Story - What we did in Bermuda
Kalandia Web Diary
Bill Peach
Sat 14 May 2011 13:41
Most of the Atlantic Cup fleet (mainly Americans who are returning from the
Caribbean to the US) are stuck here because of the winds. They were
supposed to have left before we even arrived. They finally all disappear by
14th leaving the ARC Europe crowd, for whom a welcome drink (more rum and
ginger beer, famously called Dark and Stormy) was arranged in the sailing
club. The Gosling rum tasting was very good apparently. I don’t drink of
course, so can’t tell you. I think Bill can now be considered a rum expert
though. On the whole he thinks Bermuda rum is slightly milder in taste than
Caribbean rum but with an equal kick. There were about 5 different rums, one
of which cannot be taken on board airplanes because it is 141% proof.
We met some locals at the sailing club. St George is twinned with Lyme
Regis and their dart team (don’t ask, they do it via webcam) beat Lyme Regis
dart team and have now been invited to go over to play in person next June.
The accent here is strange, a mix of some English dialect with Canadian.
Many of the young people go to Canada for university education (and less so
to UK and America). The physical link with US is strong however because it
is so close but their allegiance to Britain is very prevalent in pageantry,
uniform of traffic wardens (!), the law and culture generally. Ex pats are
here in some thousands. We met one lovely person in the shape of Ryan, a
colleague of our crew Jonathan who works for Grant Thornton. Ryan is their
rep here in Bermuda and, I must say, in the year he has been here has
absorbed a mine of knowledge about the culture, geography and politics of
the island which he imparted as he took us on a tour of the island. If we
wanted to come here we would have to spend $5 million dollars on a property.
I suppose that is wise as it prevents outsiders coming in and buying up all
the smaller properties. However, there doesn’t seem to be much under $1
million either so I don’t know how locals manage. The locals are an
interesting combination of black, English white, Portugese olive and shades
in between. There are mainly rich whites, middle class whites and middle
class blacks but also poorer whites and blacks. The Progressive Labour Party
is in power but with a new leader, the last one having been a bit
contentious. The island population itself however is quite conservative, one
would have said. The island was apparently uninhabited when first colonised
by white traders from Britain in the early 17th century. They brought black
slaves. Portugese traders also came. The Anglican church in St George gives
an interesting historical snap shot of the population in the 17th and 18th
centuries. You see the plaques commemorating British residents and baptism
lists which clearly identify black and white parishioners, but then there is
a line across marking the time of emancipation (1834) and thereafter the
colour and circumstance of the parishioner is no longer mentioned. We
visited the naval dockyard (active until the 70s) but now quite
sympathetically developed as a shopping and eaterie complex serving the
cruise liners. We also climbed the Gibb Hill lighthouse and drove through
the various districts of Bermuda in between.
We hosted the crew of Cisa and Heimkehr as well as Ryan for dinner. Since
we hardly ate any of the cook-up I had prepared for the voyage in Hampton,
we had a bit of a feast.
Tomorrow we fill up with water and the duty free fuel tanker is coming so
that all boats can fuel up at half the price. The forecast is for no wind
next week followed by wind on the nose, so the engine may see action again.
We expect the genoa sail to be repaired by then but will forever be careful
about putting to much strain on it.
It is such a small world. Today I met Bojan from Bomarine, our MobMat
distributor in Holland. I knew he was crewing a Dutch boat and would be
here. I also met completely unexpectedly, someone who I had been told about
called Cindy, a sailmaker of Wilkinson Sails in the Medway. What a
competent woman she is about boats in general but in particular about
rigging and she and Bill had a great chat about fine tuning. She often
crews on another Discovery yacht, in fact the owner of which came to see us
once when contemplating buying his Discovery about 18 months ago. This boat
also has a MobMat I am proud to say. Oh, and did I mention Heimkehr is one
of our early MobMat customers too?
