Four 60+ Year Old Men Jumped out of the window ........

Serendipity
David Caukill
Mon 1 Jun 2015 16:31

Monday 1st June,  2015

North Atlantic Ocean  34 39.0N 61 44.6W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST -3.0; UTC -2.0)

 

The weather is a fickle thing.  You will recall that we had to  rush to Bermuda before a passing  cold front turned the wind into the east – i.e. against us.  We made it to Bermuda just in time since when  the wind has spent a week stubbornly in the East.  Eventually a “weather window” was to open before us and – once we were certain that it was a window - and that it was  in fact open (the wind stayed steadfastly in the East for longer than forecast) - we jumped out of it. Up at 05.30 yesterday and off by 06.20 at the time of the supposed sunrise -  that it was cloudy and overcast so we didn’t see it.

 

To be fair, we were anyway enjoying ourselves too much to leave Bermuda (Blog: 30 May). Further,  The Frog was in  the Intensive Care Unit of the local Sail Hospital. It was due to be discharged on Friday but the doctor missed his rounds so it was Saturday before it was declared fit to be returned home under Terry’s (fore cabin) bunk.  We haven’t seen the repair yet- it was too windy to inspect without a repeat dunking performance – although a fair amount of sticking plaster  became evident as it was stowed! Time will tell how good the repair is. ….. perhaps tomorrow….?

 

The experience of the sail repair did something also  to rebalance my view of the economy of Bermuda – and economy has which benefited from a cash injection from the crew of Serendipity on the scale of a central bank’s Quantitative Easing - because that sail repair was about the only thing I  have found in the Country that felt either reasonably priced or value for money!

 

Bermuda is eye wateringly expensive. The odd occasion that we ate out we had very ordinary pub fare at prices  that would not look out of place at the Ritz.  I happened to buy Richard a beer in an ordinary  Irish pub: one (US)pint of Guinness and a 33cl bottle of Heineken?  £12!  

 

But what really stuck in the craw was the berthing at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. Introduced by a n acquaintance, we berthed at the Club in the centre of Hamilton.

 

 

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Serendipity’s  Luxury Hamilton accommodation.

 

Here is Serendipity pinned to the outside mole by 18-25 knots of wind attached to the only operative power supply on the dock. Handy for the centre of town, I guess I should have enquired exactly how much they planned to charge me for the privilege – but not in my wildest dreams – nor those of the rest of the crew – did I dream that, having been  introduced by a member of the  yacht club berth, this would be the most expensive place we have berthed Serendipity – by a factor of more than  two!  $4 per foot plus power plus water… errr….that’s US $257 per night!

 

Against all of that though , the cost of the sail repair was really very reasonable – just a few nights berthing!

 

The sail back on board, I (suddenly) decided that “The Bimini has to go!” The forecast being what it is the Bimini presents too much windage and risks being carried away in a blow, so it was just had to be taken down and stowed.

 

Now, the opportunity for  final un-pack and re-stow of the Lazarette being too good to miss, the crew leapt to it and engaged in the Chinese puzzle of  how to fit it, together with its stainless steel supports, into a space that  only the day before had been pronounced “Full to the Brim” with all the other ‘essential’ stuff we have collected.

 

Patience – together with the odd email to absent friends (“Daryl – do you remember where this bit went?”) - bore fruit and we were,  again,  shipshape and ready to go!   

 

The wind, however, remained steadfastly in the East so we tarried  a further night in St Georges, Bermuda before setting off yesterday morning.

 

Finally, no blog would be complete without mention of two things:

 

1                     The Generator failed last night; we took it apart, the impeller  looked intact so we put it back together and restarted it. All OK. The generator then failed again this morning.  I spent five more happy hours with my head under the floor of the bucking bronco to a)  condemn the impeller after all, b) replace it have that fail  (operator error) and  c) replace it again. By the time we had stripped down the cooling system to clear errant pieces of impeller that had broken off – it was nearly lunch time.

 

2                     Aahh Yes.  It is cool and damp at night.  Last night I saw smocks, rainwear,  fleece and this morning a Musto Mid layer!  Two of them on one person at the same time. We must be getting old!

 

So that’s about it. Here we are happily going where the wind lets us -  which for the avoidance of doubt is not usually close to anywhere we want to go. Add to that the fact that each time we run the generator we are having to flatten out the boat by bearing off so the wind is on our beam  (in other words heading due north or due south cf.  our preferred direction of travel, (namely east), oh ….. at the same time shortening sail to slow down….  all intended to alleviate an airlock problem in the raw water intake) …………   progress is not as good as we would like!

 

Yours aye