Bermuda 32:20N 64:45W

Lotus
Sun 15 May 2011 19:18
Bermuda is a beautiful, lush island or should I say set of islands joined by bridges and causeways.  It has a huge fringing reef on its northern aspect which provides shelter from the seas that come in when hard northerly winds blow.  After a few days r & r, strolling around St Georges admiring the local Bermudan architecture, old churches and a few bars we set sail for the capital of Hamilton.
Anchorage in St Georges
St Georges
Tobacco Bay
Tobacco Bay
South Side
South Beach
Here comes the rain!
We took the ship channel along the north shore, protected by the reef and anchored up in Great Sound a few miles from Hamilton, tucked in behind a spit of rock.  Over the net couple of days we had a walk across the island over to Daniels Head and then upto the Naval Dockyard with it's tourist trap shops ( we were trapped into buying an ice cream).  There was a significant system of low pressure to the north of he island which was bringing intermittent strong rain and attendant gusty winds of over 30knots.  It was whilst at the naval dockyard that the skies began to darken and so we folded our bikes and took a taxi back to the boat as we felt it prudent to be on board whilst anchored; it had nothing to do with the uphill journey back.  A glass bottomed tourist boat had anchored next to us disgorging it's fat, pale bodied American tourists into the water.  They leapt off the water platform like lemmings, complete with floating tubes and snorkels.  The captain of the boat kindly offered us the use of one of his moorings which was close to the center of Hamilton, so we decamped and set sail.
 
Bermuda is densely populated: 60,000 living in 24square miles and as Hamilton is the capital 'city' you can imagine it is fairly busy.  Bermudans enjoy the highest per capita income over anywhere in the world mainly as a result of tourism and financial services.  Hamilton hosts many firms, more reminiscent of the square mile in London, with 'Price Waterhouse', 'Ernest & Young' etc.  We took the opportunity to check on our portfolio and as expected we are doing miserably, it turns out that investing rather than spending is the way ahead.  We spent a pleasant day walking over the island, via the 'Kyber pass'; a small road which runs from one side of the island to the center, over a hill, visiting the beautiful beaches on the south shore where we snorkelled in the rain.. After another day bouncing around on the exposed mooring, in the strong winds, we decided late in the day, that we would sail back to St Georges, arriving just before sunset having sailed in 25knots, close hauled in steepish seas; so much for the shelter of the fringing reef, still we're close to the airport and ready to pick Ade and Bexs up when they arrive on Sunday.