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.
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.
