Before we cast off, a quick word for those crows’ nest look-outs among you: two secret words lurk somewhere in these pages - scupper and felicitous - plucked fresh from my desk calendar this week. Spot them both and you win nothing but the quiet satisfaction of a sharp eye. Now, where were we?

Ah Yes! After swimming round Da Plane! And being disappointed by the only one decent place to eat being closed, we had tried to leave Norman's Cay. A mistake, as it turned out. No sooner had we set off than a wall of fog rolled in and stole our visibility like a dawn thief. We turned back and waited. The fog lifted soon enough and we set off once more for South West Cay, a spot we had heard described in glowing terms by our friends Pam and Theo.

Pookie was still managing to cook up some fantastic dishes despite still not having a hob, microwave, oven or even so much as a kettle to help her. If you recall we have not had any 240v electric on the boat for some weeks now.

The final journey to Nassau proved trouble free. We anchored on the left near a house. As we pulled back on the anchor, a warbling image appeared beneath the surface. I decided to jump in carefully and investigate. I have never got back out of the water so quickly.

Right underneath our boat lay a wreck. Any small swing towards it could easily have damaged our hull. I shouted to Pookie to start pulling in the anchor immediately. Once safely away we marked the position on our chart and, breathing a sigh of relief that no damage had been done, we anchored further out.

Nasty Nassau

We decided to go ashore, get a bite to eat, have a look around and maybe do some shopping. Pookie had been reading up on local business practices. It seemed that some enterprising souls had started charging up to one hundred dollars to park a dinghy. Apparently one place had started it and the other locals had spotted easy money. We found it hard to find anywhere we could land without being extorted. Eventually we found a spot that only charged twenty‑five dollars. Absolutely ridiculous for parking a 3m dinghy, especially since we had come to eat at their restaurant. But we paid and walked the long distance to a food store where we stocked up on more ridiculously priced goods before having our meal out near where the dinghy was.

The following day we decided to explore the world famous Atlantis Resort.

We took the dinghy into the canals where the super yachts moored and parked our three‑point‑one metre dinghy next to their floating mansions. The scale of it was obscene. We walked around what looked like a city. Shops, boulevards, meeting centres, everything you could want or not want. It reminded me of Disneyland without the charm.

Walking around we followed some people through a door outside. A lady called out and asked where our wrist bands were. Now I wanted to go outside because it looked stunning and so began a tale of near truths.

Wrist bands? Oh no, we don't have wrist bands. You see, we just arrived and moored our boat in the marina and decided to have a quick look around.

The lady looked at me with the scepticism of someone who has heard many a white lie.

“Well then you should have a fob!”.

A fob? I replied. I don't know about any fob. Well maybe someone? The crew? did mention it but we have only just got here and wandered out without doing a formal check in.

"If you don't have a wrist band or fob you will need to return to your yacht and get your fob."

I looked at the young lady and motioned to my mother. Oh really? Oh, that is a shame. My mother is eighty‑four years old and she cannot manage the walk all the way back to the marina just to pick up a fob and come all the way back. My mother looked at her and motioned as if she were already getting tired just listening to the whole debacle.

Look, we only want to go outside for a little bit, grab a drink and make our way back to the boat and then return for a full day tomorrow. I looked at her as though lies nor melted butter would pass my lips.

Oh go on then. But do not go telling anyone it was me that let you in. I will get in trouble.

No ma'am. And thank you.... I ushered Pookie and my mother past her and walked on as though we owned the place.

Inside was vast and fabulous. All manner of stunning fish, sharks, turtles, sting rays and the like swam past glass walls. Fountains threw water twenty metres into the air. Everyone looked like they were having a fabulous if expensive time. Here is a fact for you: the Atlantis resort houses the largest open‑air marine habitat in the world, with over fifty thousand aquatic animals across fourteen lagoons. Fifty thousand. I could not help but wonder how much it cost to feed them all.

We were determined to reach the café by the beach for an ice cream and wandered further-in past lush plants and trees. We were only fifty metres away when another lady asked where our wrist bands were. I tried again with the story about the yacht in the marina. She was not having a bar of it. "You will have to walk down that path", she said. My utterings of returning to where we had come from fell on deaf ears. "No, sorry. That way only please".

We walked along the path with the beach on our left and the resort on our right and reached another guard. This one said we must go onto the beach and walk to the edge of the resort to return to the road. We could not go back through the resort.

And so we walked onto the silky soft sand in the scorching hot sun wearing clothes that were entirely wrong for such conditions. We had dressed for an airconditioned resort and a nice restaurant. The soft sand dragged our feet down but we managed the walk and reached the end of the resort.

You cannot come in here, said the guard looking after the resort next door. You don’t have a wristband, you will have to walk to the other end and turn right onto the road.

This is ridiculous, I said. First we get kicked out because we did not bring our fob and now we have to walk all the way along the beach. Our protestations fell on deaf ears and we were forced to carry on.

By the time we reached the end of the resort the sheer heat and effort had taken its toll on all of us, most of all my mother. By now she felt quite ill. I ran to the end and up the hill onto the road that served the back of the resort. Thankfully there were about a hundred taxis waiting. A mafia style local taxi controller said I could not have any of them. They were all waiting for paid guests to return from the beach. We would have to wait an hour or so.

Desperate to find help for my mother I ignored him completely and walked out into the road and waved down a passing yellow cab. The driver looked at the controller as though needing permission to accept the fare. I told them both that my mother was eighty‑four and would need hospital treatment if she did not get help quickly. The controller relented and told the cab he could accept my fare just as Mum and Pookie staggered down the hill from the beach.

We climbed in and were blessed by cool airconditioned relief as we drove back to the Atlantis Resort. We sat and had a nice cold drink while we waited for the restaurant to open. We had chosen this place because Pookie knew the owner. Chef in Thailand is a very famous restauranteur and we enjoyed a lovely meal. She was recognised, of course. She always is. It is a felicitous thing, having a famous wife. People open doors for you. Sometimes they even let you through them.

Our final day meant we needed to check out and it gave nasty Nassau a final opportunity for extortion. After paying the mandatory twenty‑five dollars to stand on the quayside, we met the customs official who would be handling our departure. He seemed strangely shocked to find that our boat was not in the marina but was sat at anchor and told us it would be dangerous and (or course) expensive to hire a boat to go and inspect Sawasdeekat. We offered to take him in our dinghy but instead he offered a financial solution. We could just pay him $250 and he would forget all about it. I told him that would take many people in my country nearly a week to save for and “If my 84yr old mother was fine in our dinghy you would be too!” He obviously just wanted some money and so lowered the fee to $175 which I reluctantly paid just to end the debacle. He smiled, never looked at anything and stamped us out of the country. We could leave. My mother was disgusted at the attitude of the reception staff who clearly saw us as dollar signs. I must admit that in the Bahamas, the nearer we got to Nassau, the more people displayed this gimmie gimmie gimmie attitude. Prices doubled and quality dropped. We all hated it.

The official's grubby proposal scuppered any remaining goodwill we might have felt towards Nassau. We paid our fees, checked out and motored away from the dock with no desire to look back. The Bahamas had given us wonders. It had also given us this.

Subscribe and join me next week as we make our way from the ridiculously expensive Bahamas to the United States of America. I suspect the prices might come as a pleasant surprise.

Ps.. At the time my mother was only 82… 84 just sounded better – She has since reached 83 so Happy Birthday Mum x