.

So now – by this somewhat circuitous route – I was back in Dominica, anchored off the fishermen’s shacks in Roseau and Maria at Compusol said to come back tomorrow.

Then the Hurricane Tracker app opened with a big red X. A red X means “seven-day cyclone chance greater than 60%”.

I turned to Facebook (when you don’t know what to do, turn to Facebook.)

The advice was as universal as only Facebook advice can be:

Get into the mangroves in Martinique.

Get into the mangroves in Antigua.

Wait and see.

Go south now.

Watch YouTube videos about hurricane preparation.

Pray.

“Go South” is the standard advice. Even I know that – but the predicted track for this disturbance covered the coast of Venezuela. There wasn’t any gap to “go south” into. Maybe I should go north instead – there was plenty of room to the north.  Come back when it’s all over… The Facebook seers didn’t even dignify this with a comment.

Meanwhile, I had to change the freshwater pump or I wouldn’t be able to flush the watermaker even if it was working. The pump is under the sink. Changing it took the whole afternoon. With the cabin temperature at 38°C, tropical disturbances didn’t seem so urgent.

But by five o’clock, a new Windy prediction showed the storm passing north of Grenada. Suddenly Trinidad was shown in blue which means “light winds”. Now it made perfect sense to go south.

This was on Thursday evening. The disturbance/storm/hurricane wouldn’t hit until Monday afternoon. That gave me three and a half days to do 300 miles. With a trade wind on the beam, I could average 100 miles a day, no trouble.

I did spend some time working out that if I left in the morning, I’d still have three days and that way I could stock up with beer and buy a 7mm spanner which, I had discovered during the water pump replacement, I am lacking.

You can just see the headlines, can’t you: “Sailing pensioner drowned in hurricane. Beer and spanner blamed.”

So, I left. Waving to the Frenchman anchored next door, I pulled up the anchor and the sails all at the same time and hastened south.

The Frenchman raised his glass. The French don’t worry about hurricanes. Why do you think nobody bothers to translate sang froid?

And so, as I say, here we are on target, tramping along at five knots with the super zero flying in nine knots apparent – 122 miles to the turning point at the bottom of Grenada. ETA Trinidad midday Sunday.

I wonder if I can buy a new Kindle in Trinidad?

And a spanner?

A big thank-you to Tom Fisher and Marco Schaal who, between them, cleared up all the errors in my new book The Voyage #2: Falmouth to Grenada.

Tom managed much of this while sailing from Bermuda to Nova Scotia.

Neither has accepted the offer of a refund, insisting instead that I put it towards the boat maintenance kitty (or the booze locker).

What this means is that, if you buy the book now, you get the new edition which includes all the words – it’s strange how many managed to get lost on the way.

And thank you also to the 37 people who have bought it already – and this is where I have a favour to ask. If you enjoyed the book, would you mind awfully opening up the orders page of your Amazon account and awarding it some stars (perhaps even writing a review)? These things are so important in getting a new book launched.

I now have seven on Amazon. In particular, I would recommend my autobiography Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier: Learning to love ADHD. I really believe this is the best of the lot (it’s certainly fat enough). I’ll put a link below, just to be helpful…

 https://amzn.eu/d/a7j8Re8

Barbuda’s Nobu beach bar is more of a resort really, with wooden walkways in the sand and piped music among the trees, secluded sunbeds, outdoor bars…

They have an indoor bar as well – although nothing’s really indoors except for the five-star loos…

Nobu – walkways in the sand and piped music

…and a shady veranda

I had walked all the way up the beach specifically for a Nobu cocktail. In all the time I’ve been in the Caribbean this year, I still haven’t had my bushwhacker. I thought everyone knew how to make a bushwhacker (Rum, Kahlua, Amaretto, Baileys, Crème de cacao, Triple Sec & Nutmeg). But when I got there, I had to put up with something which consisted of white rum, chilli, lemon juice and 90% ice – for $25 – and that’s US dollars, not the East Caribbean ones as in “EC come, EC go…”

I wouldn’t complain because at least $15 of that was for the veranda furniture and the glass that came with the bottle of Carib (that was a first…)

No, what upset me was that I left my hat behind and didn’t realise until I was back on the boat. Nobu closed early on Sunday and would not be opening again until Wednesday.

Of course, I could abandon the hat and return to Antigua for customs check-out before going back to Dominica to take the not-mended Kindle back to the electronics shop. But this was no ordinary hat. I had ordered it online and had it delivered to the Heathrow hotel when overnighting on the way back from the family skiing holiday. A lot of logistics had gone into that hat. Also, it wasn’t cheap, and I find I’ve become very parsimonious since losing £352,600 by being just plain stupid.

(If that figure made you to go back and read it again, it’s not a mistake – well the numbers are correct – losing that much money certainly was a mistake. (The full story is in my autobiography Faster, Louder, Riskier, Sexier https://amzn.eu/d/a7j8Re8)

So, I certainly wasn’t about to lose my hat as well. All I had to do was hang around until Wednesday…

Princess Diana might have been content to spend several days on the Princess Diana Beach (well, you’d feel obliged to if they named it after you), I decided to kill the time by going up to Codrington – or “the village” as the locals call it. I could check out there instead of stopping again in Antigua. Also, they don’t charge if you to do it in Codrington which would go some way towards the cost of the ice cocktail.

There’s a good reason it’s free: Much of the water around Barbuda was last surveyed in 1848 (HMS Thunder, Capt. E. Barnett). The Cruising Guide claimed to have the most up-to-date chart – although my 2018 edition was still at the printers when Hurricane Irma came barrelling up the islands and punched a hole through the sand bar.

Even the Navionics chart includes notes such as: “This area is encumbered with numerous coral heads… put a man in the rigging and eyeball…”

Eyeballing requires strong sunlight above and behind the man in the rigging so that the deep water shows up as dark blue, the sand as pale green and the coral heads in sharp relief. I compromised by standing up on the cockpit seat and going very, very slowly.

The best thing about modern electronic charts is that mariners can contribute, and somebody had helpfully plotted a line of depth readings all the way along between the lagoon and the reef, right up to the anchorage just off the wrecked Lighthouse Bay Hotel.

This was truly spectacular. I had seen plenty of houses with their roofs blown off by Irma, but a hotel which falls flat on its face because the land underneath it gets washed away is enough to make anyone throw out an extra handful of chain before going ashore.

This was not as straightforward at Codrington as it had been on the Princess Diana Beach. Admittedly, thanks to Irma, I didn’t have to drag the dinghy over the spit and into the lagoon. Another note explains: “As a result of two hurricanes in 2017, a new pass has opened up between the sea and Codrington… wide and deep enough for RIBs and other dinghies to pass into the lagoon.”

The only tiny detail omitted is that it is a full two miles from the anchorage to the village and the Trade Wind was blowing its usual 12-15kts.

And I still don’t have an outboard.

Of course, I could call on VHF for a water taxi ($40 US at 2018 prices).

Or I could row.

I once rowed one-and-a-half miles each way across the Sint Maarten lagoon (from the Dutch side to the French side because I had a French SIM card and they had some way of restricting coverage to comply exactly with the border). But that was without taking the wind into consideration. My usual two-knot rowing average could be seriously affected by a brisk headwind. I WhatsApped the Customs Officer and said it would take me an hour-and-a-half. He said he closed at four o’clock.

Isn’t there a bit in The Riddle of the Sands when Davies and Carruthers are planning to row through the channels to creep up on the Germans and Davies says: “How far can you pull?”

The answer has always got to be: “As far as I have to.”

Rowing – with hat

I stopped only twice – once to take a close-up of the collapsed hotel and once to check on my phone if I was still going in the right direction (I wasn’t).

And it did take an hour-and-a-half – and the lagoon is sufficiently wide for a 12-15kt trade wind to kick up an appreciable chop – which then gets blown over the bow of the dinghy, soaking the oarsman from head to foot. But that’s OK because the water temperature is 29°C. By the time I’d walked a mile through the meandering streets of Codrington to find the Customs Office, I had pretty much dried off.

The Customs Officer had gone home. A woman on a bicycle told me where he lived. He came back, bringing the Immigration Officer with him.

We spent a pleasant twenty minutes filling in the forms (only five of them this time). I apologised for being late – I’d had to row across the lagoon.

They were incredulous – both of them: “You rowed across the lagoon?”

I don’t have an outboard motor.

“Nobody rows across the lagoon!”

This became obvious on the way back. Not only did I have the wind with me – so this time it only took 50 minutes and I didn’t even get wet. But a man in an enormous Boston Dory with three (yes, three) giant Suzukis on the back, drove over to ask if I was OK.

He came close enough and shut down his horsepower so that I could shout my usual response: “If I don’t do this I have to go to the gym!”

All the same, he wouldn’t leave until I had given him a definitive thumbs up.

And so, on the Wednesday morning, I carefully retraced my route inside the reef, round Nine Foot Bank and wriggled through the coral opposite the Nobu until I was just off the beach. I could see the people on their sun loungers and in the shade with their chopsticks and seared salmon karashi sumiso.

This time I was so close I didn’t have to bother with the dinghy at all. I swam ashore and presented myself, dripping, at the bar.

And yes, they had found my hat. The only thing I hadn’t planned on was swimming back wearing it.

And, if you meant to look up the book when you’d finished reading this, here it is again:  https://amzn.eu/d/a7j8Re8

It was always going to be about Barbuda.

Among these islands lumped together as a tropical paradise, Barbuda is special. It is the only one that is truly unspoilt.

Here, there are no sprawling hotel complexes, no condominiums or cruise liners. No charter flights through the night…

Barbuda, I learned from the Cruising Guide when I first arrived in the Caribbean in 2021, is pretty much as it’s always been. The blue-green sea dotted with coral and teeming with every kind of fish. Endless beaches of the palest pink sand that seem to be entirely deserted.

The island is half the size of Antigua and yet has a population of just 1,634. Mostly, it is left to nature with herds of donkeys, wild horses, deer and goats roaming free.

There is a rather unusual reason for this. The people were originally imported as slaves by the Codrington Family who leased the island from the Crown in 1685 (for an annual rent of one fat sheep). However, the Codringtons did not establish their usual sugar plantation but used Barbuda for growing crops and raising livestock for their workforce in Antigua. Also, the island made a convenient hunting estate (the locals still go out with dogs and guns after wild pigs).

Mostly, the owners left the people to their own devices. This meant that when Abolition came, the Barbudans carried on farming and hunting and fishing in much the same way they always had. Also, they agreed to hold the land communally – which meant that nobody could buy it…

With independence in 1981, the Island found itself amalgamated with Antigua (honestly, how can you have an independent nation of 1,634 people?) But Antigua is not like Barbuda. Antigua is particularly keen on development.

Mind you, the government didn’t have it all their own way: When a construction company spent all day putting up Portacabins ready to build a hotel on Spanish Point, the locals turned up en-masse after dark and pushed them off the cliff.

As the Guide’s celebrated author Chris Doyle puts it: “Many people would love to get their hands on Barbuda’s beachfront real estate, including, at the moment, Robert de Niro and his rich friends with the full connivance of the labor government. Some Barbudans object strongly. It is difficult to know how long they can resist McDonaldsization.”

Well, at least I was getting here first.

But that is the trouble with being a cheapskate.  My cruising guide was not even up to date in 2021. I bought it off another boat that was heading for Panama. It is actually dated 2018-2019. It doesn’t even cover 2017 when Hurricane Irma caused the entire population (all 1,634) to be evacuated to Antigua until basic services could be restored – and the government used this as an excuse to amend the communal land law.

So, when I turned up on Friday at Princess Diana Beach, expecting to find 16 miles of unblemished pink sand with just Enoch’s beach bar and lobster grill to break the monotony, I was a bit startled to find a construction site.

This wasn’t what I’d sailed 30 miles for. I turned hard a-port for a couple of miles until I could drop anchor opposite a deserted stretch of beach. Admittedly the boat did settle right on top of a coral head, but you can do that sort of thing when you only draw one-and-a-half metres.

I was just getting out a cold Carib when a helicopter came and landed right opposite – and then another one.

Half an hour after that, an enormous motor catamaran loaded with tourists from Antigua came and drove right up onto the beach, let down a ramp and disgorged its cargo of oiled flesh as if this was D-Day.

Clearly, things have changed a bit since Princess Diana was here in 1997. She chose it specifically because it was so darned difficult for the press to get to.

It wasn’t that easy for me, it being seven miles from the anchorage to Codrington, the capital – or “the village” as the locals call it. A taxi was $70 US return even at 2018 prices and I was still smarting from the engineer’s bill at English Harbour. I got out the bike.

I hadn’t ridden the bike since the Canary Islands, it had a flat tyre and the pump seemed to be broken. I took it anyway. There was a garage in town. Surely somebody would give me a lift.

His name was Chris and he was from Jamaica – an architect on the construction site. He reckoned that a little tasteful development for seriously high-end clients could only be good for the island – maybe they could build some decent roads.

He had a point: The reason a taxi costs so much is because a seven-mile return trip is going to take a while if the fastest you can go is 20mph and even then you’re going to wreck the suspension in the potholes.

Also, he had some bad news: The high-pressure pump at the garage was broken. The good news was that the dive shop could pump up my tyre with a SCUBA tank.

More bad news. The dive shop was closed. In the end, he left me at the General Store in the hope that they might stock a pump.

The General Store was closed because the proprietor had gone down the road. He would be back in fifteen minutes. This I learned from a tall young man with the biggest and whitest teeth I had ever seen. He said his name was Scuzzy and after a couple of beers from the Tummy Feast Restaurant two doors down, he found a SCUBA tank from somewhere and pumped up my tyre.

Then he chaired a Question Time debate among the other Tummy Feast customers gathered in the shade of the General Store (it now transpired that the store was closed because the proprietor was also the proprietor of the Tummy Feast – and that seemed to be more profitable just at the moment.)

The thing is that Barbuda is just getting left behind. It may be great to visit and sit on the beach, but you should try living here. Have you seen the hospital? Don’t fall off that bike…

You can’t stop progress – and it’s not as if there isn’t enough land. They’ve got more land than they know what to do with. Maybe letting a few rich people build a few fancy houses will get them some decent roads…

Yes, they may have a point there. I set off to see the Frigate Bird colony in the north of the Island. That would be another three-and-a-half miles down Route 1 with only the donkeys for company. I was about halfway when it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a single other vehicle and that if I did get a puncture from one of Route 1’s potholes, it was going to be a long walk back. If I fell right into the pothole and went over the handlebars… well, maybe better not to think about that…

In the end, I never did get to see the Frigate Birds because it turns out the only access is by water across the lagoon. The road takes you to Two Foot Bay – which was charming and ended in a scramble over huge volcanic boulders.

It was only later, sitting over a Carib in Enoch’s that I learned I had missed the Sink Hole too – 80ft deep with an entirely different eco-system at the bottom, all cool and dark and mysterious.

I wouldn’t have known about this either if it hadn’t been for Ian who picked me up on the road back to the beach – yes, I did get a puncture in the end.

Ian works in construction too and invited me to join him and his friends for Happy Hour. That was when I discovered that in fact Messrs de Niro and di Caprio do not have it all their own way.

The PLH development (it stands for Peace, Love and Happiness) may have a paved road and a chain link fence and a cute little security lodge painted pink. But the law still states that no matter how many notices they might put up saying “Private”, the beach is public for six feet from the high-tide line.

…and that includes the island’s oldest residents: the donkeys. Every night, they walk in single file down the beach (sticking to the public part as if they know the rules). Then, under cover of darkness, they graze on the expensive landscaping so painstakingly planted and watered every day for the delight of the seriously high-end guests.

I think that’s a nice touch.

Green Island and the No See Ums (you can’t see them in the photo either)

Green Island gets a good press. The Cruising Guide calls it “charming” and goes on about the abundant birdlife and the snorkelling on the reefs. The Caribbean Compass calls it a “must-do” and puts it in the top-five Antigua destinations.

So, I was rather excited to get away from the ministrations of Jesse the mechanic at English Harbour and the Nanni diesel agent (who wasn’t) in Falmouth.

This was going to be wild cruising.

I anchored in Ricketts Bay. I blew up the dinghy. I went ashore to inspect the wildlife.

Have you met the No See Um? I thought they only had them in the Pacific – a sand fly that is so small as to be practically invisible (hence the name) but packs a bite which on a pain-to- weight ratio leaves the Scottish midge at the starting gate.

To begin with, I thought the wind had got up and was blowing the sand along the beach – remember how it used to sting at the seaside when the British bank holiday weather turned on the Monday afternoon?

But there was no great gale of wind – just the stinging sensation. Eventually I spotted the tiny black specs on my arm. Honestly, they’re smaller than grains of sand.

But ouch! This was agony.

I ran back to the dinghy. I rowed towards the boat.

But of course, the No See Ums went with me – still crawling, still biting.

I did think of diving over the side, but my little dinghy is so small and light that getting back into it from the water is virtually impossible. It turns over before you get halfway. In fact, I’ve only managed it once and that was at the Yacht Club dock in Sint Maarten when I was drunk (I’m not sure how much help that was because it follows that if I hadn’t been drunk, I wouldn’t have fallen in in the first place…)

Instead, I grabbed a T-shirt, dunked it in the water and sluiced myself down. When I reached the boat, the first thing I did was to dive over the side.

Never mind, I had a better idea: Opposite Green Island is Nonsuch Bay which the Guide calls a “gunkholer’s paradise”. In particular, there is Hughes Bay where the Harmony Hall resort welcomes yachties on the same terms as its regular guests – who have an inclusive deal. This means there is a set price for the buffet – effectively an “eat as much as you like” deal.

This would not normally seem so exciting since vegetarianism has yet to make much impression on the Caribbean. But breakfast: Now, that might be an option…

I went looking for Harmony Hall.

First, I found a private dock with two prominent notices to that effect.

Then, what appeared to be a hotel on the point with steps leading up from a little stone dock decorated with conch shells.

I walked up the steps. I walked all round the place – I couldn’t work it out: It seemed deserted but the swimming pool was still full (although somewhat neglected). There was a car in the garage, doors open and rubbish scattered about. It wasn’t until I got down to the end of the drive and the locked gates that it appeared this was not Harmony Hall but Cinnamon Point.

Across to the other side of the bay, then – there was another dock over there.

And a private beach. With rows of sun loungers on the sand which someone had carefully raked to remove any trace of guests.

There weren’t any – at least, not until I heard the sound of voices and followed them past the beach bar (closed), past rows of self-catering cabins (all shut up) until I came to the infinity pool and a solitary American family splashing about. Apparently, the resort has been sold and the new owners yet to take over. Anyway, no as-many-as-you-like pancakes…

Tomorrow I shall sail to Barbuda. Barbuda is open, I believe.

I am pleased to announce publication of The Voyage #2: Falmouth to Grenada. This follows the success of The Voyage #1 which told the story of my crossing of the Atlantic going the other way. That was something of an experiment: Would anybody be interested in a day-by-day account of an old man all alone on an old boat in the middle of nowhere – especially when nothing much happened and he spent most of his time counting Pringles?

But, as one Amazon reviewer put it: “The man can write. Entertaining and fun. Makes you wish you had the courage to do this too. He turns every disaster into an opportunity. Great character and great attitude.”

And sure enough, the book sells consistently in the wake of the original best-seller (in the sailing category) Old Man Sailing – and that’s important because I’ve just realised how hot it’s going to be in the Caribbean in the summer and ordered a rather expensive awning.

However, The Voyage #2 is a very different beast – for a start it’s a good deal longer. And this time something did happen: A knockdown, a broken rudder – 1,500 miles with the steering held together with string…

Believe me, this one’s got the lot!

You can find it on Amazon in Kindle edition and paperback at: https://amzn.eu/d/cMaUG1s

There is a man living in my chain locker. His name is Marcel and he’s a second-row forward for the French national rugby team.

Marcel is a big lad – just over 20stone (that’s 130kg to the French –  286lbs if you’re American). But stocky: Marcel has very short legs. Second-row forwards don’t have to run.

I am fantasizing, of course – but the weight is real enough.

It’s all to do with replacing the anchor chain. The last time I wrote about this was in March 2021 – when I was enthusing at getting it re-galvanised for a fraction of the cost of a new one.

Well, now I’ve got a new one.

Periodically, I was supposed to take the stainless steel swivel off the end and measure the last link. This was 10mm chain and one day the last link would rust away to 8mm – at which point it would need cutting off so the swivel could get on with sacrificing the next link. However, the corrosion seemed to have stopped at a fraction below 9mm – and a 32ft boat doesn’t need even that much.

Like many things about Samsara, the chain is somewhat unusual: When she was built 51 years ago, it seems she started off with 30metres, and then one of the succession of previous owners decided to add another twenty. It was the last link of this 20metres that I had been measuring so conscientiously.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I decided to measure some of the links at the other end – the older end – the end that was (not to put too fine a point on it) fifty years old…

I found one that was down to 6mm.

Not 10mm chain – and there’s a link somewhere even thinner than this!

And you know what they say about the weakest link…

So, a new chain was called for – and what did I say about a 32ft boat and 10mm chain?

The worst part is the way it gets jammed in the chain locker by its own weight. So, the new chain would be 8mm.

But then there is this thing called catenary – the weight of the chain providing a shock-absorbing effect. This would be reduced with a lighter chain, meaning that I would need a bigger scope. Up to now, I’ve worked on 3:1, which is very old-fashioned. Modern anchor manufacturers all seem to recommend 4:1 as a minimum.

Well, that was OK, because 50m of 8mm weighs only 70kg, compared to 115kg for 10mm.

Or I could get another 32 of length for the same weight. I would be able to anchor in 20metres – and still have 4:1 scope!

But who walks into a chandlery and asks for 82m of chain? I rounded it up to 85m – it was only another 4kg.

And this is where Marcel and his short legs came in. Instead of measuring all 85m, he cleverly paced out the remaining 15 to leave in the tub. In fact, he paced out 14, to be on the safe side – at least, that’s what he said he was doing. I was over on the other side, working out how many more chain markers I was going to need.

It turned out I didn’t buy enough.

When I loaded the new chain into the dinghy to row the half-mile back to the boat – and then, when I laid it out between two pieces of plastic tape stuck to the deck exactly five metres apart, it transpired that Marcel’s little legs hadn’t measured out 14metres to leave in the tub… but only seven.

Either that, or he’d forgotten to double it.

Either way, I’ve now got 93metres of 8mm chain, weighing a colossal 130kg or, as I say, just over 20stone (or 286lbs).

I could just cut off the excess – but who throws away brand new Vigouroux chain? Also, the extra eight metres only adds another 15kg…

But when you add it all up – with another 20kg for the anchor – that’s an awful lot of weight up front. It’s a whopping 150kg!

As I say, that’s the same as having a rugby player in your chain locker (instead of where he should be, on the weather rail.)

I can only hope that the Rival’s famously fat and buoyant bow will be able to cope…

I’m still rowing.

Apparently, I’m the only one.

In the vast anchorages of the Caribbean, this is so unusual as to be considered truly eccentric.

Currently, I am in Le Marin in Martinique. I pulled in here on the way to Antigua because the Starlink only connects one time in five and if it’s the inverter that’s the trouble, I’ll have to take it back to Trinidad. Also, I’ve been trying everywhere to get an 8mm gipsy for the anchor windless. Sometimes I think cruising is nothing more than an exotic shopping expedition.

But it meant that yesterday, I made four trips between the anchorage and the dinghy dock – a total, according to my track on Navionics of more than three miles.

On my second trip – with only 50 yards to go, someone in a RIB with 15 horsepower on the back offered me a tow. I really must check my schoolboy French for: “It’s all right. If I don’t do this, I have to go to the gym.”

And it’s true. My son the doctor informs me that over the age of 60, you don’t make any more muscle – so, at 75, it’s really important to hang onto what you’ve got left.

Which, as I say, is why I am not buying an outboard after all.

I came very close to it.

Here was my problem: When I found Samsara seven years ago, it was as if the clock had spun backwards. I owned a Rival 32 in the 1980s – that was Largo. Suddenly, I could go back to the way things were. I could be 35 again!

Nobody had RIBS and davits in the 80s, so I looked up the smallest, lightest two-man dinghy – and came up with the 3D Twin-Air at just 2.3m and 13.8kg.

I knew which outboard I would put on it: The Suzuki 2hp. I could pick that up in one hand and swing myself over the guardrails and into the dinghy.

Well, that’s what I could do 40 years ago. Strange how the new one had to be laid on the side deck and then sort of shuffled into place. Also, it wasn’t really “new” at all and had acquired many of the cantankerous habits which come to us all in middle age. When it failed to start on the way home for Christmas and had I to wait for the tide the next day, I decided to give myself a present of an electric one.

Just think of it: No carburettor, no choke – no petrol. Not even any maintenance…

The little Haswing Osapian 40 weighed just 7kg (and only cost £150). Admittedly I had to add a 60ah battery which weighed as much as the Suzuki – but at least it was smaller to manhandle.

For a season, I glided silently about the anchorages of the south coast and the Channel Islands and, eventually, The Canaries.

Silently and slowly. If I wanted the battery to last any time at all, I had to limit myself to 2kts.

Well, I can row at 2kts.

Moreover, if I was rowing, I was getting some exercise. Also, I didn’t have to faff about putting it all in the dinghy and taking it all out again.

And here’s another thing: Nobody’s going to steal a dinghy without an outboard: The dinghy thieves of the Caribbean regularly abandon their purloined RIBs on the beach. The outboards, however, are never seen again.

So, I put the electric outboard on eBay and took to rowing. I might take longer to get where I’m going, but I have all the time in the world – and while I may get a bit wet going to windward in a blow, I have never yet failed to arrive.

And this was all fine and dandy – until one of the rowlocks broke.

These, I discovered, were made of plastic in moulded rubber housings glued to the tubes. Never mind, Sunny of Sunny Yacht Services in Gran Canaria made me stainless steel copies.

And all was good for another year – until, one evening in Falmouth, the moulded rubber split.

There was no fixing this – but on the other hand, the dinghy was five years old. Also, I had the wrong oars: I had lost one in Alderney and bought a new pair in Weymouth – longer and with curved blades just like the Oxford and Cambridge boats. It turned out the rowlocks weren’t designed for that kind of power.

In the end, I gave it away to someone who had an outboard and ordered a new one (promising myself that I would use only the oars which came with it.)

And everything was fine for another year – until, last week, the moulded rubber split in exactly the same place.

Was I going to buy a third new dinghy? I had written to the makers and pointed out their design flaw, but it seemed they didn’t understand the concept of rowing. Anyway, they never wrote back.

The solution was to buy yet another (and this time, heavier) dinghy. I could haul it aboard with the staysail halyard.

Or maybe I could repair the old one well enough for emergencies and get a really reliable outboard. Four-strokes are reliable – and the lightest is the Honda 2.3. But that still weighs 13kg – and that’s without the fuel and oil. Also, you mustn’t turn a 4-stroke upside down (which can happen if it weighs 13kg and there’s any chop in the harbour…)

Alternatively, there is the ePropulsion electric outboard which comes in two parts – neither of them weighing more than 11kg.

As if to compensate for this, it costs twice as much as a petrol one. Also, it has to be fed with electricity – a commodity not always available aboard Samsara.

But first, I had to manage a repair of the rowlock.

There wasn’t room to get a bolt through it. But I do have a 1½mm drill bit – and any amount of sailmaker’s thread.

Invisible mending

…and preventative measures on the other side.

I’ve tested it – all that rowing yesterday. There is no sign of the thread pulling through the rubber. In fact, I have a reel of black thread for some reason, so you wouldn’t know it’s been repaired at all. On the first trip to the dinghy dock (when I didn’t know where it was and ended up rowing 0.8 miles) it took me just 25 minutes – that’s 3kts.

And when I found the dinghy dock jam-packed with RIBs, I just pulled mine over the top of them all, upended it onto my head and went and tied it to a tree.

Charlotteville is different. Nobody in Charlotteville has any money.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re not poor – Joe the fisherman whose boat has “Joe” written down the side in big red letters only bothers to go out three days a week (he offered to take me on Monday but that’s when I’m leaving for Trinidad). The other days he spends sitting in the shade with his friends, fist-bumping anyone who comes by and asking how they’re doing.

He doesn’t sit under the coconut trees, of course. Only strangers like me would think of sitting under a coconut tree – which is why there’s a sign reminding people not to (a coconut falling from 70ft is an official cause of death around here).

No, the reason nobody has any money in Charlotteville is because the ATM machine hasn’t worked for two months and the only place that takes cards is the bright red Shopping Mart where the till is empty after two months’ of paying everyone Cashback.

I wouldn’t have come if I’d known. But Tom on Bonny said it was delightful. He could afford to. He sailed on a reach from Barbados. I was hard on the wind all the way from Grenada – and then had to put in two tacks to make it into Pirate’s Bay two hours after sunset.

Actually, I was aiming for Man o’ War Bay because the app said that was where I would find the Customs Office. However there wasn’t a single light in the whole bay, and so I picked a spot sort of midway between the two. A lot of rowing the next morning found me tying the dinghy to a tree just as the immigration officer strolled by.

Charlotteville is an official Port of Entry for Tobago, so it is reasonable to assume it would have a uniformed Immigration Officer and a proper brick-built Immigration Office – and a Port Authority Office and a Customs Office. Going round the three of them, I had to fill in a total of nine forms (everything from what contagious diseases I had to how many firearms and stowaways).

Also, I had to come up with 315 Trinidad and Tobago dollars. All I had were East Caribbean dollars – and no, they didn’t take cards.

Which is how I ended up in debt.

Here were my debts by the end of that Wednesday morning:

$315 to the Immigration Officer for clearance.

$210 to Donna the Digicel rep on her balcony opposite the football pitch for a SIM card.

$32 to Gray at the bright yellow Royal Harbour Restaurant and Bar on the beach (two bottles of Carib and a $10 loan for the bus to Roxborough and the nearest working ATM machine).

No, the bus doesn’t take cards. In fact, the bus doesn’t even take cash. You have to buy a ticket from the Licenced Ticket Trader next to the bus stop – it’s $4 each way.

And maybe this is the time to explain the exchange rate. One Trinidad and Tobago dollar is 12p Sterling. So, the bus ticket was 48p (and the bottles of Carib, £1.32 each), so maybe that’s why Charlotteville has been getting along so well without too much money.

It took the rest of the day to get mine – the bus went at walking pace for much of the way (and if you saw some of the inclines and the tortuous bends, you’d be glad it did). Then, when we got to the ATM machine in Roxburgh, that one didn’t work either.

Never mind, there was another at the gas station at the other end of town.

I missed the bus back.

When was it due?

• It leaves Scarborough at 4.30.

So, when does it get here?

• When it arrives.

Never mind. The only people who use the bus are schoolchildren and anyone with a bus pass. Everybody else stands at the side of the road and holds up their hand. Here is the scale of charges for ad hoc private hire vehicles in Tobago:

If they’re going your way: $12.

Part of the way: $6.

The rest of the way: $8.

How does the driver know you’re going the rest of the way, not all the way?

• I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

So, it was after dark again when I got back to the boat – and it turns out that now I’ve been here three days and become rather assimilated (see Joe’s offer of a day’s fishing).

Much of my time is spent on the bench outside the Royal Harbour with a bottle of Gray’s Carib using his wifi because it turns out Donna’s mobile signal is rubbish (and you can’t sit inside Gray’s because he likes his reggae at full volume).

I could take my custom to Eastman’s Restaurant & Bar, but their wifi went the way of the ATM machine.

Still, the Shopping Mart had a grater to replace my rusty one and Priya’s shop was good for fresh vegetables.

When I say “fresh”, I mean they weren’t in a tin like the ones in the Shopping Mart. However, they had been cooking in 35° under the sheets of polythene which keep the rain out – Priya’s shop is charmingly basic even though she’s got everything from motor oil to Epsom Salts in the back.

Priya and her shop

I can’t wait to go ashore again, lunch today is Sharon & Phebe’s (they have tablecloths and are on Tripadvisor). I can’t leave until Monday – if I don’t get my clearance form, they won’t let me into Trinidad and I’m getting a Starlink system delivered there.

At least I hope I am – I gave the address of Peake’s Marina without bothering to ask them if that would be OK. But people on the Navily app keep saying how friendly and helpful everyone is at Peake’s – they even organise a bus to the supermarket and put on Friday night barbecues…

More pictures on my PolarSteps site at https://www.polarsteps.com/JohnPassmore/11140829-from-grenada?s=0A864A90-C234-4F13-A00C-24E41CCA7292.