Bermuda: Pricey Paradise

Sunday June 7th; St. George, Bermuda

After we got in to Bermuda we spent quite a bit of time getting the ship cleaned and organized. Then after dinner, the crew who had all been discussing how tired they were and how they would sleep so much when they got to Bermuda (including myself), hit the town.  We scattered and then rendezvoused at a nearby bar the engineer had hunted down within 5 minutes of hitting land. Then Bounty crew and some of the French schooner Eltois crew went on the hunt for a Bermuda hosted party/barbeque for the crew.

We walked, if mobs of rowdy sailors and be said to walk, near two miles to a little tiny yacht club only to find out the food was not free as promised and most importantly neither were the drinks. So we had a few rounds, hung out with the French sailors, and then as a mob moved back to downtown St George. The whole way back the French sailors sang shanties in French, some we know in English and we shot right back with some of our own. Our trail of course ended in another bar. Bermuda is very expensive, some poor guy paid $8 during happy hour for a Budweiser. Serves him right though, for his poor beer choice.

I separated from the group and decided to go for a walk to see more of my new surroundings. On my walk I discovered three things. Firstly, Bermuda does not believe in sidewalks. Secondly, young people on Bermuda have silly, tiny little European car which they drive way too fast and listed to techno and American rap. Thirdly, there is nothing interesting as far as 3 miles west of our ship, but that’s alright it was a nice night.

Monday June 8th

Woke up for work call and went aloft to help set up the repaired fore topgallant that had been busted on the way to Jacksonville. I was aloft all morning doing that. After lunch I got the luck of being chosen to do the notorious job of tarring the rigging. Tarring does indeed suck as much as it did 300 years ago. I climbed aloft and then got into a bosun’s chair and tarred one backstay on the mainmast for 4 and a half hours. At the end I was covered in tar and sore from the safety lines digging into me. That being said that backstay does look so much better…

We cleaned up the boat and hosted a party with the crew from the Pride of Baltimore and Eltoire. A disco ball appeared from below decks and we strung it up and I electrocuted myself plugging in the spotlight. The crew all came over and we had a good time drinking strange beers and talking. After a while everybody decided to head back over to another crew party like last night but hosted better. I decided to hike to Tobacco Bay.

I got vague directions from some crew who had been there, over the hill, past the church ruins and through a golf course; and a companion from the Pride’s crew, fellow history major Amelia. Off we went through the streets and back alleys. A few wrong turns, a few interesting buildings. and still we wondered on. The people here are so friendly! A big guy in a black wife beater and a do-rag gave us great directions and wished us a wonderful night. You can tell the tourists apart because they don’t make eye contact or say hello.

Eventually we found the half finished church as it is known. What an incredible building! It is literally a church started in the mid 1800’s that was never finished and damaged by a hurricane. All brick and local stone. With a floor of grass and a roof of stars and moonlit clouds, I was blown away by it all.

We hiked on and found the beach deserted but for two other people. The water was so warm and so was the air. I went for a swim and played around in the gentle swell controlled by the nearly closed off cove. More full moon, stars, and zeppelin-like cumulous clouds floating by. I had been dying to go to the beach since we got here and man was I satisfied.

Back we went  to the church and checked explored it more thoroughly.  We climbed up onto a window sill, sitting vacant for 150 years waiting for its delicate stained glass (sorry history geek moment). From that window in a recess of the stone church I looked out across Saint George and the bay: palm trees silhouetted, lights of the town, bay with boats anchored and hillsides all lit up by the full moon backlighting the clouds as they slide by. What an incredible moment in time! Words fail and pictures can’t do it justice, plus I forgot my camera.  I watched that scene for 20 minutes and then only reluctantly left. Back to the boat, a nice shower, and content sleep.

Tuesday June 9th

Woke up to some awesome waffles for breakfast and then work party. Someone from the Bermudan newspaper  “The Royal Gazette” showed up with a bunch of copies with a photo of me  tarring the rigging on the front page! The article was kinda silly, but I enjoyed having my name and photo spread across Bermuda. Pretty cool photo too.

Spent the day doing work party, painting and other odd jobs getting the boat back into show condition for the festival this weekend. After all that sailing, work party every day since we got back, and going out at night I am bushed! Tonight I’ll watch a movie and go to sleep early. I hope.

Wednesday June 10th

Work party got started quickly in the morning and we motored the 3 hours over to Hamilton. It was pretty, but most of the time I was hanging over the side painting the dead eyes and chain plates. We got here and suddenly things went into overdrive. Tractor tired that were our dock fenders had to be moved so tackle from the yardarm was used and the whole crew was needed to move these things. In the midst of this we are doing docking procedures and rerunning all of our gangways and gear to the other side of the boat. To add the fun a downpour started. Which was actually very refreshing.

After that I spent the rest of the day painting and after dinner I went into town and got a free beer at a local bar. Bacardi hosted a big party on board for their guests and I put on my nice crew shirt and mingled to see what it was like. Most of the people were cool, but in the future I will skip the events. After the party I went rambling through town with Gabe and we ended up way away wandering through a very well off suburban neighborhood. We eventually found our way back having seen parts of Bermuda we would never have seen otherwise.

Back at the ship Gabe, Adam, and I decided to go swimming. The water was chilly at first, but it warmed right up. We rigged a rope swing (all sober bye the way) from the main yard and I had a blast. That may have in fact been my first successful rope swing experience.

Thursday June 11th

Worked most of the day tarring rigging again and a few other odd jobs. Most of the ships arrived today and the festival got started. All of the front street along the water was shut down and vendors of all kinds came out. The street was packed. I wandered around town with Ryan and Michael and we found the seemingly the only cheap beer on the island. Upon our arrival to the ship the rest of the crew went out in search of the fabled cheap beer.

Later on a bunch of us went to a bar down the way which, though I thought it was a sports bar, turned out to be a night club as well. A local reggae band was playing and we all had a great time. After that we wandered back home to the ship and found another band playing in the tent dockside of us! So we danced a bit more and walked a few feet to our beds.

Friday June 12th

My first day off in Bermuda! I slept in until 10am and it was wonderful. First thing on my list was to check out the other ships. I went to our neighbors on Europa who recognized me as Bounty Crew and they invited me aboard to have coffee with them. A crew member generously gave me a top to bottom tour. What a beautiful ship! Then I hit a few other ships and ran into Ryan and Mike who were on their way to a thrift store our cook found a few blocks away. Since I brought one shore shirt I was excited and found quite a few cool shirt to broaden my wardrobe.

Sidenote, one of my favorite things about Bermuda is the business attire of shorts and long socks. All of the businessmen wear it and the parties we have hosted have been very colorful because of it.

After changing into one of my nifty new shirts I went over to the crew center and used a phone card the Bermudians gave us to call my mom. She hopped on the computer and I got mine back at the ship for a video chat on the bow in the middle of the festival. We really do live in the future.

After that I finished touring the rest of the ships (22 in all) and hopped a ferry for the historic Royal Navy dockyard/fort  now a maritime museum. The museum was very disappointing owing to their near complete shut down for renovation. The fort aspect of the dockyard was very cool and there were some great history exhibits. As always, learning the history of the place has really added to my appreciation of it.

In a park next to the towering walls I found crewmates Dan and Ryan. We ventured to a nearby beach, played in the water and checked out the rocky tidal area. Nearby was a neat beach where all the island trash has washed up for a long time and I had fun picking through 400 years of sea washed garbage. After that we all had a beer at the Dockyard micro brewery and took the ferry back to Hamilton.

We came back, freshened up and headed for the crew dinner and party the festival officials organized for the crew. I gorged myself at dinner and received a hilarious heated lecture from a caterer for asking for another fork. In a park next to the yacht club the dinner was held in, a stage was set up where a very popular home grown reggae band was to play. It was the same band we had seen the night before! The photo is my crewmate Amber, a French guy from Etoile, and myself with the Bermudan police (The circumstances surrounding this photo are positive, I swear). I think the best part of the night was when the band had power issues and everything went quiet. The sailors from South America busted out their marching band and started a conga line through the crowd.

Saturday June 13th

Watch duty today. When in port one person a day is assigned watch duty. They cannot leave the boat and obviously cannot drink. They do many chores around the boat, sleep in the common area so they can hear if anyone comes aboard during the night, and do a safety inspection every hour from 7:00am until 11:30pm. In the morning I was sent along with our cooks to a  farmers market. They had the best cinnamon rolls! Bermuda also has really small and tasty bananas, I bought a few. Tours went well and everything was great except there was so much going on I didn’t get to sleep until 4:00am.

Sunday June 14th

Slept in late. Went to the crew center to try to chat with the folks, but couldn’t get internet to work. I came back to the boat just in time to meet Kathryn Zeta Jones, Michael Douglas, and their kids who were touring Bounty. They seemed really nice. Then I went to the Underwater Institute….something something. Anything to do with the ocean basically. Most of it was really hokey: “now you are in a submarine and oh no a giant squid!” ride shakes. However, their marine archaeology exhibit was fantastic. There are so many wrecks around the island there were 400 years cargo and material from ships.

The afternoon was spent lounging around the famous Horseshoe and Elbow beaches. Both with incredibly warm, clear, blue water and very fine sand. The birds we saw over the Atlantic I’ve found out are called Bermudan Longtails. Really cool looking birds and they were flying overhead. I had a great time relaxing, swimming, and body surfing at the beaches. The photos coupled with the expression “ahhh…” pretty much convey it all.

That night I blew what Bermudian currency I had which is very pretty money and also not accepted by any bank or country outside of Bermuda.

At Sea En Route To Bermuda: Work And Sleep.

Monday June 1st, Leaving Jacksonville

We were woken early and after a brief speech by Captain Robin we got under way. The current helped carry us down the St John’s River and out to the Atlantic. For some reason I was told to take the helm (to steer) from our dock until we were just 5 miles from the ocean, so I ended up steering through the channel and under bridges for20 miles. It was pretty nerve wracking as I had never steered her before or another vessel like the Bounty, but I did fine and we eventually made it out to sea.

The wind, as predicted, was coming from the east at about 10-15 knots, so we just kept going under our two diesel engines. Of the three watches I am on B watch, which has the 8-12am and 8-12pm shifts. I like it, I get to watch the sunset and almost a full night’s sleep. Lunch is at 12:00 noon and then we have work party until 4:00pm. I like the people on my watch:Sarah, Mitch, Dan, and Caleb the mate. We rotate positions during our watch: bow watch to make sure we don’t hit anything, steering at the helm, checking all compartments for fire and stuff, and finally the idler who just helps out when needed and hangs close by.

In the afternoon we tried to put up staysails and the spanker, but the wind is just right on our nose. We sailed through the Gulf Stream which was a faster current than I imagined, around 4 knots, it swept us North a bit.  We did a man overboard drill, unfortunately with a blue box that sank quickly. Poorly man overbaord, but still a good exercise.The weather is so wonderful at sea here, its in the 70’s with puffy cumulous clouds and a breeze. The sunset was really pretty and the night was beautiful. I felt great in shorts and a shirt during the night and the moon shone on all the passing clouds and the sea. at about midnight a thunderstorm passed to port and it was beautiful to watch the clouds light up. The stars were great, but the moon was really bright, so I might try to get up after the moon sets one of these days.

Caleb caught a really pretty female Dorado fishing  with a couple lines off the stern today. It was really cool, but we need to catch more, otherwise they become a sushi side dish. I’m happy either way. Captain Robin thinks there will be southern winds as we get closer, so we are adding a little South to our East. I hope he’s right

Tuesday June 2nd

Woke up feeling great and took my watch. Saw some brilliant little flying fish and Caleb caught a male Dorado, a pretty big one and a wahoo, both of which were delicious for dinner! More thunderheads way off in the distance and the ocean is just such a vibrant, incredible blue I could stare at it for hours. The seas here are so small and calm so far that it’s almost like sailing on a giant lake. If we could have some fair winds, this would be perfection, but I’ll take what I can get and this is wonderful.  We did an abandon ship drill that went smoothly and we were all ready in under 5 minutes.

We stopped at about 4:00pm to swim and it was so cool! There was Sargassom floating all around since we are near the Sargasso Sea. The water was the clearest I have ever seen and like bathwater.  We all jumped off the ship and swam having a great time. What a blast!

Night watch went by quickly with the only interesting thing being that a little thunder cell passed over us and we got rain for about 2 minutes.

Wednesday June 3

Warm and beautiful again today. Had fish tacos for lunch with the fish from yesterday, sooo good. I have pretty much gotten everyone’s names down and nearly everyone on the crew has mine. Scraped paint during work and slept through dinner. In the afternoon we did another man overboard drill, this time with a smiley face orange. He was rescued and survived well until Captain Robin ate him.

On our evening watch the first thing we did was unfurl the Main Topsail and some of the other crew unfurled the Foremast Topsail. The wind was backing to the South finally. It was really cool unfurling sails and hoisting the halyard with 5 of us on the capstan, all during the last reaches of the sunset and dusk. During our watches now we are all asked to plot our position and do other navigational tasks. I’m finding it a bit tough, but really enjoying it.  We were lucky and made our way through a gauntlet of thunder cells.

Thursday June 4

Came on deck and the Main Topgallant and Royals were being unfurled and set so I helped out with that. Then Dan and I went aloft unfurled the Main Course. Once everything was sheeted home the engines were killed and we started sailing! With the engines on we were making about six knots and now under sail we are hovering above and below six as well. Super cool.

The weather is a little cooler, but still quite warm. For work party we tacked the ship twice, which is a hue process, especially with a lot of green crew like us. Each tack took over half an hour and was a lot of work. Right after the first tack, before we had even started cleaning the lines up we did another man overboard drill, which was again successful.

Right now we have the majority of our sails up and filled nicely. We’re cruising pretty quick and for a while this afternoon there were no engines or generators on. The silence was wonderful and you could even hear the rig starting to hum. The maneuvers were very physically demanding and I am glad we ended work party early so I can rest my hands and brain. I am starting to understand the layout of the lines.

Friday June 5th

I had very strange dreams during the night. I kept dreaming that I was on watch or I was in the middle of doing something, then I would wake up and worry that I had fallen asleep on duty. Each time I realized I was off watch by checking to see if I was wearing my harness. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself each time I realized what happened. I suppose I am getting into the rhythm of being at sea.

Saw a really interesting sea bird flying in our wake during my morning watch, it was bright white with a wispy tail as long as its body.  I’ve gotten a lot better at the navigation stuff and I am having a lot of fun with it. We reached steadily over 7 knots today under sail. The rest of the day passed by without any really interesting happenings.

Saturday June 6th

We’ve been heeled over on a starboard tack under sail since Thursday morning. Certainly its the single longest tack I have ever been on. Yesterday I installed a leecloth in my bunk so that I don’t roll off in the night, it came in very handy last night. The swell has gotten bigger. It is largely confused wind swell, but when it aligns right we get tossed around pretty good. Consistently getting spray on bow watch.

I hear we’re likely to make it to Bermuda tomorrow, earlier than expected. We’ve been hearing Bermuda radio transmitions and on watch I saw a paper plate, fruit core, and a right shoe in the water. All signs we are getting closer. I am so excited for Bermuda, there is going to be all normal things Bermuda has to offer plus a huge tallship festival with ships from around the world!

The wind is holding pretty strong, we’ve only got up the main and fore courses and topsails plus a couple staysails. We’re still making over 7 knots. Last night the inner jib halyard parted and it was apparently quite a scene.

Captain said at the current rate of sailing we would reach Bermuda at 5am the following day, so we reduced sail. All the crew went aloft and we furled the Main course and fore topsail. Now we are down to 5 knots and we  should get there at a more reasonable hour. Looks like we will be there 2 days early.

During the night watch I took over the helm for a minute so my crewmate could run below. Sure enough the second they went down the hatch a thunder cell opened up above us and the wind drove the rain into me. I just stood there laughing at the situation. When she came back I went and got my foul weather jacket on in time for the cell to pass. My clothes are cleaner for it I guess.

Sunday June 7th

Got called on deck and immediately went to work. I went aloft by myself and unfurled the foretopsail alone, which was pretty fun. Then we added a couple sails and changed direction, now we are heading on a dead run. A huge pod of dolphins came and played in our bow wave. I was at the helm, but a bunch of them were jumping out of the water near our stern so I got to watch them.

A rain storm caught up to us. While I was on bow watch I was talking with our female cook and I was just saying we should be seeing Bermuda pretty soon and she spotted it. I passed the word and a cry of “land ho!” went through the ship. Saw a pair of those wispy tailed birds, anyone know what they are?

Made our way in easy, doused and furled all the sails. The pilots came on board and bguided us into St. George’s Island where we will be for a few days. We made it!