Our first stop on this cruise was Bermuda. For both Robert and me, it was a first time visit, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a temperate, green island unlike our experiences in the Caribbean.
I suppose I could write about the pink sands of its beaches, the knee-length shorts favored by many men, or the common use of scooters on an island where you can’t rent a car.
But I was struck a few different facts and impressions of the place.
The first was its role in British naval history. We spent much of the day at the Royal Naval Dockyards. Bermuda became the primary North American strategic stronghold for the British after the Revolutionary War. In the early 1800s they built up quite a fortress to protect their Atlantic fleet. Largely abandoned in the 1950s, this naval base has now been partly restored as a major museum. (You can even swim with the dolphins in what was once the waterway used to ship explosives.)
A view of the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda
We learned a lot visiting this museum, including a whole new way to think about the Bermuda Triangle. Instead of shipwrecks and other worldly phenomena, we learned more about a different triangle—the slave triangle connecting West Africa, North America and Europe. An early slave trader, Bermudez, accidentally discovered the island on a voyage in 1505.
But there was more than slavery in the island’s history of human suffering. After slavery was outlawed in the British colony, convicts were shipped from England for several decades to provide forced labor. (Sometimes they stayed here before eventually heading off to Australia.) When that phase was over, Great Britain used the islands to store prisoners from the Boer War, World War I, and World War II. With all that misery, the place still managed to bloom as a tourist getaway by the end of the nineteenth century.
Considering Bermudez originally called the place the island of devils (supposedly because of the many screeching birds), its current reputation as a getaway spot represents quite a transformation. Not much larger in land mass than our nearby Hearst Ranch, the island is actually made up of the calderas of three different extinct volcanoes. Although only 20 miles in length, it can take hours to get from one end to the other on its narrow, twisty roads.
With a cruise stop of only 8 hours, we really did have a Bermuda short visit. So we’ll just have to plan another return trip to truly explore the place. (Maybe then I could actually step onto a pink beach so I could write about it from experience.)
Robert reports: As usual, it is simply wonderful to once again set sail on a cruise. After so many years of doing this, a ship really does feel like home. Of course, as with most things, there have been some changes made; and things we’ve been accustomed to on Holland America are not exempt. We are at a fixed seating table of 6 with what is turning out to be (after several days) a congenial group. But the change is that dinner is at 7:45. Unfortunately though, the two show times in the main theater have been changed to 7:00 and 9:00. There is no possible way to go to the show after dinner (which ends no earlier than 9:30), so we have been going at 7:00 and then more or less racing to the dining room afterward. This has turned out to be annoying, but not really a problem since another couple at our table does the same thing. So we’re not holding things up at the table. But it has skewed our normal routine of “pre-dinner cocktail to dinner to show.” Not the end of the world, but…you know.
As for dinner, the menus have been grossly simplified and the quality of the dishes has varied wildly from night to night. Our first formal night, the kitchen apparently had an unexpected run on escargot; our table waited nearly an hour before we were served. Our faces when the plates were at last served said it all. These were not the usual delightful Holland America escargots, and none of us finished them. The following night, we feared the worst when ordering the standard crème brulee, but it was just as it has always been—delicious and properly done.
My personal goal on this cruise, and with my entries in this blog, is to NOT dwell on certain passengers’ behaviors. It seems I’ve come to the conclusion that they are just not worth it. (Maybe I’ve been influenced by Nancy Pelosi’s identical assessment of the president. Who knows?) So I just maneuver around the dotard who stops stock still in the middle of the buffet aisle; I avert my gaze from the dear little bluehairs who have switched from needlepoint and knitting to endless games of Candy Crush on their ever-present phones. And most fortunately for me, there are (so far) almost no Upstream Salmon People on the Promenade deck.
The seas have been calm, the temperatures moderate, life is good.
Kirkus Reviews describes my latest novel as “a finely crafted story about late-in-life regrets.” The Long Table Dinner, is available on Amazon and other bookseller sites. Please check out all my novels in paperback or Kindle format, including: Tales From the Loon Town Cafe, The Finnish Girl, and The Devil’s Analyst.
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