Captain Stokes Marina Bermuda

“32:22.80N 64:40.53W”

7008 Miles since leaving Sandwich.

27^th May 2023

The first night at the Port Royal Marina in the centre of St Georges was a bit traumatic to be honest. The wind came in with a vengeance and pushed us side on to the harbour wall. We popped into town for an hour and by the time that we returned one of our spring lines had already chaffed halfway through on the rough edge of the harbour wall. While we were adding anti chaff sleeves to all of our lines the increasing winds and rough seas became ever more apparent. The fenders were now pressed really hard against the wall and to be honest as the surface was quite rough, I had serious reservations about whether they would survive the night. For the first time ever, I deployed our fender boards which not only protected them from the rough wall but also spread the load over several fenders. With all now locked down we went to bed to sleep off the tiredness from our journey. At midnight Norma got a funny feeling and went outside to check things out. She found 40 knot gusts, driving rain, plus both fender boards and one fender had popped out at the top of the tide and were now lying on the dockside. With Tony and Norma helping plus the crew of a passing Canadian yacht Life of Riley 3.0 we got them back in place again before any damage was done. End result I went back to bed but set my alarm for 1 hour and every hour through the night I got up to check things were still in place. By 0600 the wind was dying and the potential for damage had passed leaving me a whole two hours before getting up to start the day.

The next day while Norma got busy with sorting the boat out down below after the passage and heavy rain, I had a proper checkout of the marina. No electricity and no water were available on our berth which was exposed to a choppy swell coming in from the entrance, AT $2.25 per foot per day I would expect better (or at least some) facilities. Tony and myself went for a walk in the driving rain to Captain Stokes marina which is about a quarter of a mile further into the bay and was where we stayed the last time we visited here. Unfortunately, Captain Stokes died last year but Denzel is now running the place and could not be more helpful. We couldn’t get in that day but, as a boat was leaving the following morning, he pencilled us into that slot. After another uncomfortable night bumping against the wall, we sailed Spectra up the coast and reverse moored her into Captain Stokes marina.

The reverse mooring actually went pretty well, we were soon attached at both front and back and the yachts on either side could breathe a sigh of relief. The problems began when I decided to double up the lines to the bow mooring buoy. The trouble was that it only had a rope loop and not the normal hard ring, with Spectra’s weight on it the loop collapsed and we couldn’t get another rope through the hole. Jake to the rescue, he jumped in from the bow and after 20 minutes of messing about with ropes we had two lines doubled up from the mooring buoy to Spectra’s bow.

Jesus Christ or is it Jake.

For $0.25 more we have shore power, running water on tap plus a shower and toilet 20 meters from the back of the boat as opposed to 150 meters at the other place, we were happy. One slight bugbear was that when I revved the engine in gear to pull the bow mooring line taught the engine starved itself of fuel and cut out. Obviously, we haven’t solved all of the problems yet. We got it going again but the thought is that the new electric pump is just not powerful enough to supply enough fuel when the engine is under load and at high revs. We have a possible solution with a bigger pump which we will trial out over the next few days Another bug bear was the fact that after 4 days of constant blustery showers and damn right torrential rain Spectra was as wet inside as she was out. Thursday was a dry day and we took full advantage. Every hatch and window was thrown open, the rails and washing lines were soon festooned with bedding and soggy waterproofs, even the cushions from below were brought up on deck and aired. Once all of that done and the boat was swabbed down inside from bow to stern, we went out exploring for the day.

Moored stern to in Captain Smokes Marina, St Georges, Bermuda.

St Georges is the old capital of Bermuda and is very historic and one might even say quaint providing you ignore the packs of pasty cruise liner passengers that get disgorged from the ferry terminal. A short bus ride away is Hamilton which is chalk and cheese when compared with St Georges. It still has Front Street, which is the tourist zone, but the rest of the city is a modern vibrant hub. One thing to note here is that Bermuda even in the rain is beautiful. Everything is neatly painted, there is no litter, and the people are just so friendly. Here are two little storyettes to emphasise the point.

Just outside of the bus ticket office in St Georges is a series of benches which, like just about every bus terminal in the world, are inhabited by a few men and one woman that are a bit raggedy and a bit worse for drink. We had to squeeze past them on the narrow pavement in order to get to the bus stop. Every singly one of the said good morning and with a smile wished us a good day. 

In a rather lovely park in Hamilton, we followed a path under some trees into a shaded and secluded area, this was inhabited by 5 teenagers who were partaking of some herbal cigarettes. With their back to us they didn’t see us walking close by and carried on their conversation punctuated by the occasional ‘F bomb’ as teenagers do. As soon as they caught sight of us one of them shushed the others and very shame faced apologised for the language while the others all said good afternoon and wished us a happy day. Honestly this place is soooooooooooooooo friendly and polite.

We have had long conversations with bus drivers, people in the street, old ladies to often to remember as they all want to say hello, and even a parking warden who was very friendly and joked that his job was to encourage people to park better and not to cost them money.  The only outright rudeness that we have encountered is a damn yellow bird which I am sure is calling me a FxxK Wit. Over and over it repeats it from a tree near the boat and it has even told his friends because a flock of them were all calling me names in the park in Hamilton. Outrageous I call it.

The Fxxk Wit bird.

Today is Bermuda day which is celebrated by a carnival in Hamilton. After watching the St Georges to Hamilton bike ride go by from the marina, which was followed by the half marathon, onto the bus we jumped and went to see what was happening. Families book pitches at the side of the carnival route and set up small gazebo tents which they fill with food, children and grandparents to watch the parade go by. Because everyone brings their own food there are no street vendors, or none that we could find which was actually a very nice way to run things. The atmosphere was very family orientated and fun, fun, fun for all. Unfortunately, this year was very nearly rained out. The skies opened and it came down in stair rods, so much so that most of the primary and younger schools had to cancel as it was just too wet for the kids to be out in it. What was nice to see though was that much to the crowds delight every school that had to cancel the children’s participation sent at least one teacher and parent to wave the flag and show that they were there. Each and every one of them trudged past soaking wet to a chorus of cheers and claps from the crowd.

The Bermudan Defence Force marching in the rain.

We had planned to stop at the crystal caves on the way back to Spectra but ran out if time. The lady driving the bus did tell us that we should go and see the unfinished church instead and visit the caves tomorrow when we have more time. She also told us at length that she had been married in the unfinished church and how beautiful it was. Well when the lady driving the bus says so who are we not to follow her advice, we felt honour bound to give it a look. The back story in a nutshell is that the church of St Georges was to be built by subscription from all of the parishes in Bermuda as a unifying action and a place of central worship. Unfortunately, the Parishes had a schism and all fell out with each other. They couldn’t agree and went off and built their own churches instead in a very un-unifying way. End result, the money dried up, a hurricane took the roof off, and it stands unfinished to this day.

The unfinished church in St Georges, so named because well – It is unfinished.

As you can probably tell I like this place as much as I did when we visited in 2015 but oh my god it is so expensive. A jar of marmite costs $12.95 US dollars and a sliced loaf is $9. We did an initial stock up for the next leg and $100 gained us two small plastic bags of goodies. I hope the fish are biting in the Sargasso Sea is all I can say.

The Bermuda Triangle

And finally, finally, here is Bermuda’s entry in the Chicken of the Week competition.

We currently plan to do some more sightseeing and engine tweaks before heading out on Monday for Nova Scotia. I will update again before then.