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What--Where--When of Bermuda
By Mary Johnson Tweedy
BERMUDA is improbable in its geography, remarkable in its history, and famed for its color and climate and the pleasure people find here. With the exception of St. Helena, Bermuda is perhaps the most isolated inhabited place in the world, but thousands seek it out annually. It is semi-tropical and never has snow or frost, yet it is far north of Florida which can and does have both. It is a coral atoll (the most northerly in the world), but instead of being inhabited by lotus eaters, its citizens make up a busy conservative British colony, proud of the Empire and mildly devoted to its pomp and circumstance. These contrasts are startling, but perhaps most amazing of all is that although Bermuda sells nothing to the world except Bermuda (and a few Easter lilies), the Colony has no income taxes, no inheritance taxes and no public debt.
Bermuda is a happy geographical accident. The Colony is not one island, but a cluster of over a hundred islands * which, combined, have an area of only twenty and one-half square miles, about the size of Montgomery, Alabama. Actually it is a mountain of 15,000 feet, almost as high as Mt. Blanc, but with eternal flowers instead of eternal snows. These tiny islands and the reefs that surround them are the heads and shoulders of a volcano, extinct a million years ago, that rises abruptly from the ocean floor. Travel a few miles from Bermuda in any direction and the ocean is thousands of fathoms deep. Minute coral insects built their homes about the peaks of the dead volcano and brought the Islands to the ocean surface.
This same work is now in process at two banks (excellent for fishing) some fifteen miles to the southwest of Bermuda and forty fathoms below the surface. Once above the water the coral insects were through, but the sea rolled up sand, the winds blew it higher and in the course of time the aeloian limestone (or sandstone) islands of Bermuda were a reality. Coral reefs ring the Islands some eight miles off shore on the north, but frequently less than half a mile from the south shore.
The highest point is only two hundred and fifty-nine feet above sea level. Increase sea level by a few fathoms and Bermuda would be nothing but a menace to mariners. Lower the level sixty feet and the exposed reefs would make Bermuda ten times larger but still only half the area of New Orleans.
The protected waters of Bermuda are the deep blue of an under-exposed color photograph, the color of lakes in volcanic craters.
Dock-to-dock, Bermuda is 700 nautical miles southeast from New York, 760 miles south from Halifax, N.S., 2,950 miles southwest from Liverpool and 940 miles northeast from Miami. Start out swimming in any direction and it will be a long trip, but modern steamships and airplanes have so reduced this distance that the Colony is now well within range for a long weekend from New York. The Islands are not in the Tropics. They are some 1,000 miles north of the British West Indies, and Bermudians dislike being confused with the West Indies.
Prior to World War II, the "season" was Easter time, which coincided with spring weddings and had much to do with making Bermuda almost a synonym for honeymoons. Spring is still the peak season, but most of the hotels and guest houses now stay open throughout the year instead of closing for the summer and autumn. Summer now rivals spring in popularity, but if you want the Colony more or less to yourself, plan your visit for the fall or early winter. Although spring and winter are now as accepted as summer for holidays, not many people take autumn vacations. Trips to the Colony for Christmas in a guest house are becoming increasingly popular. Poinsettias grow in the garden, an open log fire burns in the drawing room and Bermuda's traditional Christmas meat dish, cassava pie, is on the table. Hardy souls can sometimes combine all this with a swim on Christmas afternoon.
Bermuda's seven principal islands are the Main Island and, from east to west, St. David, St. George, Somerset, Watford, Boaz and Ireland. The Islands are divided into nine Parishes-most of which were named for the English dukes and earls who invested in the Bermuda Company. They are from east to west, St. George's, Hamilton, Smith's, Devonshire, Paget, Pembroke, Warwick, Southampton and Sandy's ( Somerset). The City of Hamilton * is the capital and the only "city," with most of the shops, public buildings and organized activity. The Town of St. George (not to be confused with St. George's Parish) was the busy capital of Bermuda until 1815, but is now a quiet, quaint and historic little town. Somerset is both an island and a settlement, but like other small settlements scattered through the Islands it has no municipal organization.
Bermudians like to say that it is "always spring in the Islands." Perhaps they are right, but there can be an "early" spring, a "late" spring or when there is an odd period of bad weather, "an unusual spring." In the past twenty-five years the coldest recorded temperature was 44° on February 27, 1940 and the hottest, 95° on August 18, 1931, but the average for February is 62° and for August 80°. Almost any small island in the middle of an ocean has a relatively high humidity and Bermuda is no exception.
Visitors should prepare for warmish or even hot weather and beaches from April to mid-November, but tweeds and woolens, brisk walks and bicycle rides are ordinarily in order for autumn, winter and early spring. But usually there is an evening breeze in the summer, and a balmy day often follows a cold one in the winter.
Although deep-sea diving and beach lounging are to be treated with respect in the winter, most other sports are good the year round. Golf, tennis, beach picnics, deep-sea fishing, bicycling and sailing know no season in Bermuda. For spectator sports there are swimming carnivals, cricket matches and tennis tournaments in the warm weather and boxing, horse racing, soccer and even American football (at the U.S. Base) in cool weather.
There is no "wet" season and no "dry" season, but there are quick showers throughout the year and an occasional torrential rain. The showers are surprisingly localized--sometimes they cover a radius of only a few hundred yards and often you can watch a rain cloud come over and spill. After a shower the skies clear quickly and a dark cloud in the morning is no criterion by which to predict the afternoon.
There is no season on sight-seeing. And it is as easy to "catch" a ten-pound fish at the Devil's Hole on a baited but hookless line in one season as another.
Except during an unusually dry summer--but even then to some extent and always at other times--there is a galaxy of blooming trees, shrubs, vines and flowers growing in gardens, by the stone walls and along the roads and paths. Hibiscus, oleanders, royal poinciana trees and lilies, most of them brought home by Bermuda's sailormen from all parts of the world, flourish here in the mid-Atlantic.
Bermuda's houses are as colorful as her flowers. All are built of sandstone and, except for roofs which are always limewashed, tinted in pastel shades of blue, pink, coral, gray, yellow or green. The roads are narrow, winding lanes, often cut deep into a stone hillside. There isn't a billboard in the Colony.
These Islands of white-roofed houses might almost never have happened, and there is no place in the world quite like them.
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