In the Atlantik, hundreds of miles away from the USA, lie the Bermudas . It´s a group of 300 islands, but only 20 of them are inhabited. They are a colony of the United Kingdom and so the normal language is English. And as you will soon notice, it is Queen’s English like in the UK and not Caribbean English like we heard during our last stops. The Bermudas are proud not to belong to the Caribbean. They are a rich country with a low criminality rate and have a good economy. In contrast to that, many of the Caribbean islands have big problems with money and crime. And the Bermudas have lots of tourism, most of the tourists are from the USA, Canada or England.
We arrived on Saturday, the third of March. With the strong winds it was a hard challenge to drive through the small channel to get to the harbour. But thanks to Detlef´s skills we arrived safely in the harbour of St. Georges. After clearing in we had time to collect first impressions of Bermuda. Of course the supermarkets were more expensive than in Cuba, but they have much more variety and look similar to the supermarkets in Europe. And another big advantage is the free wifi hot-spots. Such unlimited free high-speed internet access was a pleasant change for us after the limited internet we have found on Cuba. So the super internet connection was the first part of the dream the Bermudas were for us.
Happy to have escaped the storm, we started our Sunday with a typical Bavarian breakfast, “Weißwürste” and “Brezeln”. We enjoyed this luxurious breakfast, which reminded us about good old Bavaria. Then we had a completely free day to discover St. Georges. With Google Maps we found a perfect pizzeria, called “Griffin´s restaurant”. After weeks without a good Italian pizza, it was just perfect. It tasted absolutely delicious and the prices were acceptable for the Bermudian standard. The perfect food was also an important part of “Bermudian Dream”. In the afternoon Hanna guided us through the city and told us about its history. It was really interesting.
At 1609, some sailors saved themselves to the islands because they lost their ships in a big storm. With material on the island and parts of the old ship wrecks, they build a new ship and sailed to Europe. But some of the sailors decided to stay on the island and were the first settlers.After experiencing St. Georges, we wanted to discover a new city. So we decided to visit the capital Hamilton on Monday. It is a big city, with a nice look and perfect for shopping. In the clothing store “Flying colours” many of us bought cool Bermudian T-shirts and hoodies. And Hamilton has also good restaurants. We chose hamburger with fries, just perfect. So Hamilton is part of the “Bermudian dream”, too. After Hamilton, we visited one of the pink beaches Bermuda is famous for.
There were also some cliffs, which were perfect to climb on. On top, you had a perfect view over the beach and the sea. Here is the next part and an important essence of the “Bermudian Dream”, the beautiful nature. And as a good end for this day, we visited a big supermarket. ExKUSis adviced us to buy a special hot chocolate in this supermarket because it would be the best hot chocolate in the world. And they were right, it was absolutely fantastic. After all the fun, work had also to be done. We started the Tuesday with work on the ship. We prepared our home for the long and stormy adventure, sailing through the North-Atlantic. In the evening, when the work was done, we had delicious spaghetti bolognese on board.
But every dream has an end, so we had to leave the Bermudas on Wednesday. In our short visit of the islands, we found the “Bermudian Dream” everywhere. For us, the Bermudas were a paradise, although everything was quite expensive.
And now we are looking forward to the great adventure of the North-Atlantic and after that, the Azores.
Time to return to Europe!