Sailing aroud the World and up to the States,

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 6 Jun 2011 17:39
MONDAY  6th JUNE  2011
 
The last 120 miles to Bermuda were breezy, the wind was fine on the port bow so we just had the mainsail
pulled hard in and motor sailed, but the weather remained nice and fine, with relatively flat seas,
 
We made our ETA of Saturday afternoon at St Georges , Bermuda around 5pm and had great contact with Bermuda
Radio, can you imagine this, we could hear them on VHF at a distance of 135 miles out to sea, south of the Island, normally
we think we are doing very well if we can hear and transmit at a distance of 50 miles, on the VHF.....
We were directed to Ordinance Island where we cleared in, and got all our documents sorted out, and we remained tied yp
to the quay wall for the night,
 
One thing is for sure, this Island is secure, no evidence of any dingy's or ribs being locked to the quay walls , which is
very reassureing, no robberies or such the likes,
The first impressions were great, Aileen took an immidiate like to the Island, All the well kept buildings and freshley
painted roof's, ( all the roofs are sealed and painted with a white ,whitewash, ) thats to collect the rain water as the Island has
no ground water for drinking, so they relay on rain water and have a couple of desalination plants on the Island for extra water,
Water here is more expensive than fuel.
 
later, we went to a water side restaurant for dinner, and a great venue, they are big into Sushi and that sort of food here, yum, yum,
Its was funny going ashore, the two of us were rocking from side to side as we had been at sea for 5 days, we nearly
got land sick,
 
SUNDAY 5th,  We had to move " A Lady " off the dock at 07.30 and put her on an anchor just 500m east of the quay wall, there
was a charity "Duck Race" taking place at the dock, so we were asked to move and we had no problem with that, in fact the duck race
was great fun,
09.00hrs, we went to Mass in the local church, again the singing was wonderfull, the priest was Polish, and the whole ceremoney was
excellent including the tea & coffe after the Mass was finished,
From there , we did a walking tour of Saint Geroge, we met lots of interesting people and had some great conversations,
Yeah, we like this place, its getting better and better,
 
We had lunch in " Wahoo's" restaurant where Aileen was able to use their free Wifi,
We had a few real heavy showers later, but luckily, we were in some fantastic craft shops , admiring the (well looked after) big local
cats among all the other items on offer,
 
We did some more touring , enjoying the place and street names, like " Shine bone Alley"  &  " Thread needle Alley " and many
more that skipper just cannot remember, ( Senior moments )
Later, we got in the rib and skipped across to the " Sports and dingy Club" a few hindred meters east on the boat, there Skipper
had a few beers with Sean Hehir from Co. Meath, but keeps his boat in Skerries,
meanwhile , The first mate reved up her computer again and spent all our time there on her NBF.
 20,00hrs we returned to the boat where skipper completed cleaning the cooker and fixing a few minor
pipe leaks, happy when all was complete, we hit the scratcher,   A good day in all,
 
Thats all for now, 
 
Signed :-    Stephen Hyde   ( Skipper )