968. Bermuda

Where: Bermuda
When: October 3 - 6, 2009

With: Dave

Dave and I wanted to try booking a last minute trip. However, in our typical "spontaneous" fashion, we planned weeks ahead the days we'd take off. The week before our trip, the airfare to Bermuda was low, Dave had a connection to a great hotel, and with a few hours of research, we were all booked for the tiny island off the coast of North Carolina. 

The really fantastic thing about Bermuda is how close it is to New York. The flight to Bermuda is shorter than the flight to Florida. It's weird looking out the window of the plane as the dark waters of the Atlantic suddenly turn a bright aquamarine. It's also weird when the pilot tells you that you're landing and there's no land in sight.

We stayed at the Fairmont hotel on the Southhampton side of the island. While this was a bit out of the way from the main town, the proximity to the beautifully famous pink sand beaches was hard to beat. The view from our hotel was breathtaking.

No point staying indoors though. With a ten minute walk, we were at the beach! The Fairmont had a private beach. We may not have gotten there in time for a full day in the sun, but it was still gorgeous.

 The sand is definitely very pink. This is the result of crushed sea creatures called protozoa that dwell in the reefs along the island.  While the light at this point in the day doesn't really do the color justice, it was still very beautiful in contrast with the turquoise waters. 

Even the dead fish that wash up on the beach are beautiful. 

As it was too late in the day to catch any sun, we wandered over to the neighboring beach, one of Bermuda's most famous, Horseshoe Beach. It was hidden behind a leafy trail that temporarily made us forget we were at the beach, until we got an amazing view that reminded us. 

Now you can see that pink sand. 

Walking along the beach, we found some fun rock formations to climb. 

Rocks also make excellent tripods.

The rocks encircled parts of the beach, making quiet little wading pools to wander out into.

This was one beautiful beach.

It started to get dark at that point, so we headed back to the hotel for some dinner. But given our limited beach time that day, we head back down after dinner for some moon bathing.

On our second day, we were ready for some sun and to really see that pink sand shine. Sadly, a storm rolled in fairly early, forcing us off the beach and on to new adventures. 

We decided to walk over to the Gibb's Hill Lighthouse, the one we could see from our room. 

From the top, we could see all of the island (or islands, I should say) of Bermuda.

This lighthouse, built in 1884, was the first in the world to be made of cast-iron. 

On our return journey to the hotel, we took a back road that was built into the rock formations  and lined with Bermudian homes. It was so lush and green back here, we again forgot how close the beach was. 

We also encountered some fascinating insects along the way. Is it a crab or a spider? 

As we approached the hotel, the sun came back out, so we headed back to the beach to catch the last fading rays. 

Whenever I have a bad day, I need to remember this view:

Back at the hotel, we had a gorgeous sunset with the lighthouse adding to the view.

For dinner, we decided to head into the main town of Hamilton. It's a slight pain to get there since Bermuda doesn't allow you to rent a car as a tourist, but charges a lot of money to hail a cab. However, we were able to sample two of Bermuda's famous delicacies: the Bermuda spiny lobster and the rum-filled drink called the Dark n' Stormy. Not surprisingly, given my love of seafood, I preferred the lobster. 

On our third day, we woke up to yet more rain and clouds. A beach day just didn't seem to be in our future, so we decided to have a sports day. After being schooled by Dave in tennis, we partook in another famous Bermudian pastime: golf. 

Being an avid and aspiring golfer, Dave was not leaving without trying his hand at one of the courses on this island. And being a spur-of-the-moment golfer with enough years of childhood lessons to make me falsely believe I can handle myself on any golf course, I was more than up for it as well. Although, as Dave put it: "Would you be as willing to golf here if it wasn't in your book?" to which I responded, "Yess...I mean...well...I would still be willing to try it....maybe?"

The funny thing about golf is that it's a temperamental game any given day, with everything from the wind to a blade of grass affecting your game. Adding the extra challenge of renting clubs that aren't your own and "maybe" will fit to you will render your game useless before you even approach the tee. If you add in the fact that this was a really tough course, we were doomed from the start. My 2nd place trophy in the 8-9 girls division at the old Country Club was not going to help me now.

We decided to take it easy on ourselves and only play 9 holes. We got 6 balls. You would think that would be enough. Though I figured it was a winning day if I came away with at least 1 ball to give back to the course attendant.

The course was stunning, and playing at dusk is so much more relaxing without the hot sun scalding you and old men trying to improve their handicap bearing down on you. The first hole made us so hopeful. How dreadful could it be when the view was so beautiful?

However, looks can be deceiving. This lake swallowed many of our balls. 

Needless to say, despite the beauty of the course, we returned with 1 ball between the two of us after Dave launched 4 of them over a highway and probably made it rain golf balls on the beach below. I only lost 1, which, as I said, meant it was a winning day for me. I optimistically kept score at first, but after several 10+ holes in a row, it was useless to continue. We will both be brushing up on our game should we decide to return again.

The fourth day was sadly the day we had to leave...which meant we had the best weather of our whole trip. So we took advantage of it while we could. 

And so, in the middle of this gorgeous day, we sadly had to leave for our short trip back to New York. This was a tough sight to leave, but we were happy we at least got a few hours with it before we left. Bermuda is a beautiful place!