Bermuda exceeds our expectations. It is a very relaxed island with super friendly people. Especially the northern part of St George where we sit is very beautiful. An old colonial town with beautiful old buildings. Far enough away from the busy Hamilton and the cruise ship terminal in the south. St George is the first settlement in Bermuda after the British ship 'Venture' was shipwrecked in 1609.
All survivors settled there for 10 months to build two new ships so that they could continue to St Jamestown in Virginia. Since then Bermuda has played an important role in the relationship between England and the building of America. Now it is mainly a holiday island for Americans.
We are in the low season and therefore there are not many tourists and the wifi works well in The St George Club. The few tourists are a bit older than us. But suddenly since this weekend the whole island is fully booked. The lady of The St George Club doesn't understand anything about it. But it turns out that many tour operators rebook to Bermuda because the islands there have not yet recovered from the hurricanes. We notice it mainly because of a barely working wifi 😂.
We enjoy ourselves with lots of swimming, relaxing in and around our cottage and with two days on the scooter exploring the island. The weather is alternately sunny with some clouds and a few days quite a lot of wind. That's why it's actually a lovely temperature. We eat a lot in our own cottage, every morning and almost every evening. Actually just as good or better than eating out gaan👌. Especially Eline swims a lot, almost every day for an hour. Good! The tennis is not such a success because of the bad rackets and bad job. So we hardly do that.
We rent scooters for two days to explore the island. That is an excellent means of transport because nobody rides much faster than scooter speed. Renting a car is also not allowed for tourists. The first day we visit the middle of the island with a nice lunch stop at the Swizzle Inn with a delicious hamburger (and for Marinthe of course a chicken sandwich) and a nice visit to stalactite caves with at the bottom a salt water lake that is fed by water from the ocean. A bit too enthusiastic a guide who tells his story in an exaggerated American way. Yes girls, get used to aan😂. The second day we drive to the capital Hamilton. A nice trip on winding roads along villages with brightly coloured houses, lots of trees and greenery. Hamilton is a busy place with a lot of tourists. We walk around a bit but we have a quick look at it. On the way back a super nice lunch with a real Italian. Once we're home we plunge into the swimming pool again of course.
The boat is steadily coming our way. they have calm weather with plenty of wind and they can sail fine. every morning we look at the weather charts and use qtVlm to make a calculation of the arrival time, which is now on Thursday morning. 12 OctoberFor us a good exercise in the use of the Boston weather charts and the application of qtVlm with gribfiles and flow data. Also how we can do that on our own trips without internet. Sending an email to Saildocs to get back information in small format. Nice to do!
Because it is still more than five days before the boat arrives we decide to go to New York for a couple of days. It is already a crazy period with waiting for the boat anyway. NY is close by and we won't get there by boat anymore because we are going to sail directly to Florida from Bermuda, so just take the plane 😉.
Again a big difference ... from the relaxed Bermuda to the fast NYC. The temperature is the same (it's nice and warm here) but the difference in speed is enormous. Just the enormous hurried taxi ride from the airport to the hotel 🚕. Toine's driving style is nothing compared to that. But what a nice lively city NY is! And suddenly a lot of young people around us! We haven't seen much of that in the last four weeks. Super nice to be here!
We're in a nice hotel close to the south-west corner of Central Park, with a nice roof terrace on the 15th floor from where we can see the Hudson. Lovely to sit here at the end of the day with a drink. We've seen a lot in the short time already. The first day (yesterday) we walk around from the hotel for the first impressions ... to 5th Ave, the Apple Store and along the Trump Tower. We've been here 8,5 years ago during our tour Atlantic, but the girls don't remember that much. Marinthe recognizes many buildings of the 3-D puzzle she made several times.
Today starts with some rain but that shouldn't spoil the fun. We walk through Central Park and then take the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge. Eline picks out the subway routes. Super fun to walk all the way across that bridge to Brooklyn. With a nice view of Manhattan. What are there a lot of different people on the street, maybe extra busy because it's Sunday with a lot of New Yorkers on the road? We have lunch at an Italian in Brooklyn and then take the subway back to Times Square. There the girls buy a cap from the NY Yankees ... for tonight's baseball game ⚾.
What an experience it is. It's an important game (the most important one of the year) and the stadium is completely full. We go there by subway and that's especially the last piece of hut cap very close to each other. Then with lots of others to get into the stadium ... and then we're just in time for the American national anthem. Super cool to see such a game live, although the baseball itself is not such a spectacle and they win 1-0. Nice to see Didi Gregory; a Dutch player (born in Adam and raised in Curacao) with a decisive role in the team.
You read it, we're having fun here! We stay another two days and fly back to Bermuda early Wednesday morning. The hotel there helps us tremendously. We left the big bags and now only have some hand luggage with us and we can go back in the same house at no extra cost. Probably thanks to the charm that Toine threw in the fight with the sturdy black lady who's manager there 😉.