Entering Bermuda

Soon our depth sounder was able to finally read the depths again and with the shallower depths of 100 and 50 and 30 feet came the Bermudian coast and respective light blue waters. We made it this far with nothing breaking…. And then we had trouble with a line caught on the backstay, we needed the mooring poll to grab the flailing entangled line. Instead of going around the dodger to grab the poll, which resided midship, I decided to safely go below and come up by the mid-companionway hatch…. I heaved the hatch of the companionway open just as the boat gave a great lurch causing the hatch to fling open, crushing three of my fingers in the hatch. I cursed, and cursed some more before gingerly collecting the boat poll and dropping it at Mikes feet in the cockpit. He looked down unsure of the situation… I told him to give me ten minutes and that I’d pinched my fingers badly. After icing my fingers I decided it probably wasn’t broken just hurt a lot but kept referring to my “broken fingers” for the sympathy card. 😉 (joking.)

We motored through the narrow inlet into the well-protected harbor of St. George and slowly made our way to the customs dock. Myself at the helm (one handed) and Mike on the lines, we were hoping someone could help us wrangle Gaia onto the customs dock…. Sure enough, who else but Melissa-friggin- Kalicin from Boston just happened to be standing right there to catch our stern line. What a great way to be greeted!!! We walked to customs and sure enough, our “walk” was a drunken stumble but without the drink. Great Scott! For the first time in 96 hours, everything beneath our feet was stable! My feet fumbled against my ankles or stubbed the ground. It was all more entertaining than nauseating. On the other hand, trying to concentrate and write your name and passport info into little immigration forms was just nauseating. After we were legal…. We stumbled straight to the White Horse Pub and chowed down on a real meal. Thus perfectly ending my first blue water sailing experience.

The next day we blissfully, and more importantly stationary, slept in then made 'smiley' scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and bacon before exploring Bermuda with Melissa.Read more