July 9th: Hamilton and Horseshoe Bay...and Rain

After getting a LOT of sleep (like, 10+ hours), I was ready to go the next morning. Time to do some adventuring!

We started by making some coffee in the room and eating some watermelon Mark had picked up the day before. After that, we got our stuff together, hopped on the bus, and went to...

...Hamilton to wander around for a bit.

We started out with a very tasty brunch at Devil's Isle Cafe...

...then wandered through a few shops before eventually winding up down at the waterfront.

We spent a few minutes watching a small sailing class in the distance before moving on to wander some more.

We followed these stairs up to...

...Queen Elizabeth Park...

...before making our way over to the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity.

We eventually wound up at Fort Hamilton, which was really cool.

There was a pretty nice view from the top...

...and a few decommissioned guns scattered around.

We wandered around the fort for a little while, then eventually walked back to the bus terminal and took the bus back to our Airbnb. We grabbed our beach stuff, walked down to the bus stop, and hopped on the first of two buses. It was time to get some sun!

That didn't quite go according to plan, though. We had to wait a good 20 minutes for the second bus to show up so we could get to the beach, and in that time, the skies opened up and it absolutely POURED. We had thankfully brought umbrellas, but it was still crazy.

The bus eventually arrived, though, and a little while later...

...we made it to Horseshoe Bay Beach.   :)

After that downpour, I definitely earned this Dark 'n Stormy!

The earlier rain had scared some of the crowds away, so we were able to get a pretty sweet spot down by the water. We set up our towels and plopped down to enjoy the afternoon.

We didn't get to spend very long enjoying the afternoon, though, before the next round of rain moved in. We managed to pack everything up before it started to rain too hard, and made our way up to...

...the Rum Bum Beach Bar. I wasn't about to let a passing rain shower scare me away from the beach! (It helped that we were able to grab some internet at the beach bar and check the radar to make sure it was just a passing shower.)

Luckily, the rain lined up nicely with Happy Hour, so we spent our time eating fries...

...and playing cards while we sipped on a couple drinks. The rain eventually moved out, so we grabbed our things and headed back to the sand.

The rain wound up working in our favor...

...as nearly everyone had left and the beach was practically empty!! We even got a tiny rainbow with our nearly empty beach.   :)

We grabbed another sweet spot, set up our things, and made the most of the now-perfect weather.

These little birds kept hopping around us and eyeing up my drink. 

We walked over to the side of the beach, where there was a little protected area by the rocks. There were a few really big fish swimming around in here; I wish I'd had a snorkel and mask to check them out!

We grabbed one last drink before we left...

...and watched the sunset inch closer before eventually grabbing a taxi and heading back to the Airbnb.

When we got back to our room, we could hear voices in the backyard. We thought it might be our hosts, so we figured we'd go say hi and give them the money we owed them for the bus passes. Turned out it was our hosts Mike and Sharon, their son, and one of their friends; they were all having drinks and snacks on their back deck. They invited us to join them but we didn't want to intrude, plus we'd planned to get cleaned up and go grab dinner. They eventually convinced us to sit down, two wine glasses appeared in front of us, and Sharon disappeared inside to get more snacks.

One thing led to another, and eventually we were pulling random things out of their liquor cabinet, eating anything Sharon put in front of us, and talking about everything and anything as the night went on.

It was definitely one of the best Airbnb's we've found.   :)

We finally drifted downstairs somewhere around 1am; Mark passed out right away, and I grabbed a quick shower then followed suit. It had been a really fun first day in Bermuda!