I did set off for the Caribbean without my cook (later, briefly, my wife).
We were in Moorhead City, NC, ready to head south. Pulled up to the fuel dock to top off the tanks and eat lunch on an even keel. As soon as we were done, I busied myself and my crew (in those pre-autopilot days you took on a few bodies for deliveries), in getting the lines squared away, then cast off. We were a couple of hundred yards down the channel before we discovered this very important person was missing.
"There she is," someone said. And there she was, standing on the dock with an enormous bluefish in her arms. She'd seen a boat come in loaded to the gunnels and smiled sweetly at the guys . . .
Of course, we went back to get the fish . . . and the gal who would cook it so deliciously.