Hard to believe I've been in Bermuda for more than a week. Slowly starting to get to know the island. I've been from St George's on the eastern edge through Hamilton and all the small towns all the way out to the old naval dockyards on the western edge of the island. It's a tidy well-kept island, almost manicured, with rock walls, quaint houses, and lush foliage. The narrow winding roads do not have potholes and almost every square inch of the island except for the parks is inhabited.

The diving is different from Grenada since there isn't a fringing reef, rather a series of limestone outcrops similar to bommies in the pacific with hard coral growths. These outcrops create breakers, where the rock is at the sea surface, and blind breakers, where the rock is just below the sea surface. These breakers and the surrounding reefs on the outcroppings account for the large number of shipwrecks around the island and the difficulty in navigating the in-shore waters.

Last Monday night/Tuesday morning, just after we picked up the Gibbs Hill lighthouse, the engine started to slow as the boat rolled and then picked up as we rolled back. Immediately shut it down since it was obvious we were getting low on fuel (it didn't sound as though the filters were clogged, just a difficulty in picking up fuel as it sloshed in the tank) and if the engine died, it would be difficult to bleed while at sea. A good breeze had come up and we were able to sail the south shore of the island around to St George's and even arrived when we had told Bermuda radio we would.

The difficult part of the approach was negotiating the Towne Cut channel into the St George's harbour since it's quite narrow and sheltered so we weren't sure we could hold our way as we sailed through, but we did and were able to sail all the way to the customs dock where we fired up the engine to stop the boat and finally tied up alongside the customs dock. After checking in and clearing customs and immigration, I grabbed two jerry cans and walked over to the Rubis marine service station. Added the fuel and we motored out of St Georges heading for the Pier 41 marina in the old naval dockyards.

As we rounded the corner at Fort St Catherine (feeling good about what we'd accomplished) we were hit with 20 to 25 knots of wind on the nose and building seas. The two bladed prop and small Yanmar wasn't quite up to the task and then the cooling water stopped coming out the exhaust. After all this time at sea, these were the worst conditions we'd had. I went below pulled apart the strainer, which looked fine, then blew out the line trying to dislodge anything we might have picked up in the thru hull. Put everything together and it still wasn't pumping. As I was about to check the impeller, I removed the hose at the impeller and realized there wasn't any water there. Blew on the hose and heard air coming from the strainer. When I looked at the strainer cover, it appeared that the cork gasket had failed. A ziplock bag folded and slipped between the cover and the strainer did the trick creating a solid seal that allowed the pump to work. The engine was working again, but now we had to figure out how to make it to dockyards. Pulled up the main with a double reef and between the reefed sail and the engine were able to tack our way against the wind and finally made it to the marina around 2pm -- about four and a half hours later. The only time we took water over the bow the entire trip was on this stretch of water. It was good to tie the boat in the slip.

After four days of diving, good meals, and lots of new friends, I'm heading back to the States on Saturday. A week in DC, Annapolis, and southern MD before flying back to Grenada a week from Monday.

Here are a couple of views of Towne Cut from the lee shore: