Sailing to Bermuda

May 16, 2009 – Saturday
I was having a nice sleep in the cool and amazingly dry air when I heard a rat scampering about the deck. “I don’t know who you are but I want you off my boat” I called out. The rat had on gray shorts and merely laughed at me. Evidently Tom was able to get free of the duct tape I applied while he was sleeping last night! He had warned me that he always gets up at 5:30 am. I noticed he wore ear plugs, so I thought I’d duct tape him to the berth. He filled up both water tanks and we did a few other minor things to get the boat ready to leave. Don showed up with more food from his place and then left to turn in his scooter. John and John showed up and we all pitched in to finish getting ready to leave. As soon as we secured the jack lines and with some help from some of the people on the other boats, we casted off and were on our way. The sun was bright and the winds were very light as we motored through the cut and out to the south of Bermuda. We are currently in light rolling seas with waves 1-3 feet and following the southern coast of Bermuda. We have one more waypoint to clear and then we can set our direct course straight for Norfolk.

The winds died down about 10 pm and we had to turn the engine on to maintain speed. Without it we were traveling at less than 4 knots. The seas were very calm with waves under two feet although we still had some large swells around 8-10 feet with large long gaps in between them. During the night watches we saw two ships but both were quite a ways off and could not be identified. Our best guess was the first ship was another sailboat and the second a larger ship. We motored all night. I took some photos and short videos of Bermuda as we sailed along the edge of the islands.