FINNROSE 17.00 033:34:24N 063:01:96W SAT 29/06/13
Finnrose
Sat 29 Jun 2013 21:25
Our stay in Bermuda was lovely, but very hectic. We arrived on the 26th June, at 15.50 p.m., exactly seven days to the minute after leaving Antigua. A beautiful island, the people are wonderfully friendly, strangers are greeted on the streets as a matter of course. St Georges is a very old town; very British (they still have red post boxes) and drive on the left of the road.
An elderly gentleman thankfully helped us with our ropes at the Customs and Immigration dock, as the dock was high and the water was low. We then had to clear in and buy our visas at Customs. He did a good sell, as he part owned a dockside a little further down the bay, so we decided to stay there, being one of the only ones with shower facilities and water for the boat in the area. The downside was the princely sum of 80 USD per night - we had been warned in the pilot book that Bermuda was going to be expensive! After off-loading a life raft (complete with provisions) that we had found floating on the ocean the day before we arrived, we motored slowly down to Captain Smokes marina, as it was called. We docked starboard side to, and were given two side by side planks, resting on the coach roof, to get ashore. Needless to say, yet again, one of the crew was more reluctant to try it out than others, especially after being given a demonstration of how springy it was by a certain Ken W. The 'plank walk', eventually successfully achieved by all, allowed showers to be gratefully received after the heat of the day; a subsequent trip ashore allowed us to have pizzas and a beer on land for the first time in a week, but not too many in light of the return' walking the plank' experience.
The following two days were spent preparing for the Bermuda to Azores leg of the trip; Mark, Ken M and Ken W yet again did two day's of valiant work, which included placing a new track on the mast to replace the old one ripped off during the ARC passage, in temperatures soaring to 53.9 degrees C mid-afternoon. Liz took some time out on the 27th to commemorate Cathy's birthday - there was a beautiful church, St Peter's, dating from 1612, so some flowers were placed for her, and Stuart, there. The 28th was taken up with laundry and provisioning, and completion of the mast track; however, we managed to leave the dockyard in time to fuel at the fuel berth before it closed at 7.30 p.m. and sailed at 8.45p.m., all the washed fruit and veg still on deck - we could have done a roaring trade if we were still in St Lucia...
It was fairly rolly when we motored out of the channel, which took a bit of getting used to after our three relatively stable days; but it has settled overnght into light winds, force 3 from the SW. We are now sailing north east to make the most of the winds, and had a mainsail and spinnaker set much of today. The wind has now got up a little and we have dropped the spinnaker, and just have a rolled out jib. According to the weather files, the wind looks fairly set on this direction and course for the next few days.