Tiny car, big plans.
If you forget your laptop when you travel with us to many of our locations, you’re out of luck. In Bermuda, no big deal. Heather had forgotten hers back home, but was able to rent one here at an office supply place. Easy. Next up, we met with local conservationist J.P. Rouja.
The Conservationist
J.P. is a Bermudian ocean advocate and conservation-minded figure known for his involvement in promoting the uniqueness and fragility of Bermuda’s marine environment and sustainable ocean use. Some of his photography is displayed alongside some of the world's most famous artists here at the Hamilton Princess.
Among many other things, he is a steward of Nonsuch Island, a small, protected island that has been carefully restored to resemble what Bermuda looked like before human settlement - introduced plant species have been eradicated, original endemic flora has been reinstated. He and Heather immediately connected on marine photography, and they know many of the same people in the field. This guy is passionate about marine wildlife. We talked about the possibility of SwimVacation bringing guests to Nonsuch for a swim and a tour of the island, and perhaps having J.P. give our guests a presentation at the hotel. We’ll reconnect with him this week for a tour of Nonsuch if weather and life cooperates. We also hope to connect with his brother Philippe, who is Bermuda’s shipwreck guru. As we were meeting with J.P., a Bermudian Mailman came to collect outgoing mail from an antique mailbox, and I couldn’t resist taking a photo.
We need to get around this Island all week, and taxis wouldn’t work well, as we are travelling to a lot of different places to swim, one spot after another, with long wait times. So the hotel hooked us up with a small electric vehicle that is basically the only car that tourists can actually rent here. It’s a Yoyo, made by XEV, a Chinese/Italian startup. The rental company is Current Vehicles, who own a fleet of these fully electric microcars, and they’re perfect for Bermuda. They rent them right here at the Hotel. Thanks to Makai who got us powered up and on our way.
Left is Having a Moment
Every scouting trip brings its own challenges. In Turkey, we rolled into town after town with no money and an ATM card that wouldn’t work. We got lost several times, once in Istanbul when we actually tried to find a street cat we had befriended to try to recognize a street corner (It worked, thank you Dusty Bottoms). Another time we were wandering through a village looking for a friend of a friend but with no address (he found us). In Hawaii, Heather’s roommate was a spider the size of a dinner plate, and on several occasions she found herself driving through endless lava fields, hungry and thirsty and failing to thrive. We actually try to make mistakes while we are scouting so that when the time comes to run a trip with guests, we know what not to do. Our challenge today was driving on the left. 40 years of right-side driving can really create a habit of doing so. I am this week’s driver, with Heather as navigator and with a second job of keeping me from playing chicken with oncoming traffic by saying, and sometimes singing the word LEFT. By the time we arrived at Church Bay, we had composed an entire show tune about driving on the left.
So Many Blues
We’ve seen a lot of shades of blue in the oceans over the years on Swimvacation. Deep sapphire blue in the Mediterranean, milky blues in the Bahamas, blue-raspberry slushy blues in Hawaii. Bermuda has its own style of blue water: it’s light turquoise, it’s stunning, and there’s a lot of it, stretching from the beach to sometimes several hundred yards out to sea. This is the blue that we saw as we drove (on the left!) along the south shore of the island to our first destination, Church Bay.
Let me pause for a second here to mention that we are scouting this trip in a different, more challenging time of year than when we plan to run the trip with guests. March tends to be cool and windy in Bermuda, with air and water temps in the low 70s. We are experiencing high 60s for both so far, with brisk easterly winds of about 20 knots. This is good, because we get to see things at their worst, and learn how to make adjustments accordingly.
Losing the Battle, but Winning the Man O’ War
We stepped onto the pink sands of the beach at Church Bay, and took our time putting on our “shorty” wetsuits, enjoying the scenery and planning our swim. As we were about to enter the water, we noticed 2 Portuguese Man O’ War washed up on the beach. We’ve been in this exact predicament before: jellyfish on the sand, yet we want to swim. The last time this happened we jumped in anyway and Heather got a nasty sting. This time, we asked ourselves “what would we do if we had guests with us”? The obvious answer was that we’d abort the mission, and find another spot, so that’s exactly what we did.
Important to note is that while jellyfish exist in the ocean all the time, the season for Man O’ War in Bermuda happens to be now, spring, and NOT when we are hoping to run a trip here.
West Whale Beach offered us unspoiled sand, with zero footprints and zero jellies. We did see a gentleman flying a kite.
Finally, a swim!
West Whale Bay has a very pretty strip of sand, on a part of the island that starts to bend north. The wind here was along shore rather than directly at it, which makes it less likely to have jellyfish pushed into the shallower areas where we swim. We walked the beach to check things out, then jumped in and swam against the wind for a bit, imagining having a group of guests with us. It was delightful, with bright white sand rippling beneath us in gin-clear water. Success!
All of this scouting made us hungry, and we found a great Jamaican place just down the road for jerk chicken, rice and beans, and ginger beer.
Back at the Princess, Heather got to work editing photos while I retired to my room to make sure my pillow had been fluffed. Whoops it turned into a nap. We worked into the evening, then had a nice meal at the Crown and Anchor, one of several restaurants right here in the hotel. We’ve got more swims to scout tomorrow morning, more mistakes to make, more roads to stay Left on.
Hopper
We made a quick stop at the Hamilton Princess’ private beach on our way back, will return for a swim another day. The evening’s cocktail offerings - both zero and plus proof - did not disappoint.