Jan 18
I’m on my way home to Bermuda after almost a week back at, er, home in the UK seeing family, mates and those Addicks.
I have been in Eastbourne most of the trip, my parents live just outside the town, and although it has been bloody freezing, Eastbourne did live up to it’s billing of the Sunshine Coast.
Please click for moreAs I sit here drinking coffee at my kitchen counter in Sarasota tired from overdoing it on New Year’s Eve Eve, I am pretty pleased to put 2022 in the books.
Normality returned to life as we knew it in 2022 after two pandemic impacted years allowing us to remember again how to do the simple things we took for granted.
I often had to remind those around me, and myself that in times of hassle and intensity, that it was these moments that we’d missed. I love being busy and slightly living on the edge of unorganized and spontaneous, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Please click for moreJohn Daly was the draw this week at the PGA Butterfield Bermuda Championship at the serene Port Royal Golf Club.
At 56 Daly makes me look like George Dobson, and although he was only here on an exemption, the legendary American easily received the loudest roars from the crowd on both Thursday and Friday before missing the cut by miles.
Please click for moreMy son leaves on a jet-plane tonight back to London, a day later than planned thanks to British Airways. We have had him through the past week, his first time on the island since before the pandemic, and it was a pleasure to hang out.
He has done almost everything the tour book can throw up here previously, and therefore he was happy to swim, chill, eat, drink and get some sun on his face.
Please click for moreIf you read my Puerto Rico Travelogue post from last week I wrote that we were told that a Cat 1 Hurricane hitting the island would mean that the fractured power grid would not survive.
Well, over the weekend Hurricane Fiona battered parts of Puerto Rico’s south and central mountain regions with more than 20 inches of rain and Cat 1 hurricane winds of 70-80 mph winds. The southern town of Ponce measured a gust of 103 mph. Landslides broke out in mountainous regions as waterways breached their banks. In the south-west the Guanajibo River crested at over 29ft washing a bridge away.
Please click for moreThe colours and atmosphere of the bi-annual Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda sailing race has been filling the harbour and streets of Hamilton in Bermuda this week.
The island has slowly been getting tourists and visitors back, and it’s nice to see the capital’s streets bursting with life again.
This was the first running of the Newport to Bermuda race since 2018. The first one took place in 1906, and is the oldest ocean race for amateur sailors.
SailGP is a season of grands prix consisting of high performance sailing races around the world. The first one of this season was this weekend in Bermuda which has captivated this outpost all week long after last year’s skinnied down pandemic version.
Season 3 of the 10-race series boasts an expanded roster of teams, with Switzerland and Canada joining Australia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States. The competing teams feature the sport’s best athletes including Olympic gold medalists and world champions, all racing together at the same time in identical boats, meaning the results rely on crews and not engineering.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ Two more of these Top Five’s to share. Bermuda is like no other place in the World in so many different ways. It’s is peculiar and beautiful in equal measures.
Please click for moreSo bored of Covid. It has had it’s fun and games, killed loved ones, turned upside down daily life and prevented us from seeing the people and things that make us happy. Please just do one. Of all the hopes and aspirations for 2022 I want Covid to become no more than a nuisance factor and it no longer gets to run roughshod over our lives.
Please click for moreBack home indoors after almost a month away in the United States. The dog was ignoring me, but we rekindled a little on our morning walk earlier.
It was pretty restorative being away from this small isle for the past 4 weeks, travelling East Coast to West, and back again. When I left at the beginning of December Covid was in the rear view mirror and now it is back in the front seat. California and Florida have a complete different mindset when it comes to the pandemic, and one could easily see that after spending time in both States.
Please click for moreIt’s always spooked me that warm places over-compensate for being sunny this time of year by having the most outlandish of Christmas decorations.
Bermuda goes to town on the festive bedecking but after being in Sarasota, Florida for two weeks I reckon it takes the glittering prize.
Please click for moreWe’ve had the Bermuda PGA FedEx Cup here this weekend, golf for the uninitiated, which ended this afternoon at the Port Royal Golf Club, a beautiful setting out on the west end of the island.
Please click for moreMy American colleagues are forever mocking me for the amount of national holidays we get in Bermuda. We take the British ones, the American ones, have plenty ourselves and the island’s government are not immune to inventing the random one for good measure.
Nonetheless days off are not to be sniffed at, and we have one today to celebrate Bermuda’s first ever Olympic gold medal won by triathlete Flora Duffy in Tokyo. 🏊♀️🚴♀️🏃🏼♀️🥇
Please click for moreI was in Queens, New York yesterday watching the U.S. Tennis Open. It was a flying visit, one full day, two nights and four Covid tests. We had great seats for Tuesday’s afternoon session and in the first quarter final game watched Danill Medvedev beat outsider Botic Van De Zandschulp, ranked 454 in the world.
The Russian was cruising, but in the 3rd set the Dutchman made a game of it delaying our escape to find some shade. It was a hot day, the sun, motionless above us, was baking hot, thus the famed honey deuces were a necessity for hydration purposes. Medvedev, the no.2 seed eventually won 6-3, 6-0, 4-6, 7-5.
Please click for moreSo we have been in the Florida sun rain for the past 10 days. We spent the first weekend with friends in Miami, which was a lot of fun, and then drove to our house in Sarasota across alligator alley on the other coast at the beginning of last week.
Chicago Addick 