It feels great to be anchored in Bermuda! Our impression at the end of every passage has been the same – amazement that our boat has taken us to a brand new place.
There weren’t too many navigation decision for this trip. As we exited the long breakwaters of Charleston’s entrance channel, we pointed the bow at Bermuda and more or less stayed on that course. The straightline distance is 770nm, and we only sailed a total of 796nm. The only real tactical decision we made during the entire trip was to veer a bit north of the rhumbline in the hopes of staying in slightly stronger wind.
This particular passage turned out to be a fast one, at least for our boat. We covered a total of 796nm in 5 days and 2 hours, for an average speed of 6.5 knots. Our first several long passages always resulted in an average speed of just under 6 kts, so we’ve either gotten luckier with the weather or have gotten a bit better at keeping the boat moving.
About 80% of the passage was spent with 10-15 knot winds from the south or southwest. Since Bermuda is more or less due east of Charleston, that meant that our point of sail was usually between a close reach and a beam reach. That definitely helped with our speed.
The other 20% of the time was spent in winds of 20-30 from just west of south. We used our staysail together with a double reefed main, which was just barely enough sail area to keep the boat moving at 5-6 knots. With 7-9′ (2-3m) waves nearly on the beam, it was an uncomfortable ride. In retrospect, a bit more sail may have improved the motion by stabilizing the boat, but it also would have made us go faster and launch off the top of more waves (the problem with that is not the actual launching, of course, but the landing, which is always accompanied by a boat-rattling bang).
The biggest challenge with this passage was receiving approval to arrive in Bermuda from the local health authorities. There is a very nice website with clear directions on exactly what information to submit (proof of vaccination status, results of a negative COVID test, and an application fee) to receive travel authorization. We submitted all of that the day before and promptly received a confirmation of our application. The day of our departure we both called and emailed to confirm that we would receive authorization, but we never received a response. So, we decided to leave for Bermuda anyway and take our chances.
It was a good thing we did, because we didn’t receive a response from the travel authorities until 6 days after we submitted our application – if we would have waited, we would have missed our weather window. And our negative tests would have no longer been valid because there would have been submitted too long ago.
Luckily for us, 6 days after we submitted our application was the morning that Bermuda popped into view on the horizon. Perfect timing!
