It was early summer 1980 and somewhere in the 600 or so miles of sea between New York and Bermuda a small yacht coursed through the waves.

On board were four crew members and former Beatle John Lennon.

While sailing the open waters the 68ft rented boat encountered a harsh North Atlantic storm and, for a time, Lennon stood at the helm steering the boat through the tempestuous seas.

Ten years after the world?s most famous pop group The Beatles had split up, the 39-year-old, regarded as the group?s guiding spirit, was now momentarily in charge of this rented yacht, a lonely dot bobbing through a vast empty ocean charting a course for Bermuda.

He had never been to Bermuda and, though no one knew it at the time, the next two months on the Island were to be Lennon?s last summer holiday. On the evening of December 8,1980 he was fatally shot on a New York City sidewalk outside his Manhattan apartment.

Between setting out on his summer voyage to Bermuda and the fateful winter?s night in New York, Lennon was to reawaken his desire to record music after a self-imposed hiatus from the music industry.

For the past five years he had been bringing up his son Sean.

From accounts of those who met the musician during his stay in Bermuda, the holiday was a happy time, when he was able to re-connect and relax without being hassled for being a global superstar.

And without exception those who personally encountered Lennon during his time in Bermuda recall a truly ?gentle? man, polite, courteous and genuinely gracious character.

In his 1995 article on Lennon?s stay in Bermuda, writer Roger Crombie notes that ?every single individual who met him in Bermuda? used the word ?gentle? to describe the former Beatle.

Lennon?s decision to sail to Bermuda rather then hop on a plane is perhaps not so surprising once consideration is given to the connection water and sailing played in his life.

His estranged father Fred had been a merchant seaman, and the Liverpool of Lennon?s youth had been a significant sea port as was Hamburg in Germany where the fledgling Beatles played lengthy residences and honed their live performances in the early 1960s.

By the middle of the 1960s, and with the riches afforded by Beatlemania, Lennon had bought himself a large home and grounds in the stockbroker belt of Weybridge were on the other fringe of London.

The estate had its own boating lake with an island and Lennon is captured on an early solo video rowing a boat, with wife Yoko Ono his passenger, out to the tiny island.

And after buying a coastal home in Poole, England, for his Aunt Mimi ? the woman who raised him up from the age of five ? Lennon is reported to have at least once taken a boat out and rowed to the town of Wareham on the other side of the immense harbour.

In May 1980 Lennon had reawakened his love of sailing having bought a 14ft sailboat. It was too small to undertake a voyage to Bermuda, but Lennon?s desire to take a sailing holiday was arranged with the owners of the larger .

Lennon joined the crew Ellen, Tyler and Kevin Coneys and a chartered skipper known only as ?Cap?n Hank? and set sail on June 4 from Newport, Rhode Island, for the voyage to Bermuda.

His passport was stamped by Bermuda Customs and Immigration on June 11, although some reports have it that he actually arrived on the Island on June 9, the mooring up in St. George?s harbour.

The first Bermudian to know that Lennon was on the Island was estate agent Donna Bennett ? although all she knew for sure was that the visitor was someone particularly important and well-off and his name was John Green.

Donna remembers being called by a travel agency in early summer 1980 and told that a ?highly recommended? client was sailing to Bermuda and was looking for a holiday rental.

She had to sign a disclaimer to say she would not reveal the identity of the client, whose name was given simply as John Green.

The request was nothing unusual. Donna was used to dealing with high-flying clientele, the rich and famous, who often asked for a degree of anonymity.

Then one evening in early June she got a phone call.

?It was about 9.30 p.m. and he said he was John Green, he?d arrived on the Island and he would love to sleep in a comfortable bed and he needed something hot to eat and a shower.

?I told him to go along to St. Georgia?s, a small restaurant in St. George?s. I knew the owner so he could get a shower and something to eat and I?d see him in the morning,? said Donna.

?I called Angelo at the restaurant and told him there was someone coming in, and to make him feel important. He called me back the next day and said Mr. Green was a nice guy and had eaten some food and then gone back to his boat for the night.?

When the visitor arrived at Donna?s office the following morning she still did not realise he was the famous former Beatle.

?He was a thin man with a straw hat and looked like a sailor. I did not pick up on the accent and he was not wearing his trademark glasses and John Lennon had been out of sight to the public for quite a few years.?

The incognito musician had arrived at the peak season when there were very few rental properties on the market in Bermuda. However, there were two properties that Donna was able to show. One was in Tucker?s Town and the other a small cottage on Knapton Hill near Harrington Sound.

She agreed to drive the new arrival to look at the properties.

While in her car the pair talked about sailing and his trip from New York to the Island and also his young son.

But there was no mention of music in the conversation and Donna, despite being a life-long Beatles fan, had not worked out the real identity of the man in the straw hat sitting beside her in the car.

?I showed him the house at Tucker?s Town but he said he felt more comfortable with the small, two-bedroom bungalow at Knapton Hill. He said it was fine because his son and his nanny would be coming down.

?So we booked him in and that?s when he took his hat off and I instantly realised who he was. I asked him if the nanny was Yoko and he said she was.?

Lennon said he needed to have a quiet place and Donna kept her part of the bargain not to let out that news that the ex-Beatle was on the Island. ?He did ask where were the hot spots, and I told him to try Disco 40. He came across as a nice guy who wanted to have some fun.?

Lennon?s stay at the Knapton Hill bungalow was to be short-lived. With himself and the three Coneys from the yacht there was not much room and even less when Lennon?s assistant Fred Seaman arrived on the Island soon after with the musician?s four-year-old son Sean and a nanny called Uneko Uda.

Yoko herself would also be visiting at a later date. So a search was begun for a larger property and one was soon located by real estate agent Bill Lusher in Fairylands near Hamilton.

Donna remembers Lennon called her one evening shortly after he?d arrived. ?He called and asked if I would like to go for a drink but I couldn?t because I had a prior engagement (with a man she later married),? she said, a decision she later found hard to live down once her work colleagues found out.

Donna has since seen some documentary home movie footage of Lennon on the veranda of the Knapton Hill cottage, which still stands at the corner of Knapton Estates Road although it is now a two-storey property.

Of all the celebrities, and rich and famous, she has met through her work renting properties in Bermuda, her encounter with Lennon is the one she regards as the most special. ?That was the top one. It is probably the best thing I?ve done. He was such a nonchalant, nice guy.?

Photographs of Lennon on the Island are rare, through a combination of the low profile he kept and the Bermudian way of not hassling or crowding celebrities.

One amateur snap that does exist shows Lennon in his straw hat with son Sean watching the Queen?s Birthday Parade on Front Street. It was in Front Street also that Lennon was to have an encounter in the Disco 40 nightclub that many believe sparked him to begin writing and recording music again.