Welcome back dear reader, before we set sail, an explanation of the silence.

A little like some invoices, I like to write these deliberations in arrears. The reason for this is to ensure that I get photo’s from Pookie’s or my phone and secondly it allows me to flex my writing when nothing much has happened (although when that is, goodness only knows!). Anyway, a LOT has happened, the latest of which is a laptop failure. It seems my CPU needs a new heatsink and fan.. something rather rare in the Caribbean and so I have had to muddle along without one.

Anyway, that said and apologies made, I have my usual weekly challenge: For new readers my daily calendar serves up a word each morning, and I’ve secretly tucked two of this week’s peculiar offerings into the yarn below. I must admit to thinking WTF? And having to read the description of these a couple of times before deciding where to drop them and only then I hope I have not stretched their meaning too far.. Anyway, see if you can sniff them out like a literary truffle pig, they are Magniloquent and Schadenfreude.....

Leaving Deshaies should have been simple. It was not.

Our anchor, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to embrace the seabed with the commitment of a lovesick barnacle. Not just any embrace either. A full-on, let's-get-married-and-live-here-forever kind of embrace. On rocks. Naturally.

I grabbed my mask, took a breath and dropped into the water. Five or six metres down, the anchor chain disappeared into a tangle of rock formations that looked like they had been deliberately designed to trap wayward sailors. I tried to lift the anchor off its rocky bed. Nothing. It was held fast by the chain which had lunged deeper and under said rock. My lungs were quickly screaming and so I surfaced, gasped, and went back down for round two.

This time I went deeper and tried to slacken the chain enough to wriggle the anchor free. The chain had other ideas. It was having none of it and was being tensioned by the boat above. My lungs staged a protest once again and again I was forced to retreat. Two dives, two failures, and a rapidly diminishing supply of courage and oxygen in my ageing body.

The hookah system we had purchased in Trinidad sat in its locker like a smug piece of equipment I still hadn't figured out how to start. A constant reminder that I really should read manuals more often or become more like my older brother and just figure out how to fix things.

So, I did what any self-respecting captain would do. I gave up and directed Pookie to drive Sawasdeekat forward. She motored over the anchor and waited, the angle changed and the chain gave up its fight. A third dive down and I was able to unhook the excess chain and, like a human manatee, swim back to the surface. I motioned to Pookie to lift the anchor and it thankfully fell off its rocky prison like a reluctant prisoner finally released on good behaviour. Victory. Of sorts.

Deshaies itself is a charming little fishing village on Guadeloupe's northwest coast, nestled in a bay that has sheltered sailors for centuries. Columbus sailed past these shores in 1493, and the bay still holds that same quiet magic. As lovely as it was we had places to be. Antigua was calling.

We motored out of the bay and the wind took pity on us. It filled our sails and we danced across the water at a glorious eight to nine knots. The kind of sailing that makes you forget all the mechanical mishaps and questionable decisions that got you here. And then as we approached the island the AIS pinged.

Something was directly ahead of us. Something large. Something that was practically filling the entire entrance to the bay.

The Black Pearl.

Not the fictional one from the films, not the one that Captain Jack Sparrow famously commands. But her real-world cousin, a magnificent vessel that had been our neighbour in Grenada the year before. There she was, black hull gleaming, sails furled, taking up far too much space and looking utterly splendid.

I was on the roof wrestling the main sail back into its bag and couldn't help, so Pookie started panicking. As if I had somehow failed to notice the enormous ship occupying our entire field of vision, she started shouting at me to watch where we were going. Despite her nerves, Pookie steered us around the behemoth with the skill of someone who has learned that shouting and steering are not mutually exclusive.

Disaster averted. We motored into the bay and dropped anchor. Or rather, we spent forty-five minutes trying to find somewhere to drop anchor that wasn't in anyone's way. Antigua's bay is busy and shallow and every decent spot seemed to have been claimed by someone who had arrived earlier and was far more organised than us.

We went ashore to check into the country. The customs office was in the most stunning location imaginable. A building so beautiful it made bureaucratic paperwork feel almost poetic. Almost. It still involved forms and stamps and the kind of administrative theatre that makes you appreciate the simplicity of a good anchor.

Once the formalities were done we wandered until we found a drinking hole on top of the island overlooking the bay. A band played with a magniloquent flourish, filling the hilltop with brass and rhythm that made even the palm trees sway, and the whole scene felt like the Caribbean had been designed specifically for moments like this. Tourists were aplenty. Cruise ship passengers mingled with sailors and hotel guests, all united by the universal language of cold drinks and good views.

Our friend Gary on the Black Pearl got his shore leave. We caught up with him and some of the other crew, sharing stories of our respective adventures. He told us the Pearl was in the Caribbean to host a particularly wealthy guest who remained nameless. The kind of guest who travels by private jet and doesn't appear in the manifest. The kind of guest who makes even the Black Pearl look like a humble fishing boat.

Antigua itself has a history that stretches back thousands of years. The Siboney people, the "stone people," settled here as early as 2400 BC. Columbus sailed past in 1493 and the name Antigua is thought to come from the Spanish word for "ancient". It's a place that has seen empires rise and fall, sugar plantations and slavery, independence and prosperity. And now it had seen us. Two complete novices who had somehow sailed across an ocean and were still trying to figure out how to anchor properly.

All too soon it was time to move on.

St Barths was next and the wind was in a generous mood. Fifteen to eighteen knots, gusting twenty-four. At times we made a screaming fifteen knots, not quite a record but fast enough to feel like we were flying. A flock of over thirty birds followed us, using our wake to catch flying fish.

Flying fish are remarkable creatures. They can reach speeds of up to thirty miles per hour underwater before launching themselves into the air and gliding for astonishing distances. Some can glide up to two hundred metres, their wing-like fins extended like miniature aircraft. Watching them is one of the great joys of Caribbean sailing, though a trace of schadenfreude lingers in the spectacle, for each graceful leap is a desperate gamble that can often end in a beak.

The main problem with this spectacle is that what goes in must come out. And birds being birds, they were not shy about leaving their mark. We knew we would have some cleaning to do when we arrived. I guess that’s the price of admission to one of nature's finest aerial shows.

The bay in St Barths is ridiculously busy and rocky and it took us an hour to find an anchorage. We finally and reluctantly chose one further from town than we would have liked. But we were there and that was what mattered.

We went ashore and checked into the country and immediately fell in love. St Barths is the best place we have visited in the Caribbean so far. Shops everywhere. Restaurants everywhere. A sense of effortless French elegance that makes you want to buy a beret and start speaking with a shrug.

The shops were of course designed for people with heavier wallets or more “flexible friends”. Remember those old credit card adverts? The ones that suggested you could buy anything if you just had the right piece of plastic? St Barths is where those adverts come to life. Designer boutiques and jewellers and the kind of shops where they don't put prices on anything because if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

We hired a car and explored the island. Stunning views around every corner. Beaches that looked like they had been photoshopped by someone who had never actually seen a beach. Seventeen white sandy beaches in total, we visited about five or six, each one more beautiful than the last. The island is only eight miles square but it packs more beauty per square mile than anywhere I have ever been.

And then there is the airport.

St Barths is famous for its airport. Gustaf III Airport has a runway of just 650 metres, significantly shorter than most commercial airports. Pilots must fly over a hill, dropping to just thirty metres above the road, before making a steep descent to the runway. The distance between the edge of the hill and the plane can be less than two metres. Only specially trained pilots can land here and only aircraft under five and a half tonnes are authorised. Nighttime landings are not permitted because the approach is simply too dangerous in the dark.

We stood on the beach and watched planes appear over the hill, dropping down like they were falling out of the sky before levelling off at the last possible moment. The kind of spectacle that makes you grateful you are on the ground and not in the cockpit.

Pookie, of course, conjured up some fantastic food throughout our stay. She is a MasterChef runner-up after all and the galley of Sawasdeekat has never been so well used. We ate out like kings and ate in like emperors. Every meal was an event. Every flavour a discovery. We were having a great time.

Fun Fact: St Barths was discovered by Columbus in 1493 and named after his brother Bartolomeo. The French settled it in 1648, sold it to Sweden in 1784 who renamed the capital Gustavia after King Gustav III, and then bought it back in 1878. In 2007 it became a French overseas collectivity. All of which explains why the island feels so uniquely European in the middle of the Caribbean. The language is French, the architecture is French, and the attitude is distinctly French. C'est magnifique.

We were sad to say goodbye to St Barths, a sadness that clung like salt spray and would not wash away. But the Exumas and the Bahamas were calling with their famous waters, their crystal clarity, their promise of perfection, beauty and hope. We set off north with hearts and a blindness we would soon curse.

Because the universe, as it so often does, would have other plans.

What came for us was not a challenge but a reckoning. Events that would strip us bare and leave us gasping. Events that would reshape our journey into something darker, something we never saw coming.

But that, dear reader, is a story for another time.

Heath