Our Bermuda Experience: Part Four
By Dave and Jaja

On May 4th 1998, we arrived in Bermuda, aboard DRIVER, after a boisterous 8-day passage from Fernandina Beach, Florida. On the 20th of May we set sail for Iceland. The following is our Bermuda Experience (Part 4 of 4)

Our last morning at Dock Yard was perfect; it was clear, warm, and slightly humid, with every promise of turning into a really hot day. Our friends Mark and Lisa, the marina managers, stood on the pier to wave us off. Their enthusiasm for our upcoming voyage to Iceland was genuine. With shouts of "don't forget to write!" we steamed out of the harbor, bound for St. Georges, 20 miles away, where we planned to spend the night before putting to sea.

The calm, reef-protected lagoon was pleasant. The hot sun was pleasant, and even the beat of the engine was pleasant. We had become connoisseurs of pleasant. With a long ocean passage in our immediate future, everything we WOULDN'T have "out there" took on profound significance. Each full night of sleep was becoming more and more delicious, and every mouthful of fresh vegetables divine. We didn't mind the hardships of putting to sea; it was part of the adventure. Anyway, doing without the comforts of life was good for the soul. Or so we kept telling ourselves.

Despite its technical downside, St. Georges is a picturesque ocean crossroads with yachts of all dimensions, and crews from every flag. We met people who had sailed in from the States, and we met many others who had sailed up from the Caribbean. Many crews were preparing to cross the Atlantic. Everyone who'd sailed to Bermuda on a small boat had spent a few days out of sight of land. That unique perspective charged the anchorage with an expectant giddiness; it's impossible not to feel privileged while sitting on a private boat in Bermuda.

St. Georges was mobbed, and various languages merged to form a carnival urgency. Under the right circumstances the insanity of the place can be captivating. During my solo shakedown cruise to Bermuda, onboard 25-foot DIRECTION in 1987, I pulled into to St Georges Harbor as a single-young-man-in-search-of-a-good-time. DIRECTION was in top ocean trim, my wallet was stuffed from long hours of work, I was 24 years old, and I was parched for adventure. Those four, highly dangerous combinations had turned my planned two-week visit to Bermuda into a two-month-long binge.

It might be interesting to note that during that summer of 1987, cruise ships delivering tourists were overcrowded with female college students. Apparently, the ancient television show LOVE BOAT had created exotic connections between ocean liners and instant romance. I'm not sure which reruns the college guys had been watching, because when I mentioned the cruise ship situation to Jaja, (when we met several months later) she said she'd been working at a hotel in Cancun, Mexico that summer, where college guys outnumbered the girls 20 to 1. We had both awkwardly agreed travel agents ought to try to balance the trade more evenly.

The next day we set sail for Iceland.