Once again I've buried two peculiar words in this log like undiscovered islets on a half-finished chart. The words were more than a little challenging.. They were Patina and Zugzwang - see if you can spot them before we weigh anchor.

Bahia Marina near Samaná in the Dominican Republic was almost perfect. Almost.

It had the kind of infinity pools that make you feel like you're swimming off the edge of the world, with the water in the bay spread out below like a giant blue tablecloth. It had a couple of decent restaurants where the fish was fresh and the rum flowed freely. Most importantly, it had people. Fellow Viking Explorer sailors from our Atlantic crossing had washed up here too, and nothing lifts the spirit quite like bumping into familiar faces in a foreign port.

Sailing vessel Voy had raced across the Atlantic like she had a grudge against the water, making the rest of us look like sailing snails. Her owners, Søren and Ugne, weren't just managing a boat, they were also managing two small children and a dog, which in my book makes them either superheroes or clinically insane. Possibly both. They had chosen Bahia as a base so their little ones could get some formal education and make friends, and they sold us on the place with the enthusiasm of timeshare salesmen. We spent a few days exploring the local markets, eating at a variety of average and actually very good restaurants… and generally pretending we were on holiday rather than living on a boat with a growing list of things that wanted to break.

There was only one problem with the marina. The power supply didn't seem to exist. Or rather, it existed in some parallel universe where electricity flowed differently and our boat refused to speak its language. Now, I don't know if trying to force a connection caused our next issue, but the timing was suspicious enough to make a man paranoid.

Nine days. That's how long our brand new Victron Inverter had been installed. Nine glorious days of silent, reliable power. Then came the ticking. A quiet noise at first, almost undetectable, like a tiny clock counting down to something unpleasant. It grew louder when we used high-draw items, particularly the hob. The hob therefore became our enemy. Every time Pookie tried to cook, the inverter would start its ominous chatter, and we'd exchange the kind of look that says "this is fine" when everything is absolutely not fine.

I switched to the new 6kw alternator that Terrell had installed, and it worked, the batteries filled up nicely, but the nerves had already set up camp. A call back to Terrell in St Martin's yielded no comfort. He said we wouldn't find anyone Victron qualified between the Dominican Republic and the USA who wouldn’t try and take our arm off (English slang for charge us a lot of money). His suggestion? Turn around and sail the 350 miles back to him. Three hundred and fifty miles. Backwards. Through water we'd already crossed. It was most of the way through April, and the thought of retracing our path, getting it fixed, only to sail all the way back to where we were now... well, it felt like some kind of nautical purgatory. We told him to find a Victron service centre in Miami, our eventual destination, and we'd get it looked at there. He warned us not to use it though and to turn everything off... It could catch fire, he said. Terrell's advice placed us in a brutal zugzwang. Sail 350 miles back for a repair that would only return us to where we started, or press on to Miami with a fire hazard humming in our electrical locker.

So there we were. My 82-year-old mother on board, a boat with a brand new $18,000 electrical refit and no reliable power.. And 350 miles of ocean between us and the nearest person who knew what they were doing.

We decided to use only small power items. The kettle became a luxury we couldn't afford. The microwave? A distant memory. Pookie, ever resourceful, started getting creative in the kitchen. I had never had a raw broccoli salad before (it sounded terrible) but hers was a taste sensation! We did the best we could to enjoy ourselves, we swam in those infinity pools, hired a car, explored the island. Some parts of the Dominican Republic are genuinely stunning. Lush green hills tumbling down to beaches so white they hurt your eyes and turquoise waters so beautiful we literally couldn’t stop looking at them.

Did you know the Dominican Republic is the only country in the world with a Bible on its flag? Opened to John 8:32, no less. It's also the birthplace of the merengue, that limping stepping dance where you swing your hips and elbows in time with the music; born from either chained slaves or a wounded hero depending on which story you prefer. The country also has more Blue Flag beaches than any other in the Caribbean, though we were more concerned with keeping our boat from catching fire than earning eco-awards.

But the Dominican Republic, as lovely as it was, wasn't what this trip was about. Pookie and I had heard so much about the Exumas and the Bahamas. Those crystal-clear waters, the swimming pigs, the sharks that apparently just want to be friends. We'd seen the photos. We wanted to be in them.

So like excited children in charge of a broken toy, we set off on the 210-mile crossing to Turks & Caicos.

We reached Cockburn Harbour at 11am. We'd sailed most of the way, but when the wind turned fickle we motor-sailed the rest - because time waits for no sailor, and neither does weather. After checking in and taking a photo in front of the welcome sign, we immediately set off for the next stop. No rest for the weary, or the electrically challenged.

Sapodilla Bay looked lovely on the map. Seven miles away, we thought. It turned out to be forty-eight. Forty-eight miles of weaving through rocks, reefs, and danger points that made the navigation chart look like a plate of spaghetti. Sawasdeekat has an official draft of 1.25 metres, meaning she sits in the water down to that depth. The map suggested we had more room. The map lied. The sonar depth gauge dropped to 1.5 metres, leaving us with precisely 25 centimetres between the bottom of our boat and the sea bed. I could have reached down and touched the sand if I'd had longer arms. We held our breath, stared at the screen, and prayed to Hermes or whatever gods watch over foolish sailors.

The bay itself was lovely, the kind of place you'd see on a postcard and think "nobody actually goes there" but we couldn't shake the worry. The power situation gnawed at us like a hungry rat. We decided to try getting into a marina on the island, somewhere we could plug in and use proper electricity like civilised people.

We lifted the anchor and set off for an IVF marina that in the middle of a narrow section of the island. Then we discovered that access from the south side of the island was impossible due to very shallow water. So we decided to go round to the north side. Once again, shallow water thwarted us. The only way round, it seemed, was to go further south and out of the bay around West Caicos.

We made good time with a strong wind pushing us along. Then we rounded the bottom of West Caicos and discovered just how protected the inner waters had been. The Atlantic opened up like an angry beast. Waves crashed over the bow. Cups flew. Items fell off tables. Pookie looked green. I looked determined. My Mum looked like it was perfectly normal – But none of us looked happy.

We turned back. There was no shame in retreat. Only survival.

Using the engines, we powered back north against the wind into the protection of the main island. We needed fuel. The only place left was Southside Marina, a tiny operation that used to belong to a man called Bob, a self-confessed pirate and contraband runner in his youth. He'd bought the land many years ago, and a marina had slowly grown around his need to keep his boat somewhere. The approach was very shallow, the entrance even more so.. but we were in.

By now we'd done twenty-two miles and achieved absolutely nothing. The overnight marina price wasn't unreasonable, so we moored next to another British couple and decided to call it a day.

Being ashore gave us the perfect opportunity to explore. We grabbed a taxi to the Thursday Night Fish Fry at Stubbs Diamond Plaza, a weekly event where mainly tourists mingle over food, drink, and live music. I tried a Gully Wash, a local cocktail that sadly didn't live up to its name. Pookie sampled the conch salad, which was unusual if nothing else. The place felt overhyped and priced for rich American tourists who thought nothing of spending fifteen dollars on a fridge magnet. But we had a nice night anyway, and returned to find Bob in his bar, ready to tell us tales of his life and times.

Sitting in Bob's bar, with its wooden counter worn to a rich patina by decades of sailors' elbows and spilt rum, we listened to his tales of contraband and narrow escapes. It was then I realised this was the kind of encounter you can't plan. The kind that happens when you stop rushing and just let the world come to you. His bar had started as a potluck among sailors, and now it was a fixture of old Provo, and a throwback to simpler times.

Soon yet again it was time to move on. We set off from the marina towards Crooked Island in the Exumas. We meandered carefully out of the channel, but despite our caution, we hit a rock. The shallow water had claimed another victim. I checked the hull later and thanked my lucky stars we'd only been doing three knots. No damage. Just a reminder that the sea doesn't care about your plans.

Crooked Island is an unassuming little place with several small settlements. The wind followed us at every turn, refusing to cooperate, so we motored most of the 148 miles. We stopped at the island's northernmost point outside Marine Farm and relaxed with a salad.. again. Pookie was getting quite adept at cooking without a microwave, hob, oven, or even a kettle. She'd become a guerrilla chef, fighting against the limitations of our broken boat and winning.

The Turks and Caicos Islands take their name from an indigenous cactus that looks like a Turkish fez and a Lucayan phrase meaning "string of islands". The locals call themselves "Belongers", which I rather like. It suggests a sense of place that we're still searching for, sailing from harbour to harbour with our faulty inverter and our undimmed enthusiasm.

And the conch? It's a giant sea snail, beloved by locals and considered an aphrodisiac when eaten raw. The Caicos Conch Farm is the only commercial conch farm in the world. Pookie's conch salad suddenly made more sense. And less sense. I'm still not sure.

Join us next week as we sail through the stunning islands of the Exumas and the Bahamas, where we'll meet sharks, stingrays, and some people. Hopefully our inverter won't try to kill us again. Hopefully Pookie won't get seasick. Hopefully I'll still be the happy-go-lucky character I fancy myself to be.

But even if none of that happens, we'll keep going. Because that's what this adventure is about. Not the perfect marina or the working appliances. Not the smooth crossings or the calm seas. It's about the Bobs of the world, the unexpected encounters, the moments when everything goes wrong and you laugh anyway. It's about seeing what you can see before you end up in an old people's home, telling the nurses about the time you hit a rock in the Caribbean and your wife made a salad without a kitchen.

Until next time…