Bermuda Touring

 Bermuda Touring

Although our main purpose – besides the adventure – in coming to Bermuda this June was to take in some of the races for the America’s Cup. Between race weekends, however, we managed to do some “serious” tourist stuff.

World Heritage Center was an early stop where we learned about the history of Bermuda and the creation of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the town of St George. The building itself was interesting as it preserves an old warehouse with vintage crane.

Another interesting stop in St George was St Peter’s Church – the oldest Anglican church in North America.  The building was slated to be replaced by the “unfinished” church up the hill but internal disputes left that building a shell and St Peter’s was restored, expanded and preserved for us to enjoy today.

In our wandering along the streets of St George we also stopped at the historical society housed in a restored home dating from the earliest days.  The first buildings on the site were wood but after a devastating hurricane the government mandated that all commercial and domestic structures must be built of stone.  Nowadays they also must have a stone roof with the step design for capturing rain water.  All the homes have a gutter system flowing into a cistern to supply the water for the house. The features of this historic home were as interesting as the items contained inside which told of the islands culture and ties to Great Britain.

For variety, we also took a bus out to the Crystal Caves. These unique structures were a refreshing change from the warm outside temps – and amazing geological formations.  After seeing the big caves we made a stop and short hike to see the Blue Hole where the water from the sound enters the cave system.

Another ferry adventure took us to the The Dockyards proper – next to the America’s Cup Village.  This is the area where BIG cruise ships dock to bring passengers to visit Bermuda.  The main attraction is the Bermuda National Museum inside the old fortifications. Four floors in the restored Commissioner’s House kept us busy for hours and educated us on the military history of the island. From the vantage point of the ramparts it was easy to see why the Great Sound made a perfect harbor for Great Britian’s naval forces (and race venue). There is only one safe route in and that was also guarded by a fort – back in St George we took a look at Fort Catherine up close. This fort guards the narrows which must be passed to reach the Dockyard area. Fort Catherine was also a cool place to tour as most of the displays are in tunnels built in the rock and designed to supply the guns along the ramparts.

Tobacco Bay

NO, Steve did not have to get in the stocks!

Famous (or infamous) re-enactment of dunking

Our free days were not all touring.  The Rally we joined included a group of 30 boats with crew and a few socials were organized for our entertainment.  These were hosted by the local Dinghy and Sailing club and included a Friday night meet and greet with the local members, a fish fry meal, a steak dinner, and a barbecue with Gombey dancing.  Gombey is a local version of Caribbean style dance arising out of the slave era. Fortunately, this colorful, rhythmic, and vibrant tradition was allowed to continue and today is carefully cultivated – although it was suppressed and limited even after slavery was banded. The dance has much symbolism in the costumes and dance steps, but even without all the explanations it is spectacular to watch. A feast of color and action accompanied by pounding drums. Many thanks to Hank the rally organizer for adding this treat to our festivities. Another special event was the Gosling Rum tasting – this was a big hit since it included a generous pouring of their quality products and, of course, plenty of Dark ‘n Stormies.  They also hosted a version of Crown and Anchor with Monopoly Dollars the crowd played for prizes but got the flavor of this unique Bermuda style of gambling.

These get-togethers gave us a chance to visit and get to know our fellow rally travelers and share touring tips as well as commiserate on race results.

St George Harbour

plenty of room

Dinghy Club - our host base for fun

During our Bermuda stay we switched out our crews – We had to say farewell to the Blues and hello to Rob Meinzen who joined us for the return trip. We are truly grateful to all of them for being adventurous and signing on for the journey.  Having extra crew on board made the night watches much easier to manage. We hope they all had as much fun as we did, ate well, and even got enough sleep (sort of).