Day 5:
Awoke to the lapping waves again ;)
Greg was up fishing, but no bites. Coffee is on and breakfast about to start.
Off to the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Studies (BIOS) as they offer free tours on Wed. I go with the girls from Teepee as their dinghy has more horsepower and can carry 3 better.
It turns out that the tour is once daily at 10:00 and it is almost 10:30 when we arrive. We do join the tour and get briefed on what research they are doing. As the researchers talk I am brought back to biochem and microbiology courses from 20 years ago.
We return home and Yves teaches me how to inspect the boat for water leakage. We also cover how to get the water out.
Anchors up!
We head to The Docks and tie the boat to the docks. The Teepee docks beside us. There are two large cruise ships in port with us.
This area was a fortified port and the dock area has beautiful stone buildings left over from that era. We stroll through the area and soak up the history. We pass through the stores, the museum has just closed unfortunately.
We find a beach the is very nice and take some pictures, we find some ice cream and enjoy as we walk through a mall that is using buildings from the 1800's and it reminds me of Vancouver's or Winnipeg's markets at the Forks and Granville Island, yet much more historical.
We walk up and away from the tourist area following Yves who always knows where the good things are. We climb a few hills off the main road and walk down a jungle path for 20 meters and pop out at old Navy cemetery. It is a beautiful setting. The grave stones are mostly men and the dates are all chaotic but from the 1800's and early 1900 - we do find some the 1960's and wonder if it related to the Vietnam war era. The weight of what we are about to take on is not lost on me as most these boys lost their lives at sea.
We start to walk back and run into a group of Americans from the cruise ship that tell us there is a glass beach just down at the water. We follow. Sure enough there are eroded and rounded bits of glass in brown and green hues mostly that have come from bottles and are now worn down with the constant rubbing of the waves. Where the bottles have come from and in such quantity is a mystery that we don't know. Must Google some day
Back to the boat and we cruise to a small bay. We pass through a regatta of sailing boats racing. We find a nicely protected bay and pull up on a mooring ball (more learning for me on how we do this). We settle in, but I can't get a wifi and so i work on the blog. A quick shower to clean the salt with the shower packs (neoprene black bags that hold 2.5 gallons of water and have a nozzle that you release to let the water out) and off we go to the Teepee for dinner. We row as we had put the motor up earlier- with Yves and I rowing, Greg starts making sounds like the old Indian War boats beating their drums; Yves and I join in as we pull up on the Teepee. Another great meal and conversation with the girls and then we head home. Next time it would be wise to bring a headlamp as it gets dark quickly and there is not much of a moon.
Greg is still determined to catch a fish. "four days with out catching one is just wrong" he says and throws a line in. Before we had left for dinner he had tossed a line in with some smoked fish and it was torn off the line, one hook gone as well, and no fish. Maybe tonight will be the night, but I am off to bed.