It is 9:30pm on the 2nd of December and we’re roughly 75nm south of Bermuda, our home for the past four nights. As you can see from the tracker at the top of this page, we left Annapolis a week ago Saturday (November 23rd) in a rip roaring 25-35 knots on the beam, screaming down the Chesapeake Bay with a triple reefed main and our rarely used cutter.  The fun fest ended about 80nm in when the breeze died on us and shifted aft, significantly slowing our progress.  

We passed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel just after midnight and set our course for our Gulf Stream entrance waypoint. On Sunday afternoon it was fun to watch the sea temperature rise from the low 60’s of the Bay to near 80 as we approached the Stream. It was also nice to strip off our long underwear and multiple layers as the air temperature rose into the high 60s, even at night. 

The rest of our passage to Bermuda was otherwise uneventful. We completed the 800nm passage in just over 4 ½ days, making for an average of 7.3 knots or 174nm/day. We wound up motoring for a total of 24 hours, mostly on the second day when the breeze was due aft and not strong enough for sailing. 

This was our first passage on Saltair without Guillemette aboard, as she was still recovering from her recent surgery.  While not joining us for the passage, Guillemette fully stocked the boat with delicious meals and snacks galore. Our crew for the passage consisted of Alex, Bob and Indrek, as well as Seth. While each was unknown to us when the joined us in Annapolis, we’ve found that we get along quite well. 

We arrived in Saint George’s around midnight on Wednesday and spent our first night at anchor. The next morning we cleared customs and secured dock space in the marina. After a few hours of boat cleaning, we enjoyed a lunch at the local pub.  We celebrated Thanksgiving together that evening, enjoying a variety of turkey and fixings that Guillemette had provided. 

Our stop in Bermuda was made necessary by early winter weather systems that made a direct passage to Antigua infeasible.  We had planned to leave Annapolis much earlier but Hallberg Rassy messed up our order for a warranty-replacement anchor chain and instead of having it in Annapolis for our arrival in early October as planned it wasn’t delivered until mid-November. And then I caught Covid (my first!), delaying us further. 

Once in Bermuda we had several days before the winds were to turn favorable so the crew set off in various directions to explore the island.  Seth and I took some time to catch up on boatwork and schoolwork and we enjoyed walking the shore loop around Saint George’s. On Saturday we took the bus to Hamilton from where we caught the ferry to the Dockyards.  While the Dockyards were disappointing (a tourist attraction catering to cruise ship passengers), the nearby National Museum of Bermuda was excellent.  

We both learned a lot about the history of the islands (Bermuda is actually an archipelago of 181 islands and islets!). We were surprised to learn that the islands had no indigenous people but instead was occasionally inhabited by shipwreck survivors. And it wasn’t until the early 1600s shortly after the Sea Venture, the flagship of the third British mission to resipply the Jamestown colony shipwrecked, that the British decided to establish a permanent settlement.  The Sea Venture survivors, amazingly, used the island’s vast resources to construct two new ships and then loaded them with food and supplies in order to complete their Jamestown resupply mission!  

All of that brings me back to tonight. I’m on the 9 to midnight watch. Our breeze has been building since our departure and is now in the 14-18kt range. We have two reefs in the genoa and I just took a break from my writing to put a second reef in the main. We’re a tad slower with it but still averaging 8.5  knots. The sky is clear and moonless and we can see the milky way.  It is a beautiful night for a sail.