Tuesday 20 November. Day 5 to Bermuda. Fast beam reach sailing and arrival to Bermuda.
We continue just off the wind on starboard tack in 16-20kts of wind. With both sails reefed the speed is down to 7kts and the ride is more comfortable. With Oana still not fully recovered, Glen takes all night shifts, with short cat naps, as he constantly needs to watch the sails. Plus he is enjoying this invigorating sailing in the bright moonlight. And even in the middle of the night now the temperature is in the 20’. Lovely!

At first light the wind is down to 10-12kts and we are back to full sails again. It has also veered SW putting us on a nice beam reach at 8kts SOG and, most pleasantly, sightly side on to the waves at long last!
It’s a warm sunny day and when we survey the decks we find several flying fish and lots of seaweed from our submarine activities last night as we ploughed into the Atlantic waves.

The cockpit is calmer now and we actually manage to have a normal breakfast on the cockpit table. It’s warm and we even need to open the tent windows to cool down. So nice to have this civilization while Cloudy is doing her stuff at over 8kts … and in the right direction 🙂
It is about time to take down the USA courtesy flag. It served us well for 5 months, and surprisingly it is still in one piece. Which is very unusual, because we are very good at shredding both our ensigns and the courtesy flags.

And exactly 25nm from Bermuda we receive the expected call from Bermuda Radio. They ask all manner of question and details, including EPIRB hex number and life raft serial number! But Glen has all the data ready at hand, having been well briefed by other boats we have chatted to on the way. They ask us to call again at the Mills Breaker Buoy for instructions to enter St. George’s Harbour.
By 11.30, 4 days into the trip, we covered 668nm, not bad for a 10 years old girl (Cloudy Bay, not Oana)!

As we approach Bermuda we discuss some lessons learned: The day fridge gets nicknamed the “suicide fridge” when on port tack, due to mass breakout that happens when the door is opened. The air vent into the forward cabin, despite being closed, has leaked yet again, such was the ferocity of the waves over the bow. The cowling is turned backwards but the dinghy is right behind it, so we guess the water splashes off the dinghy and down the cowl. At high speed and high motion, the galley sinks get salt water in the bottom. Don’t put the electric kettle in there!

At mid-day wind drops to below 9kts and, with the apparent wind so far aft, the boom is banging in the swell. So we put the engine on, motor-sailing till the wind increases again, which happens an hour later. Not as forecast, only 10-12kts, but enough to pin the mainsail down and sail at 7kts again.

Now that we are so close, we are counting down the miles till our arrival. It feels like time is dragging. We had the same feeling when we arrived into Barbados after the Atlantic crossing. We could see the island for hours, but just didn’t feel like we are getting closer!
A rain squall shows up on the radar and we keep fingers and toes crossed that it will come our way. Everything on the decks is covered in salt, we could do with a very good rinse off before our arrival. And now would be a very good time, bring it on please! But nope, we were not that lucky. Glen gears up with the squeegee and manages to wipe the cockpit windscreen, but that was all. Only few drops of rain. Looking forward to the next rain squall.
The sky is dark now, covered by squally clouds, so doesn’t look like we will have our bright arrival after all. Well, by the time we dock and clear customs, it will be pitch black anyway.
We do get several more rain showers, and also a chase by a thunderstorm with high electric activity. Lightenings…we certainly didn’t miss that over the last 5 months!

As we are approaching north tip of Bermuda, we see land to our starboard. Land Ahoy! The sea also flattens a bit, as we come onto the 20m shelf that surrounds Bermuda. It’s times like this that you wish the ocean could empty for an hour or so, so that we can see the topography: We just sailed from a 5km ->20m depth change in just 3 miles. That’s quite a slope down there to the abysmal plain.
As we pass the North East Breaker buoy the wind is 18kts and we are thundering along at 9kts. Then a bit of a thrilling sailing again as we need to go upwind to the entrance to St.George’s. We reef mainsail and hard on the wind in 16-18kts true wind, 25 over the deck. Waves are breaking over the bow up to the genoa and spray everywhere. So much for rinsing off the salt with that last rain shower!
As we approach, a huge electric storm passes close by. Phew, it misses us. But we run the engine anyway, just in case of a lightning strike.

We can’t be bothered to tack, so the last 2 miles to the safe water buoy we furl away the sails, thanking them kindly for their good service, and motor dead upwind. As we are now the other side the island (NE side) we get the full Atlantic waves again. Several times the bow completely buries itself and throws the wave back down the deck – so much of it that for a while all the deck, including the aft deck, is 5” deep in water – up to the gunwales!

As instructed, at Mills Breaker Buoy, we call into Bermuda Radio for entry instructions. They are very polite and helpful, describing in detail how to get in. And we can see why, in the pitch blackness the Town Cut channel feels extremely narrow (at only 100ft wide). But soon we are through and in the tranquility of the St.Georges harbour. What a world of difference compared to the raging sea 1 mile ago! Fenders out and lines ready, we find the customs dock and tie up. No one to help us, and a bit tricky for Oana to jump off with the lines while Cloudy Bay is being blown away from the quay.

Customs operation is thorough (British of course!) and efficient and soon we are on the move again, the grand distance of 30m across to the town dock, where helpful hands off another OCC yacht crew help us tie up. They had been part of the Salty Dawg rally to Caribbean but their forestay had broken so they diverted to Bermuda.

Finally we can relax. We are already hot and sticky, it’s very humid. But after well deserved showers we feel refreshed enough to step off the boat and explore in the early evening. The town is deathly quiet but very neat and tidy. We stop in the White Horse pub for a pint of English beer and unhealthy bar food. Nice to be relaxed in a non moving environment at last.

Back at Cloudy Bay, Glen heads to bed and doesn’t even remember his head hitting the pillow. Oana on the other hand is wide awake and buzzing due to all the feedback and comments on our blogs and videos over the last 4 days. So she spends several hours answering and polishing up the blog, adding photos etc. She also fixes the Delorme tracker which unfortunately did not put our track on the website real time for this passage. We know lots of people enjoy seeing our progress by viewing our track plotted every 10 minutes, so we feel bad the map has failed on this passage.

We are pretty proud of ourselves for this leg. It was a bit of a worrying passage, that worked out just fine. Cloudy Bay kept us safe as usual. Now, she too can rest for a few days while Mummy and Daddy have a vacation!