After an incredible sleep, we awoke to the most beautiful bay! Both of us hadn’t ever really looked into cruising in Bermuda, as with much of the Caribbean Islands, we took it one island at a time! Given we’d delayed our start from the US, it meant we only had less than 3 days in Bermuda to do boat work, ARC briefings and socials and most importantly - explore Bermuda! We wish we’d had a couple of weeks to explore the island but the glimpses of what we visited was enough for us to want to come back.

The ARC had secured us a spot at St Georges Marina, which was much easier to get on and off the boat given the wind, the dinghy rides the day before that had been quite rough! If you followed our journey on Instagram, you would have seen our final crew mate, Brent, arrived in Bermuda to help Ant and Mikko sail Bermuda-Azores-Lagos! So, we immediately hit the beach at Tobacco Bay and grabbed a bite to eat! After a month of not swimming in the US, we were all very keen for the crystal clear Bermuda waters! We then had the ARC prize giving of the first leg - most boats started from St Martin and a couple from Solomons. The prize giving included social drinks and a wonderful Gombey performance!

Our second day in Bermuda, we took the bus to the Clearwater Beach for a swim and beach lunch before hitting the boat for some last minute jobs and prep. Given there would be lots of cooking aboard, we explored the area for a team dinner before an early night before our last day onshore! Our last full day in Bermuda included checking out with the ARC and immigration, a quick dinghy ride to meet some friends at Horseshoe Island and finally we then got ready and headed to meet with other ARC crew at the famous Swizzle Inn restaurant - boy, are those swizzles loaded!

Like everything with sailing life, awesome friendships had quickly formed and an amazing few days in Bermuda were had, but myself (Alex) and the kids were flying out to Australia whilst Ant, Mikko and Brent sailed Tranquila across to Portugal! The kids gave daddy a big hug, and we were ready for our long trip to Australia - which, after living aboard for a year, felt like a “quick” 33 hour journey and we were halfway across the world!