Position at 12.00 hrs on 6 June is 32:02.9N  065:02.9W and we have 29nm to run to St George’s Town, Bermuda so we did about  141 nm over the day. This is our best day for this passage..

 

June 5 – We continue to be driven along at up to 6.5 Kts with all sails up in wind of 15 kts. Thoughts of getting to Bermuda late tomorrow are being discussed and what to if we get there after dark. That is likely providing we don’t get  a lull in the wind overnight. Well its 21 00 and apart from a little interruption for rain and squalls we are still in the upper 5s and lower 6s regards speed. If we continue on our present course to the waypoint we will run into the end of Bermuda island. So we need to aim off slightly now, about 5 degrees so we are lined up to pass about 2nm off the south coast.

 

The bread making was a disaster. I needed to take a noon sight and so asked Norm to mix up the ingredients. The  recipe was in metric so his estimate of 15 g of salt and 7 g of yeast was a bit off. Also the dough had the consistency of porridge as he put too much water in it. We recovered that with a  bit more flour and then put to one side to rise which of course it didn’t. I found out that Norm had no idea what a gram was so found out that he hadn’t added enough yeast. I made up some more yeast in warm water and applied that. Still no rise. The yeast is about two years old and had been hanging around on RT. We think it must be dead. At least we can get ready for the Azores run by getting new in St Georges.

 

June 6 – We have been flying along never much below 6 and up to 7.5 kts. The wind has been steady on the starboard beam. It increased overnight and we took down the mizen in the early evening when we had the squalls and reefed the main at about 03 00.

 

It 9 30, the sun is still shining and we are doing about 6.5 kts. All sails are back up and reefs out. We have 45 nm to run to our waypoint off the south east corner of Bermuda. Unless we had a dramatic change in current conditions we should make it into St George’S Town Harbour this evening.

 

Bermuda is totally surrounded by coral reefs. It is the most northerly coral island getting its sea warmth from the Gulf Stream. There is just one means for a boat like RT to get behind these defences and that is in the south east corner around St David’s Head. There a channel going north east gives access to the manmade Town Cut which runs east west and allows access to the Harbour. The main town of Bermuda is of course Hamilton which involves a long circuitous route within the reef. We won’t be sailing there. I’m not sure how long we will stay in Bermuda. Long enough to look around. Also we have a few small jobs to do and the usual checks, fuelling, watering and provisioning before heading off to the Azores which is a further 1750 nm, nearly double the distance from Fort Lauderdale to Bermuda.