Words of the week – Chockablock and Scarify – See if you can find them 😊

We had been in Bequia for nearly a week and had grown accustomed to the gentle rhythm of the anchorage. The sun rose over the hills each morning like a yawn stretching across the sky, painting the nearby boats in shades of gold. The beach in front of us was quiet save for the occasional dog trotting along the waterline with the self-importance of a mayor inspecting his town and the small group of local women who set up a stall selling fresh fruit in the mornings. It was peaceful and we had settled into it like a comfortable chair that had been waiting for us all our lives.

Then came the weekend.

We noticed the change on the Friday afternoon. More boats arrived and anchored closer than was strictly polite, their hulls nudging into Sawasdeekat’s personal space with the casual entitlement of people who had never heard of anchorage etiquette. Dinghies buzzed back and forth with increased urgency, their outboard motors creating a soundtrack of small annoyances that built into a symphony of chaos. By Saturday morning the beach had transformed. Where there had been empty sand there was now a small city of tarpaulins and speakers. Stalls appeared selling rum and beer and grilled fish. Children ran in and out of the water, their laughter carrying across the bay like the sound of bells. The music started at around eleven in the morning.

It was a celebration. Of what we never knew, but it did not matter. The whole of Bequia seemed to have gathered on that strip of sand and they had brought their sound systems with them. The bass travelled across the water. Soca music. Reggae. Dancehall. The beats blended into one continuous rhythm that shook the glasses in our cupboards and made our cutlery drawer hum like a struck tuning fork. Bequia has an unusual history, by the way. It was once a major whaling centre and the islanders still have permission to catch up to four humpback whales a year using traditional methods, though they rarely do. On this particular Saturday the only thing being harpooned was my eardrums.

Pookie looked at me with an expression I have come to know well. It is the look that says this is not what she signed up for. She was born in Bangkok, a city of ten million souls where noise is simply the air you breathe, but even she looked mildly amused by the absurdity of it all. We had planned our own quieter night aboard Sawasdeekat, inviting a few friends from neighbouring boats to join us for sundowners. There was laughter, good conversation, cold rosé, and the sort of easy companionship that forms when you have all crossed an ocean together. The music from the shore formed a constant backdrop, a bassline to our evening rather than the main event. We even considered taking the dinghy ashore to join the festivities until we noticed that the loudest part of the party was coming from a fenced-off area where a man with a serious expression stood collecting entrance fees. No doubt the drinks inside would have cost the same as a small country’s GDP. Instead we stayed put, enjoying our ringside seats with our own cheap wine and the kind of view you cannot buy.

Our own party wound down around eleven. Guests said their goodbyes, dinghies buzzed away into the darkness, and we were left alone with the lingering warmth of a good evening and the distant thrum of the beach. It was then that the true nature of the celebration revealed itself. With our own distractions gone, the bass seemed to double in volume.

The party continued into the night. Bonfires were lit along the shore and the music grew louder as if the darkness demanded more energy. People danced in the firelight, their shadows stretching across the sand like spirits released from the flames. At 1am we were still awake because sleeping was impossible. The bass seemed to have found its way inside my skull and taken up residence. At three the music finally softened and by four there was blessed silence. We fell asleep as the first hint of grey appeared in the eastern sky, that particular shade of blue that exists only in those moments between night and morning and when the world seems to hold its breath.

The next morning we surfaced to find the beach empty again. The tarpaulins were being packed away. The speakers had vanished. Only the black scars of the bonfires remained in the sand like ancient cave paintings and the faint smell of woodsmoke lingered in the air. It was as though the whole thing had been a very loud dream.

After a few more days it was time to move on and Pookie, with her still bandaged fingers waved Steve and Sue goodbye. We set off once more north to Byahaut on the island of St Vincent. This was a tiny bay and we were to be its only guests, a private swimming pool carved into the coastline by forces older than memory. As we were sailing north we tried to motorsail with the code zero, our beautiful lightweight sail designed for exactly this kind of gentle breeze. It was the sail that had carried us across the Atlantic, the sail that had seen us through storms and calms and had become something of a mascot for our adventure. Pookie looked up and noticed something that made her face fall. The code zero sail was ripped – again! A tear ran down the edge like a paper cut on a favourite book. We brought it in carefully, rolling it with the tenderness of handling a wounded bird, and motored on.

We had to try and miss a lot of Sargassum too, the golden brown seaweed that floats in great rafts and tangles in propellers with the determination of a creature that has decided your engine is its enemy.

We anchored in Byahaut and went snorkelling, which was very nice, but the sail repair lingered in the back of my mind like an unpaid bill. The underwater world tried to distract me with its usual tricks. Parrotfish the colour of a child's crayon box, sergeant majors in their striped uniforms. French angelfish with their elegant markings drifted past me with the indifference of a celebrity ignoring their fans. The snorkelling here was lovely and I managed to get some stunning drone footage of the boat sitting in the crystal clear water with the jungle covered hills rising up behind her. The footage made us look like competent sailors which I suppose is the whole point of drone footage.

We were helped to moor that evening by a man who then invited us to eat at his mother's restaurant. We accepted, because when a stranger in the Caribbean offers you his mother's cooking, you say yes. This is not a rule you will find in any sailing guidebook but it should be. We had a very simple traditional meal on the balcony of their house, eating chicken and rice and plantains whilst looking out over the same water we had just been swimming in. His mother watched us eat with the satisfaction of an artist seeing her work appreciated. We were almost the only guests. It was a wonderful experience of real life on the island, the kind of moment that makes all the engine failures and ripped sails worthwhile. The kind of moment that reminds you why you sold your house and bought a boat despite knowing absolutely nothing about boats.

Keartons was our next stop and is famous for being the location of the film set for Pirates of the Caribbean. Wallilabou, or whatever they called it. The opening scene of the film shows some remains of pirates hanging from the underside of a hollow in a rock formation. On television it looks spectacular, all dramatic shadows and haunting atmosphere, the kind of thing that makes you want to book a flight immediately. When we got there in our dinghy we hardly recognised it. The “dead pirates” from the film could not have been any more than about two foot long as the hollow wasn't really something you could walk through without bumping your head. I fear some film trickery has gone on here.. anyway the town still mainly remained as in the film, apparently they left all the filming props in situ. It was a little eerie and fun at the same time, like walking onto a movie set where everyone has gone home for lunch and left all the fake skeletons out.

We reached St Lucia, home of the famous Pitons, those twin volcanic spires that rise from the sea like nature's own cathedral. The sight of them from the water is one of those moments that stops conversation. You simply stare. They rise nearly eight hundred metres straight out of the Caribbean, so steep that clouds sometimes get caught on their peaks like flags of surrender. They are a UNESCO World Heritage site and looking at them you understand why. A fun fact I learned later: the Pitons are actually the remains of volcanic plugs, formed when magma hardened inside volcanic vents millions of years ago. The softer rock around them eroded away, leaving these two dramatic spires standing alone. They are home to at least one hundred and forty eight species of fish and several species of animal found nowhere else on earth, including the St Lucia racer, one of the rarest snakes in the world. I didn’t see one, I was busy with my own internal drama.

I had been having stomach problems and I felt very ill. A man helped us moor and I thought my situation would improve. It didn't. It got worse. I was hunched over in the cockpit for about 3 hours before Pookie explained our predicament to our water taxi man. She asked if he could take us to shore. He said he would send a friend.

A dinghy arrived and we were collected and taken ashore. The man showed us where the local hospital was, pointing up a road with the helpfulness of someone who knows exactly what your desperation is worth. Once I was checked in I was diagnosed with gastritis and given strong medication. The doctor spoke in soothing tones while I clutched my stomach and made silent promises never to have baked beans and plantains on the same plate again, or maybe just to eat less of it, or perhaps to eat it more selectively… maybe.

When we got back to the water taxi the man asked for US$140 for the trip. It had lasted about five minutes each way. I did the maths in my head. That was fourteen dollars a minute. Fourteen dollars for every sixty seconds of sitting in a dinghy while clutching my poorly stomach and trying to maintain the dignity of a man who had just been diagnosed with gastritis in a foreign country. We felt totally ripped off but we were now stranded on the island at 11pm unless we paid. We paid up. The man pocketed the cash with a smile that suggested this was not his first time performing this particular transaction.

We decided we did not like getting ripped off in the Pitons and so never went up the twin spires. To have someone take so much advantage of what was a medical emergency was in very low taste. So Pookie cooked some amazing food to settle my stomach and we sailed north to Rodney Bay in a hope of a more hospitable reception and to find a sail repairman.

Here we met up with another couple from the Viking group called Jan and Miguel. It was the kind of reunion that makes you grateful for the strange community you have stumbled into. People who crossed an ocean together share something that cannot be explained to those who have not done it. We all decided to visit the town and went out to a local Indian restaurant called The Spice of India. The name suggested heat and flavour and the promise of food that would not cause gastritis. There we had a very nice meal and got to know Jan and Miguel a lot better and shared tales of our experiences crossing the Atlantic and my previous experience in the Pitons. Jan said he would no longer recommend anyone else to use the water taxi service in Pitons, which I felt was a fair and measured response to the situation.

Then came the bill. On it was the price of the food and drinks, plus tax and then plus a service charge.

We have all been there. You are enjoying a lovely vacation, the food was great, the service was friendly, and then the bill arrives. You are ready to leave a tip, but then you see it. A fifteen percent service charge already added. You think, great, the tip is taken care of.

Then the waiter asked, would you like to leave a tip as well?

I was shocked. When I politely explained that I thought the service charge was the tip, I was told no, that goes to the chef and kitchen staff. The tip is for the waitstaff. I left feeling confused, pressured, and honestly a little hustled. Was I being taken advantage of? Did I miss a cultural nuance? Later I decided to dig into the facts to find out what is actually standard practice in St Lucia. Here is what I discovered and why my instincts were probably right.

Let us clear this up. In ninety nine percent of the world, a service charge is a tip. The restaurant adds it, you pay it, and you are done. Only in the United States has this been twisted into something else, a peculiar system that confuses visitors and annoys the rest of the planet. Here in St Lucia, that fifteen percent service charge was mandatory. Once it is on the bill, you are not expected to leave anything additional. It is part of the total cost of the meal. Full stop.

So when a waiter tells you that the fifteen percent service charge goes to the kitchen and asks for a separate tip, that is a red flag. While it is possible the restaurant has a policy of sharing service charges with back-of-house staff, it is absolutely not the standard practice for tourists to then tip an additional fifteen to twenty percent on top. That would effectively mean you are paying a thirty percent gratuity, far above the local norm. This is where my hustle alarm started ringing.

Here is the part that really gets under my skin. St Lucia has a mandatory national minimum wage. But unlike the US system, this is a guaranteed base that applies to all workers, including waitstaff. As an English person who has travelled extensively around the world, I believe automatic tipping and the tip credit system is the one American export the rest of the world does not like. It is a nightmare for most other countries who actually pay a national minimum wage regardless of post.

As a person who spent most of his working life in a care facility looking after people's loved ones, this touches something personal. Staff in care homes are charged with caring for your mothers and fathers, ensuring they are safe and well cared for in their final years. Yet minimum wage is the norm for that work. Meanwhile, a waiter can walk away from a good shift with more money than a carer sees in a week.

Cuba offers the clearest example of how twisted this can become. Before the tourist boom, Cuba had a national wage system where doctors were respected professionals. Then the Americans arrived with their tipping culture. Soon waiters in tourist hotels were earning ten to twenty times what doctors made in the local hospitals . Cuban doctors began leaving their profession to serve drinks. Today a waiter in Havana can clear more in tips during a single cruise ship visit than a doctor earns in a month.

So here is the absurd equation. A waiter who brings you your meal can earn more than the surgeon who saves your life, more than the carer who holds your mother's hand in her final days. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. And I have spent my working life watching the people who do the truly important work scrape by on minimum wage while the tipping culture that America exported to the world ensures that those in service roles can out-earn them. It is bizarre. It is unjust. And in St Lucia, it seems, they have embraced this model with enthusiasm.

With my experiences of the water taxi and now this, St Lucia had begun to feel like the Caribbean's champion opportunist. The anchorage in Rodney Bay was chockablock with yachts, a popular nest of boat you could nearly walk from one end to the other without getting your feet wet, and yet our early encounters left a sour taste. It was a contrast to Bequia and St Vincent, where people offered rides to shore and fed us on their balconies for the joy of company rather than the promise of dollars.

To be fair, not everyone was out for a fast buck. We found a sailmaker in Rodney Bay who repaired our torn code zero for a perfectly reasonable price and did a beautiful job of it. But the water taxi episode and the double‑tipping hustle lingered. The Pitons may be one of the most beautiful natural sights in the Caribbean, but the people working beneath them seemed determined to scarify any sense of goodwill you arrived with.

Join me next time as we make our way to Martinique where Pookie has a birthday surprise for me and hopefully I get better at hiding the words (I genuinely nearly forgot to include them). Bye for now