Virgin Gorda
Pete's mate Fuzy (Grant), Laura his wife, & children Natalie & Claire, on holiday at The Bitter End Resort (they live in Anapolis)
Claire & Natalie, did really well on their first ever sail
Jost Van Dyke
Some of the beautiful yachts in the Wooden Boat Regatta being hosted by Foxys Bar at Jost Van Dyke
Foxys Bar, the place where we got attacked by "no-see-ums"!!!!!
Sailing to Bermuda wing & wing, ie the head sail is out the starboard side & the main sail is out the port side, ideal for when the wind is coming from behind.
BERMUDA
Land ahoy! Our first sighting of the Bermuda coast
The bubble in the middle is a Man-O- War Jelly Fish, they have long tentacles dangling underneath that are leathal to their prey & can also be very nasty for humans!!!
St Georges Town
Entering through the narrow cut to St Georges Town
St Peters Church is the oldest church on the island, built in 1612 & rebuilt in 1713 after being destroyed by a hurricane
Hamilton
Some of the beautiful big mansions on Bermuda
Some of the beautiful big mansions on Bermuda
Main street of Hamilton
This cathedral is rather unique in it's contruction as most of the buildings are plastered & painted pastel colours with whitewashed roofs
The Royal Navy Dockyard, celebrating 200 years this year was built for the English navy by slaves & convicts, & was a strategic mid-Atlantic anchorage, supply stores & ordinance depot.
It was closed in 1951, but has since been restored & today is a major tourist attraction & docking berth for the mainy cruise ships that visit here each year.
The dolphin pool is one of the tourist attractions in the Dockyard & people pay US$155 for 15 minutes interaction with the dolphins & US$275 to swim with them
This little Kissadee bird was a regular visitor to Saliander. I didn't really appreciate his wakeup calls at 5am though, it was still dark for goodness sake!!!! Luckily it didn't happen too often.
Another big mansion in Hamilton harbour
Pete tries out for a job directing traffic, I think he failed........
There are lots of little harbours with lots of little runabout boats anchored around the islands
The Spirit of Bermuda arrives in Hamilton harbour, it's part of the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge
Traditional Gombey Dancers
We visited Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, 362ft above sea level, one of the oldest lighthouses in the world made of cast iron, built in 1846.
Come on Pete, you can do it, only 185 steps to the top of the lighthouse
Come on Pete, you can do it, only 185 steps to the top of the lighthouse
And the views from the top of the lighthouse were well worth the effort
It's rather dangerous walking around the islands as there are very few footpaths & the roads are narrow
We spent a further 2 weeks in the British Virgin Islands. We had a few more days in Road Town Tortola getting our rigging checked, then we met up with an old friend of Pete’s, Fuzy (Grant) with his wife Laura & daughters Natalie (9) & Claire (7). on vacation at Bitter End Virgin Gorda. We took them out for a days sail on Sali. The girls had a great time helping to sail, including hoisting the sails. We went to a great snorkeling spot where the girls turned from sailors to water babies, they’re obviously real naturals on & under the water. We met another Kiwi sailor at The Bitter End, John, with his Canadian wife, Bobby, & their sons Alexander & Harry. They are on their way to Brisbane & keen to learn about the southern Caribbean Islands, so we spent an hour or so sharing our experiences of the Caribbean.
We finished our Caribbean season off with a couple of days on Jost Van Dyke were we received a parting gift from a swarm of “no see ums” These minute sand flies decided to attack us when we went for a farewell drink at the famous Foxy’s Bar. Pete fared better than me as he was largely protected by the hairs on his arms & legs, so he only got attacked on his ankles. I however ended up with welts covering my arms & legs, I counted 50 on one leg alone!!!! It’s definitely time to go…….
We had a great 4 ½ day trip (830nmls) up to Bermuda, the first 2 days we were reaching with an easterly wind, average speed was 7.5knts per hour (180nm per day) – yahoo!. Then as predicted the wind swung around to the south west which was ok until the seas started building, so for the last day we were rolling around & the wind slowly faded on us, leaving us to resort to the iron spinnaker (motor) for the last 50nmls.
We had the company of 2 other boats for the second part of the journey which was great One was an American boat called Sled & the other an English flagged boat with Canadian owners Sea Mist. We had previously met the Canadian family John, Cheryl & their son Ian in Crete & again in the Canary Islands briefly last year.
We arrived on Friday 29th May, Bermuda is surrounded by a reef & it can be rather tricky to get in if you don’t know where you’re going. Hence they have a lot of ship wrecks around the island. These days however, they have clearly marked channels to get you through the reef passages & Bermuda Radio does a wonderful job making sure you don’t get into trouble. They contact you several miles off the coast & if you don’t have adequate charts etc, they will guide you in. After clearing in at George Town, on the eastern end of Bermuda, our next job was to get Sali ship shape again, & catch up on sleep & chores. During this process I discovered we had some stowaways on board, it seems we had inadvertently imported some weaviles who had made their home in some of our stores. Hopefully the offending critters have now been exterminated!!!!!
Bermuda is an archipelago of over 150 small islands & islets, the largest are linked together by causeways & bridges. It is a British colony with a population of 60,000, the total land area is no more than 20sq miles. Its tax free status has attracted a number of multi national companies to set up offices here along with a lot of wealthy individuals. There are a lot of huge mansions all over the island, including one owned by Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta Jones. It’s certainly not a cheap place to visit for example a 330ml bottle of beer costs US$2.50 in the supermarket & house rental for a standard 2 bedroom apartment is US$2,500 per month. It is very quaint, all the buildings are pastel coloured & have a colonial theme with contrasting coloured shutters & white washed roofs, it’s also very clean & pristine, it all looks rather picture perfect.
St George is a busy place & at the moment there are at least 5 boats arriving each day from the Caribbean, however their busiest time is probably April/May when most of the boats tend to leave the Caribbean. It’s a great stopover for boats heading north to the Azores or USA etc.
After spending a couple of days in St Georges town we moved to the main town of Hamilton on the north western end of the islands, where we caught up with Sea Mist for a drink before they departed on their way north to Newport Rhode Island. We met a Canadian couple Lisa & Norm who are on their way back home to Nova Scotia after a years’ sabbatical traveling around the Atlantic islands.
We also met up with some local Bermudians, Bob & Betsy, whom we met in Grenada earlier this year. Bob is actually a Kiwi but has lived in Bermuda for the past 30 years, they spend 6 months cruising & 6 months home in Bermuda each year. Bob had heard through the grapevine that there was a kiwi boat in town, it turned out we were anchored not far from their house so it didn’t take him long to track us down. We had a lovely BBQ dinner at their house & met Bob’s, sister who had just arrived from NZ, plus a neighbour who is originally from Tasmania.
Public transport is great here, there are plenty of ferries & buses to get you around the islands. We’ve been busy doing all the touristy things ie visiting The Dockyards, the Museum, the Zoo & climbing up the lighthouse. We’ve also done some exploring around the islands in the dinghy & generally have had a very enjoyable time here. I must admit, I haven’t been swimming here as we saw a lot of Man-o-War Jellyfish as we arrived in Bermuda waters & the local news paper reported a tourist had been attacked by one when she was swimming!!
Bermuda is celebrating 400 years of permanent settlement & as part of the celebrations the Tall Ships are calling in this week on their Atlantic Challenge Regatta. We saw Spirit of Bermuda arrive in in Hamilton Harbour yesterday & will see a number of others in St Georges Town when we go there to clear out on our departure from Bermuda this coming week. We’re just waiting for a suitable weather window to head over to Chesapeake, USA.
We finished our Caribbean season off with a couple of days on Jost Van Dyke were we received a parting gift from a swarm of “no see ums” These minute sand flies decided to attack us when we went for a farewell drink at the famous Foxy’s Bar. Pete fared better than me as he was largely protected by the hairs on his arms & legs, so he only got attacked on his ankles. I however ended up with welts covering my arms & legs, I counted 50 on one leg alone!!!! It’s definitely time to go…….
We had a great 4 ½ day trip (830nmls) up to Bermuda, the first 2 days we were reaching with an easterly wind, average speed was 7.5knts per hour (180nm per day) – yahoo!. Then as predicted the wind swung around to the south west which was ok until the seas started building, so for the last day we were rolling around & the wind slowly faded on us, leaving us to resort to the iron spinnaker (motor) for the last 50nmls.
We had the company of 2 other boats for the second part of the journey which was great One was an American boat called Sled & the other an English flagged boat with Canadian owners Sea Mist. We had previously met the Canadian family John, Cheryl & their son Ian in Crete & again in the Canary Islands briefly last year.
We arrived on Friday 29th May, Bermuda is surrounded by a reef & it can be rather tricky to get in if you don’t know where you’re going. Hence they have a lot of ship wrecks around the island. These days however, they have clearly marked channels to get you through the reef passages & Bermuda Radio does a wonderful job making sure you don’t get into trouble. They contact you several miles off the coast & if you don’t have adequate charts etc, they will guide you in. After clearing in at George Town, on the eastern end of Bermuda, our next job was to get Sali ship shape again, & catch up on sleep & chores. During this process I discovered we had some stowaways on board, it seems we had inadvertently imported some weaviles who had made their home in some of our stores. Hopefully the offending critters have now been exterminated!!!!!
Bermuda is an archipelago of over 150 small islands & islets, the largest are linked together by causeways & bridges. It is a British colony with a population of 60,000, the total land area is no more than 20sq miles. Its tax free status has attracted a number of multi national companies to set up offices here along with a lot of wealthy individuals. There are a lot of huge mansions all over the island, including one owned by Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta Jones. It’s certainly not a cheap place to visit for example a 330ml bottle of beer costs US$2.50 in the supermarket & house rental for a standard 2 bedroom apartment is US$2,500 per month. It is very quaint, all the buildings are pastel coloured & have a colonial theme with contrasting coloured shutters & white washed roofs, it’s also very clean & pristine, it all looks rather picture perfect.
St George is a busy place & at the moment there are at least 5 boats arriving each day from the Caribbean, however their busiest time is probably April/May when most of the boats tend to leave the Caribbean. It’s a great stopover for boats heading north to the Azores or USA etc.
After spending a couple of days in St Georges town we moved to the main town of Hamilton on the north western end of the islands, where we caught up with Sea Mist for a drink before they departed on their way north to Newport Rhode Island. We met a Canadian couple Lisa & Norm who are on their way back home to Nova Scotia after a years’ sabbatical traveling around the Atlantic islands.
We also met up with some local Bermudians, Bob & Betsy, whom we met in Grenada earlier this year. Bob is actually a Kiwi but has lived in Bermuda for the past 30 years, they spend 6 months cruising & 6 months home in Bermuda each year. Bob had heard through the grapevine that there was a kiwi boat in town, it turned out we were anchored not far from their house so it didn’t take him long to track us down. We had a lovely BBQ dinner at their house & met Bob’s, sister who had just arrived from NZ, plus a neighbour who is originally from Tasmania.
Public transport is great here, there are plenty of ferries & buses to get you around the islands. We’ve been busy doing all the touristy things ie visiting The Dockyards, the Museum, the Zoo & climbing up the lighthouse. We’ve also done some exploring around the islands in the dinghy & generally have had a very enjoyable time here. I must admit, I haven’t been swimming here as we saw a lot of Man-o-War Jellyfish as we arrived in Bermuda waters & the local news paper reported a tourist had been attacked by one when she was swimming!!
Bermuda is celebrating 400 years of permanent settlement & as part of the celebrations the Tall Ships are calling in this week on their Atlantic Challenge Regatta. We saw Spirit of Bermuda arrive in in Hamilton Harbour yesterday & will see a number of others in St Georges Town when we go there to clear out on our departure from Bermuda this coming week. We’re just waiting for a suitable weather window to head over to Chesapeake, USA.
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