In Bermuda
Joined the ship yesterday. I knew I was in for trouble at the airport in Toronto when, after I had cleared security and was going to call V, I realized I couldn’t find my phone. Mad scramble through carryons before I hit the Pause button and tried to remember where I had seen it last, hoping that it was at security screening where I might still have a chance of recovering it. Unfortunately couldn’t remember having seen it since checking emails in the back of the airport limo. Fired up my iPad and checked Find my Phone and I could see that it was located at an address about 10k away from the airport so clearly still in the backseat of the limo.
Sad really since I had planned to use my iphone to video the interesting moments of the trip with my phone. Had done lots of research before the trip as more and more movies and really interesting video projects are being created entirely on iphones and had bought a Moondog anamorphic lens and a little Shure mike with a lightning connector for the iphone, as well as an iphone Steadycam rig to shoot with, now all this equipment is simply excess weight and space in my luggage. Not a good start to the trip.
The desk staff at the Air Canada Lounge were very helpful and let me use their phone to call V. Fortunately the limo driver had called to let me know that he was on his way before he picked me up, so I asked V to call the last number calling to the house phone and she reached the driver who found the phone when he checked. So a small win. V retrieved the phone yesterday and had a wonderful experience with the driver’s family, a Pakistani family who have been in Canada for 6 years and whose only daughter had just graduated from, I think Waterloo, with an undergrad degree in Psych. She is interested in getting into HR so she and V got along very well and the family were welcoming, gracious and charming. The phone was wrapped in tissue paper and presented to V in a gift bag accompanied by a large box of chocolates, he is now my limo driver for life!
When I arrived in St George my first task was to find a cheap, pay-as-you-go phone so that I at least had some voice communication while we are still in reach of a signal. Ended up taking a taxi into Hamilton at the cost of $40US each way and picked up a basic Android phone from Digicel which is unlocked so that I can use it in Bermuda and then pop in an Azores sim card at the other end, not elegant but a working solution.
Our skipper Chris
It was well that I did that as when I arrived on the boat on Saturday, Chris the skipper told me that they had a broken water pump and some minor engine hiccoughs and as parts needed to be flown in, we are now leaving on Tuesday rather than Sunday morning. They had limped into port in Bermuda a day late and were needing to get the boat back into proper working order before we could depart. Not necessarily a hardship as I now have communication, the boat is comfortable and now have a couple of days to explore.
With a start like this it’s either going to be a fabulous passage or there is one more bump still to come, I’m counting on the former.
Lat night the boat’s crew was invited to spend the evening at a local sailing club about a 10 minute walk along the waterfront and so we spent the evening drinking Dark and Stormys and chatting to the locals, great fun. I left at about 10 and crashed but I think that a number of the crew closed the bar so I’m expecting a rough breakfast tomorrow morning.
Stay tuned, more to come.
