To Bermuda with Love

Next Saturday a British friend of mine – a man who may just be the coolest man alive, let us call him James Bond shall we – is throwing a bon voyage party at Chelsea Piers.  He is going away for at least a year and has invited a good bunch of people to see him off.

He has even invited DJ ?uestlove to take care of the music, so the party promises to be a lot of fun.  Then at the end of the night, after enough beers have been drunk, stories have been told, and well wishes have been shared, James and seven other squash friends will be stepping onto his yacht, waving goodbye to the crowd, and sailing away into the moonlit night en route to Bermuda.

Talk about a dramatic exit.

When you consider that he has sold his Soho apartment, pulled his kids out of school and is taking his entire family sailing for a year of their lives, I guess it is quite fitting and is not that dramatic of a goodbye.  But, if you consider that, for this initial leg anyway, he is really only transporting a bunch of friends to a squash tournament in Bermuda, well, then it may be slightly overdone.  Especially given that that the rest of the touring side will simply be flying there the Thursday after.  Did you know that Bermuda is only an hour and a half by air from New York (with a tailwind)?

The squash tournament was started a few years ago and has grown in popularity each year.  This time around the two biggest squash clubs on the island will be competing against two invitational sides from New York and New England.  Each side has twelve players, consisting of both men and women, so there will be almost fifty squash players in total converging in Bermuda to compete for the tournament shield.  And to have fun generally, of course.

The squash, by design, coincides with another really popular event on the island, the World Rugby Classic.  Check out www.worldrugby.bm It is a tournament played between the world’s best rugby playing nations and always makes for good viewing – and good partying.  In fact, the rugby is just one of many weeks you would want to be in Bermuda.  There is also the Newport Bermuda Yacht Race, the PGA Grand Slam (which my fellow countryman, Ernie Els, won a week ago), and Cup Match, an annual cricket match between the two best club sides in Bermuda.  Like in much of the Caribbean, cricket is the most popular sport on the island.  I am sure squash is high on the popularity list too.  In fact, Bermuda won the Caribbean Champs earlier this year and even sent a squash team to the Commonwealth Games in India a month ago.

Anyway, after three wonderful days of fun in the sun, and once the New York team (I hope) has won the shield and it is stowed safely away in the trophy cabinet in Bermuda, the touring side will fly home; but James will continue on to the Virgin Islands.  And after enough island hopping in the Caribbean, and this year’s big storms have passed, he plans to sail across the Atlantic and end up somewhere in the Mediterranean next year.  I am thinking Monte Carlo may be a good place to finish the journey, not just because this is a fitting exit point for James Bond, but also because it is probably a good place to be when trying to sell a well-used 55 foot catamaran – or to trade it in for a new one.

On the way James plans on stopping in at squash clubs on each island paradise he lands on, you know, in the interests of exporting goodwill and generally maintaining the Queen’s interests abroad.  To keep track of James and read the notes from his journey, check out the website he has created at www.sailingondine.com You will not find a cooler website anywhere on the internet.

Nor will you find a cooler way to get to a squash tournament.