The yucky weather we have been having for the past few days is forecasted to go away Thursday, and i think I will go away too. This has been a excep[tionally wonderful experience. Now it is time to go back home. I spent most of the day, between rain showers, going to get water two jugs at a time. When I got fuel and water topped off I went by the church to see Gilliam Outebridge, the lady who sails a Flicka. One of the first days Will and I were here she came driving her boat through the anchorage and I waved and called her. She told me today that it was a thrill for her, when she was driving among the exotic visiting yachts, to have someone wave and actually call her by name. You never know what little things you do may make somebody smile.
The dinghy is stowed. I will tie the deck jugs tomorrow waiting for Customs and Immigration to open. The trip back should take about six days.
Love to you all.
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Several days later.
I have aboard a satellite communicator called inReach. It will send text messages both ways, and has been a game changer for keeping in touch with folks ashore. It usually only takes a few minutes to send a message and get a reply. It is just one of the many things that Normandie has put in my life. I was getting ready to go to Customs to check out when I got a message from Jeremiah Day saying that he might be able to fly out and sail back with me. All departure plans went on hold. The next day while he was sorting out details, I was did routine shipboard stuff. The dinghy was lashed to the rail so I did not go ashore. The day after that his plans were firming up to come so I assembled "Goodness", and went to catch the ferry to The Royal Dockyard.
The Royal Dockyard in English Harbour, Antigua, has fascinated me every time I get there. It is where the British Navy reworked and resupplied their Caribbean fleet. The Dockyard here is much larger, maybe five times bigger. But Captain jack Aubry never has any adventure in Bermuda. The reason is that the British were occupied with conflicts with Spain and France, and Bermuda was secured close to their colonies in America so the French and Spanish were not interested in it. As a matter of fact, Bermuda is named for the Spaniard who discovered it, Bermudez, and Spain claimed it. For a hundred years only ship-wrecked sailors lived here until they were rescued. Then the ship "Sea Venture", a resupply ship to the Jamestown colony, in a hurricane wrecked on the reef, with no loss of life. The sailors went to work building two smaller ships using lumber from the wreck of Sea Venture. Ten months later they sailed on to Jamestown, leaving two deserters, who were later pardoned. (They sailed under the command of Captain Christopher Newport. In Newport News Virginia there is a Christopher Newport Collage. I wonder where the name Newport News came from?) When news of the shipwreck and the self rescue got back to London it caused a sensation, and some say that Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" is based on the story. London then got interested in Bermuda, and two years later colonized it. Spain objected but didn't challenge, and it became de facto British. Nobody was interested because basically nothing is here. Wars were fought in the Caribbean over sugar and tobacco, but Bermuda escaped all that. All of O'Brien's stories are based on actual Naval actions, and Jack Aubry had no reason to come here.
Bermuda has great natural defenses; a reef is around 2/3 of the island, only the south side is exposed to the open ocean. There is one passage through the reef. The reefs kept enemy ships far out of canon range. After the US Revoulation Britain became concerned that the UWS would want Bermuda and started seriously fortifying it. Then after the US Un-Civil War the range of naval guns increased to the point that ships could stand off the reef and fire into the island. More fortifications. During WWI the island just bristled with forts with guns pointed in all directions. All this was successful I suppose because Bermuda has neverf been attacked. These old forts are now everywhere. Some are tourist attractions, some abandoned and overgrown, some useful structures. My favorite is on top of the hill overlooking St Georges, and all of Bermuda. It is the nerve center for controlling all vessel movement in the controlled navigation area, Bermuda Radio. I visited it on a previous visit. It is a little, classic fort, complete with mote and drawbridge. Four preserved guns, one on each corner. Inside the mote is a not very large three story building, its walls dropping straight down into the mote. Windows all around and bristling with electronics. The ever present all seeing guardian looking over us.
This weekend is a celebration of the Portuguese heritage, mostly from the Azores! I am a long way from New Bedford, but the whalers influenced the populations everywhere they went. There are stages set up with lots of open food stations and decorations. I love these celebrations for the local people, not tourists.
I keep seeing the Town Crier, a man in costume with a bell. They have a reenactment of the town dunking stool. A woman is accused, he puts her on the stool, and a group of tourists wheel the see-saw contraption to the edge of the water, let go their end, and down she goes! I later spent some time talking with the Crier and he filled me in on some history details. He is a descendant of one of the deserters who remained when the rest sailed for Jamestown. He is also the treasurer at church. With him was his "dunkee" the woman in the dunking stool, with wet hair. Their discussion was about where he was going to leave the church bulletins so she could pick them up. Small Town.
Jeremiah will arrive Monday and we will sail after that, weather permitting.
Bill Doar
s/v Advent II
I would rather be in a boat with a drink on the rocks,
Than in the drink with a boat on the rocks.
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