Saona Island sits inside Cotubanamá National Park, and the sand on its western shore is made of crushed coral rather than rock — which is why it stays cool under your feet and blindingly white in photos. Sail there on your own hull and you arrive before the tour boats do.

The Palmilla Natural Pool is a waist-deep sandbank in the middle of the sea, ringed by nothing but turquoise. You do not visit it, you anchor in it, step off the transom and stand in the middle of the Caribbean with a drink in your hand. That is the whole itinerary.

The trade winds here arrive almost like clockwork — steady from the east through the morning, softening by late afternoon. Captains plan the run to Saona around it, and if you ask yours for an early departure you will get flat water, good light and the whole horizon to yourself.

Catalina Island is a protected nature reserve with a reef that snorkellers dream about — and it is close enough to reach from the marina in a single morning. Your captain anchors, you step off the swim platform, and the reef starts two metres below your fins.

On a solar yacht, the loudest thing at anchor is usually the ice dropping into a glass. No generator drone, no exhaust haze drifting across the swim platform — just the reef, the trade wind and a week that finally sounds like a holiday.