Cup Match in the Rain, lalalalala

Bermuda has just had a 4-day weekend for Cup Match. It's a 2 day cricket tournament between the teams St. Georges and Somerset. This is such a big deal that the country gets Thursday and Friday off for it. It was nice to have the extra time off – however, weather-wise, this year's was a wet one!! It poured each of the 4 days with one wave after another. I took the opportunity to properly organize my place and give it a good clean.

Here's what I got up to:
There was a beach festival at Horseshoe Bay on Thursday which my friend and I went to late afternoon. We met up with some other people, and hung out for a few hours. That's when the rain started, and so we took shelter under a nearby tent and the tent owners shared their rum swizzle with us. My friends gave me a ride home (as I hadn't brought my rain gear to wear on the bike). It was raining so hard, their SUV wouldn't make it up my hill! We started rolling back and so they pulled into a driveway half-way up and I had to walk up the rest.

Friday was a rainy day, good for watching movies and more organizing/tidying. We turned to the TV coverage of the cricket game. Of course the pitch was covered over with a tarp due to the rain delay. A group of people were using the tarp like it was a wet-banana. I think it was more interesting than watching cricket! On the news the next day some politician said that they had "disrespected the game and the wicket". !?!

Saturday I went into town to run some errands. Got caught in stores several times as each wave or torrential down-pour hit. Went out in the evening, as I couldn't do another night at home watching movies. Sunday, we went to the "Non-Mariner's Race" in Somerset's Mangrove Bay. This is a race (or "non-race") where people build vessels out of whatever they think will float. These vessels (notice I'm not saying boats) usually are decorated with a topical or political theme. We were sat behind one that looked like a rocket with an "effigy" of the current Premier who's term is up in October. Here's the local newspaper's story on the day's event.

The rocket ship "vessel" before entering the water...

...and how the "vessel" looked by the finish line.


As we didn't have a spot on someone's boat – which is THE place to be, I'd bought a couple of really cool inflatable noodles with the plan to float amongst all the boats. But wouldn't you know, I forgot them at home, which quashed that plan. So we sat on the beach waiting for the groups to assemble their "non-boats". Soon, the rain came and we had to run for cover a few times. Eventually we figured we might as well go in the water if it was raining. We swam out toward the boats and held onto a mooring. But I got a bit uneasy because we'd left our belongings on the beach, so we headed back in time to see the "vessels" set sail. Before leaving, we walked over to the dock where the real party was happening and had a rum swizzle before heading on our way. By this time it was about 4pm, so we picked up Murphy the dog and went to Warwick Long Bay to have a nice swim. The weather had cleared up and it was beautiful!