For those following me, I apologize for my absence here the last few days. The experiences I'm having here in Bermuda far outpace my ability to write. It's just unbelievable I've only been here a few days, it feels more like a month. Everyone is so unbelievably friendly here. In just a few days, I have experienced the whole island, made nearly a hundred new friends and basically given a home here in Bermuda.
I'll try to summarize the best I can the last few days, but I am sure it won't do it justice.
We arrived late Sunday night, tied up at customs and moved to our slip the next morning (at the Dinghy Dock). Shortly after docking, I met my first local, McCoy. He is the jack-of-all trades harbour master here at the Dinghy Dock. He showed me pictures of his family and taught me how to play darts properly, which I am now a master at. He is the go-to guy when you need anything. The island is in low-season right now, so we (the NARC Rally) make up a large percentage of the tourists on the island at the moment (I'm talking like 95%). Everywhere you go and everyone you see is somehow connected to us if not actually in the rally.
Bermuda is about 60 miles wide and has a population of 60,000 people (so I am told). We have been hanging out in St. George's, which is on the east side of the island and has a real "small town" feel to it. Every single person you pass not only says 'hi', but will stop, talk, give you directions/advice, fist-bump and drive you to your destination. The first night out, the guys were walking up the hill and a guy pulls over, asks them where they are going/what they are doing. They responded with "just looking for some cold beers". The guy says he'll be right back, drives up to the bar down the street, asks them if they are open (they were not), drives back, picks them up, and then drives them to the nearest open bar.
Tuesday night, we were heading back from the bar, ready to crash for an early night, and two girls came running out of a house asking us to come in and party. This clearly seemed like a bad situation, but after careful inspection we entered their home to find the most beautiful waterfront Tuscan/Greek style home with a big table full of people feasting and drinking. It was a cultural mosaic in there, people from all over the world chilling together. There was a symphony of different accents. They offered us dinner and as much wine as we could drink. We hung out there all night, music blasting, drinking red wine around a chiminea by the water in the back yard. The home owner is the guy who runs the sail shop in town. One guy from New Zealand taught me how to swing these flashing-light balls on a string, which is supposedly a native game or whatever in New Zealnd. They flicker different colours really quickly, which blend together when not moving, but when you spin them the colours become differentiable. We were invited back Wednesday night to party again (which we did) and I made my famous guacamole dip and brought it. It was a hit obviously, haha.
Tuesday morning, we went for a walk with snorkel gear and found this gorgeous secluded lagoon and swam around looking for weird ocean creatures. We also did some small cliff jumping (nothing too crazy).
Wednesday, we rented mopeds and cruised around the island. The scenery was absolutely stunning. We found a few secluded beaches and cliffsides with breath-taking views and a field of stray cats. There must have been 40 cats all chilling in this one park. Apparently cats and chickens are wild here.
I've been hanging out mostly with a few guys from this sailing school vessel, all around my age. One guy from another vessel, Rick, or "Ricky Bobby" as we've been calling him is your textbook Californian (he's from L.A.). Long blonde beach hair, that "always-chillin" accent, music producer, surfer, etc. He saw my Hollister shirt and was giving me the background on that. Hollister is actually a somewhat secret surfing location off an island of L.A., well known to locals, but tourists usually are not found there. Also, as opposed to Hollister marketing, there are no piers there.
One complaint about this island is that everything is so damn expensive. I've already gone through my whole St. Maarten budget and Im not even half way there yet. I've found a lot of couches to sleep on in St. Maarten though, so I'll save a ton of money that way. Bermuda leaves you with a full heart and an empty wallet...
The cruising life is so much more than I expected. There's a whole world out here (that few know of) where you can experience things so incredibly far beyond anything you could possibly imagine. Time really just slows down out here, days seem like months. I've accomplished more in a day out here than I would in a week back in my office-working days. There are no cell phones out here, people actually look at each other and talk around a table, no TV, no video games, no computers, no billboards, no Honey Boo Boo or Bachlorette, people are restricted to one car per household, and everyone drives scooters. People are people, people are real.
Tuesday night, we hung out with Ashley (daughter of sail shop guy) and some locals in a park right in the center of town, drinking beer. Ashleys friend Stacy works at the liquor store here and actually opened the store up for us in the middle of the night to buy beer, haha. This was all after we went to a bar here, which was closed, yelled at the owner living above it to open up and give us beer (which he did) and filled the whole bar (end to end) with Irish Car Bombs. I was telling everyone about Missy's Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, and that led to about 30 people having ICB shots. It was wild.
It looks like we'll be leaving today sometime, possibly around 4:00pm. I am very sad to go (yet excited at the same time). What I thought was going to just be a quick pit stop in Bermuda ended up being the seemingly longest and most incredible experiences of my life.
I'm chilling at the dinghy dock today trying to figure out how to fit 20 gigs of video/pictures on my 16 gig ipad. First-world problems...
My friend Sean from the school boat may be joining me next March on Sindbad in the South-Pacific. I was telling him there is room for one more.
Austin, also from said school boat is sailing down to Tortola to teach sailing for a few months. I may leave St. Maarten earlier and visit him there for a week or so. Austin is a big highschool sailor, very skilled supposedly. I keep telling everyone he's an Olympic sailing instructor, which drives him nuts, haha.
I do miss my little lady though. It's going to be fantastic seeing her again after all this.
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