“You can easily tell where the swimmers are from” said the guy we met on the beach. “Our guys only go in the water in the middle of summer. Americans will swim between Memorial Day holiday and Labor Day. Outside of that, only those crazy Brits will swim in any weather” Clearly he hadn’t experienced the sea temperatures at Skegness in summer, or he would understand why a November Bermudan sea was so inviting.
We had flown to the island from our then New York home over Thanksgiving. With no family in the US to share the festivities we decided to take off and explore for the long weekend. It’s a short flight across the ocean and a great spot to pass four days in a sunny and peaceful spot. The picture above shows our hotel, which still bore the scars of Hurricane Andrew, which had recently paid a visit.
90% of the visitors to Bermuda are American, and the currency is pegged to the USD. Both are used and accepted across the island. While the island has a laid back feel it is certainly not crime-free, and robberies from tourist hotels are apparently not rare. We were woken in the night by our hotel staff when they noticed we had left a window open. They were quite alarmed that we had left ourselves open to theft and possibly worse.
As avid hikers we soon found some good paths across the main island, and walked from the capital Hamilton to the north western tip of the island, a nice day hike of around 14 miles. The frequent boats made the return a pleasant and relaxing one. A couple of decent day hikes and most of the island is covered.
There is quite a lot to explore on Bermuda, although as people who can’t sit still and do nothing, we felt we had seen as much as we were going to see after four days, and were satisfied we had done it justice. It’s a long flight from the UK and given the many alternatives for less effort I don’t know if I would recommend it as a beach holiday for Brits. But coming from the east coast of the US it is a 90 minute hop and perfect for a long weekend. And we still enjoyed a full Thanksgiving dinner on arrival at the hotel!
