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Thursday, May 25th - approaching St. Georges
Harbor, Bermuda
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What a way to end our
passage! We had an amazing evening last night that
included good wind and an incredible "small world"
incident that continues to boggle our minds.
The day promised to be
a good one from the very outset. Although the wind
was light and the skies gray, we were entering the final
24 hours of our passage. The girls had completed
their last review day on Tuesday and were ready for
their final tests of the year. Cassie woke up at
6:20. I encouraged her to go back to bed as it was
awfully early. She happily agreed and minutes
later I heard both her and Juliana talking in their
room. So much for that. Much to my surprise,
Cassie came out an hour or two later, having completed
about half of her tests. I sat her down in the
salon and administered the rest of them which she passed
with flying colors. By noon both girls were done
with school for the year. They are both thrilled
to have the summer off, as are their teachers. We
now have a fifth grader and a third grader!
We baked a cake in the
afternoon to celebrate. Around 5pm the wind
started picking up and Joe rolled out the genniker, the
biggest of our headsails. We started really
sailing. Larson was thrilled to get a decent sail
in on his trip. Of course we have been bragging
about what a great, fast boat ZIA is and now was our
chance to prove it. He was suitably impressed as
we hit 10s with the wind off the port stern at 15 knots.
Around the same time,
we noticed a boat coming up behind us. It had been
a couple of days since we had seen anything out here, so
it was an exciting diversion. It appeared to be a
large, luxury motor yacht. We were standing around
in the cockpit, working out what we could say to them if
we called them on the radio, when we heard them hailing
us. We had a great chat with two of the crew
members on the two hundred and two foot "Phoenix."
They were headed to Bermuda, where they planned only a
day's layover before heading out for Gibraltar.
They were very curious about us, especially when they
heard that we had kids onboard. We exchanged some
stories and information about our boats. Larson
got on the radio and asked about their tender and the
other toys they had onboard. We told them a little
about our trip so far and bragged about finishing
school. They congratulated us, hoped we would see
each other in Bermuda, and we signed off.
About fifteen minutes
later "Phoenix" called us up again to tell us to be on
the lookout for a whale that they had spotted about a
half mile in front of us, between our two boats.
We had seen a large splash on the horizon a couple of
nights ago but weren't close enough to label it as a
whale. This time we were able to see it spout
numerous times and even got a glimpse of a fin or a tail
breaching and slapping back down on the water. Joe
was chatting to the guys on Phoenix in the meantime.
We told them about our plans to cross to the Azores in
mid-June, and then continue on to Spain or Portugal, and
eventually stay in Spain over the winter. "Have
you got a pen?" Guy asks. He started dictating
phone numbers to us. "If you ever get to a place
called Palma de Mallorca, you must call us. That
is where we are all from."
Back in January in St.
Martin, we had met a boat by the name of LEGARIS.
Georg, Nathalie and Anthonia were spending six months
cruising the islands. They had crossed the
Atlantic from their home in Palma. We enjoyed them
tremendously and spent a few weeks traveling in tandem
through the Bahamas. We have talked with them
about spending the winter months in Palma and are still
trying to work out a situation for the girls to attend a
local school and learn Spanish. Of course, we
immediately relayed this information to our new friends
on "Phoenix." We all just about fell off our seats
when they came back to us saying that, in fact, one of
the crewmembers knows Georg and Nathalie quite well.
Aris had even attended their fair well party in Palma
before they left for their cruise. We are still
reeling from the idea that here, 120 miles out from
Bermuda, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, over
the VHF radio, chatting with a super yacht, we uncovered
a connection with someone that could have so easily been
left buried. "It might be a big ocean, but it is
still a small world." Aris could not have said it
better!
XOXO
Christy, Joe, Cassie
and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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