This is the weather chart we were looking at last week, not something a sailor likes to contemplate. The disturbance to the north of Bermuda was tropical depression Bonnie and the PSBL (possible) tropical cyclone turned into Tropical Storm Collin. Collin passed 350 nm north of us and we experienced two days of pretty yucky weather. We moved anchorages, as did most other boats, across the bay where there was more protection. We had sustained winds of 35 with gust up to 45 knots with a day and a half of rain. Our anchor held wonderfully, we just had the worry of a Amel 53 dragging slowly past us in the middle of the night and possibly snagging our anchor. The boat did not hit the shore but got pretty close and they managed to reanchor in the morning a long way from us. Whew!
This boat is only 75m away, this was taken in the worst of the driving rain.
All is well now, Collin has gone and it is bright and sunny once again and we will move back to the anchorage closer to town in a few hours.
We took a walk down an abandoned railway line last week. The railway was built at great expense before the war and only operated for about a dozen years. It was used extensively during the war and the pounding of the overloaded cars carrying heavy equipment and munitions damaged the rail bed so the cost of repairing the line was going to be almost as much as the initial cost to build so it was left to deteriorate. As you can see from the picture there was a lot of blasting of rock to set the line so it was a very expensive undertaking.
Another day we took a stroll along an old golf course. I think the top picture was along the third fairway, not our type of course with the ocean running along one side. We would have lost twice as many balls as usual. Barry was very pleased to find two off in the rough and as I was quite sweaty I decided to cool off with a very short paddle along the shore.
I used to plant nasturtiums in Yellowknife, but they never grew like this up north. These are basically wild at this spot and seem to have taken over, I just loved them.
We took the bus over to St David's Island last week. It is the next island in the chain from St. George. We visited the lighthouse. It is still working and we were able to walk right up to the top and go out on the ledge. We were very impressed with the wooden steps and bannister inside, I think in all the other lighthouses we have visited the steps have been metal.
I had a swim at the beach later in the day and notice the crop planted on the other side of the houses. I think it must have been pumpkins or watermelons because they were vines and they left a lot of room between the plants.
We explored around the rest of the island visiting the battery that protected the main entrance to the harbour.
Barry finally has me in his sights, if you look closely I am at the edge of the field about to head down the cliff on some very worn out steps. It led almost to the water and if I could have figured out a way to get back up I would have had another swim.
We loved this sign and just had to go and check it out, the sign is accurate.
We think that our duck number 4329 was possibly placed in the man with the green shirt's bag, that can be the only reason we have not received a call yet. We are currently at three and a half weeks of waiting time for our new sails. I am running out of patience and our good buddies Kind of Blue are departing tomorrow for the Azores. I think I will head up to the sail loft this afternoon and ask for an update on the expected arrival time of the sails.
