As soon as you even hint to your best friend that you're thinking of going to live on a tropical island you're in deep do-do. The main reason is that he (or she) will have been thinking, however fleetingly, of doing the same. But you've beaten the friend to the start line. You said it first. You've stolen all the thunder. Taken the wind from his sails (hmm, again more aggressive phraseology. Interesting).

Having begun with the hint to one, now all you have to do is tell, as quickly as possible, everybody you know. Within days you'll be on a high. Most of them will think you're amazingly brave and dynamic. You'll be the talk of the town. But there will be one or two who will overtly sneer and tell you that you will never do it. Don't let it get you down. Quite the reverse - this kind of pal and his comments are vital to the success of your mission. They provide the starting blocks against which you place your track shoes. Without them you may slip on the gravel and give up.

Soon, however strong the self-doubts, you are well past the point of no return. It's too late. You can't go back. Now you have to decide which method you'll use to get away. Method 1 is to spend years dreaming in a musty library reading how others have done it. You can have long, boring meetings with your partners, banker, fund manager, and Best Friend. Or you can, as they say (Method 2), Go for Broke. Hah, the doubters will shout, yeah, that's right, you'll Go Broke for sure, before your nose even gets a tan.

I chose the second method. I went for broke. In my case the doubters far outnumbered the romantics but, in the circumstances, I had to make a very quick break or go crazy. I'd recently had a heart attack and my girlfriend, convinced I'd have another any minute and she'd have to look after a vegetable forever, had first made sure I was able to tie my own shoes again, then she fled. After twelve happy years it was quite a blow and, shortly after, I had found myself putting the garbage in the fridge. It was time to get out of town.

I got on a plane and went to St. Petersburg in Russia. To see a boat I liked the sound of - a 74' square-rigged topsail schooner designed in 1780. Needless to say I fell in love with the boat in a nanosecond and agreed to buy her. A month later I had buttoned up only about ten percent of my affairs back in London, borrowed some charts, bought a GPS widget, a VHF radio with a huge aerial, some spare insulin and, heart in mouth, sneaked all this gear into Russia. "Vladimir" I said to the builder of the boat "I am off to the Caribbean. Want to get a crew together and come to London?"

Nine of us sailed "St. Peter" through a nightmare of storms across the Baltic, through the Kiel Canal, across the North Sea and up the Thames to London. At one point she was rolling 85 degrees - that's fall-out-of-the-boat time. And pitching violently - the bowsprit broke twice hitting waves and most of the Russians were sick, particularly the pregnant ones! But I'd done it. One of the reasons that made it curiously easy was that every minute was crammed with such angst and hard work that my previous life paled into insignificance. I hardly had time to think about Her at all! Just staying alive and eating Russian spaghetti did the trick.

Each of the stages of the voyage - finding a new crew in London, sailing across Biscay in November, dealing with a mutiny in Portugal, galloping down to the Canaries short-handed, grew progressively easier. Crossing the 2800 miles of the Atlantic was almost uneventful. We sighted the New World after twenty-six delightful days of gentle Trade Winds, a woodpecker drilling a hole in the mainmast, dolphins frolicking in a following sea.

I'm writing this sitting under a gently rustling palm (yes, they really do rustle) on the lush south coast of Antigua. It's eighty degrees and the Caribbean is nine feet away. Tonight there's a barbeque on a moonlit beach and we'll all probably go for a skinny dip.

Bet you haven't done that for a few years.

Bob Williamson's "The Kingdom of Redonda" web page at Antigua Nice Ltd can be found by clicking here.