written by Yannic
When we arrived at Bermuda the first thing we recognized were the colorfully painted houses with their white roofs in their unique shape, which no one of us had ever seen before. Apart from this we have not actually seen much of the Bermudas, only the inner city of St. George’s, the capital Hamilton and the parishes at the south-western end, located at the coastline. But nevertheless, I am going to tell you as much as possible about our wonderful experiences.
First thing: We survived the Bermuda Triangle!
Generally, most of our layover time in St. George’s was used for school lessons and preparing the ship for the North Atlantic crossing.
So, our first full day on the Bermudas after docking at an old wharf called “Penno’s Wharf” in the city of St. George’s began with some school lessons in Maths. After getting some information about the Bermudas from Ally, we finally got the possibility to leave the Thor in search of a good WiFi spot. We finally found it at the Heritage World Center, so we were able to talk to our families for the first time since Panama.
On 4th March, I got the chance to play the tour guide for the whole group and gave an one hour tour through the old city of St. George’s, which was built in an old British style after Bermudas‘ discovery in the year 1609. Before my tour, we had some hours of ship work and after lunch we had lessons – this time in St. George itself.
The next day started with our feared English test, but we all had a good feeling after taking it. Later we had some free time, so we got the chance to discover the city on our own.
For most of us a café called “Yo Cherry” was the most important place as it had WiFi that was far faster than all other spots in the whole town. So in total there were exactly three things we did in the city: hanging around in the Internet and calling our families and friends, searching and finding supermarkets and other shops and buying tons of sweets to survive the North Atlantic Ocean or walking through the small streets with its small houses and searching non-expensive souvenirs which turned out to be a very hard task.
On Monday the 6th we had our only trip outside St. George’s. The students were split into two groups, one group was visiting some beautiful caves in the middle part of the islands, the other one climbed Gibbs Lighthouse, the highest point of the Bermudas with its 70 meters above the sea level.
After a five-kilometer-walk, both groups went to the capital Hamilton by bus where all had some free time before getting back to the ship. Most of us spent almost the whole time trying on Bermuda-Sweaters in one single shop, which consequently was definitely overcrowded. But it was a lot of fun, seeing thirty KUSis in one small store, trying on millions of different sweaters, hoodies and T-Shirts. At some point of time we even stopped using the changing rooms and started pulling of our clothes in the middle of the shop. Some time was also used for buying sweets in the large supermarkets, built in a typical American way, but at the Bermudan price level we were not able to buy that much.
The same evening, David and I sprayed the Thor Heyerdahl logo, which I had created at Tenerife, on the pier next to our ship.
The last full day of our stay was completely used for free time and ship’s work. One group was working and preparing the ship for crossing the Atlantic, while the other one had free time in the city. In the afternoon the two groups changed their tasks or free time.
On Tuesday the 8th, the day of leaving the Bermudas, everyone got the chance to call his or her family and friends one last time before heading directly to our new destination – The Azores.