Little People

Nothing to do with Bermuda, but I wanted to share this blog link. It's a photo project where miniature people are placed in London and taken with a macro lens in various scenes.

http://little-people.blogspot.com

Swimming with the fish

Today I saw how helpful Bermudians are. I was going to pick up my company's latest employee from the guest house so that we could go snorkelling. Trouble is, this place is extremely hard to find. I circled the area a couple of times before pulling into a car dealership to ask for directions. The guy I asked offered to help me find it by having me follow him on his bike. Then later in the day, on my way home, I decided to pull off the road and check out the map to plan my route. Right away, a couple walked over and asked where I was trying to get to. They said that they worried when they saw someone looking at a map alone at night. As they were going part of the way, they also offered to let me follow them to the main road.

As I mentioned, me and the new girl headed to the south shore to check out the snorkelling. First stop was Church Bay which is known for it. We'd only just got into the water when we looked below the surface and immediately saw amazing looking fish. There were parrot fish, sergeant majors, some large purple-blue ones, and angel fish, to name a few. Words can't even describe how stunning this underwater scene was. Just take my word for it, it really was amazing.

Floating with your back to the sun for hours = a very red back. Sun screen or no sun screen.

Johnny loves me!

Every morning, rain or shine, Johnny Barnes stands by one of the round-a-bouts that leads into town and greets everyone who drives by. He usually waves, blows kisses and yells "I love you". He's been doing this for years, and has become a local celebrity. They've even erected a statue of him near where he stands.

This morning I took a slightly different route to work than normal, so that I passed him. I was in the lane closest to him and because of the heavy traffic, I was sat there for a little bit. During this time he was shouting that he loved me over and over. At first I said "have a nice day", but he kept shouting it. So as I drove away, I yelled, "I love you too!"

Day on/in the water

Today was a great day spent on boats in the water around the island. A bunch of us piled into a couple of boats - myself, my roommate Kim, her guest Christina, the 2 girls who live upstairs, Sean Palmer, his friend Jo, Boun, and the owners of the boats, Kevin and JC.

After tearing around for a bit, we made it to 'Paradise Lakes' which is an area in-between islands just outside Hamilton harbour, and a popular area for boaters to spend the day. Here, we suntanned, had some drinks and swam.

Eventually, we went for a bit of a spin. Meanwhile some random guy came by on a jetski and gave 3 of us each a ride around. I was third and it was my first time on one. I was warned to hold on tight, so I put my fingers in the loops on his life jacket so that I wasn't going anywhere. It was a lot of fun.

After a few hours of being on the water, drinking and eating chips, we headed to Dockyards for some real food. Knowing the manager got us some free shots of limoncello and a few 'Al Pacino' lines because we thought he resembled him.

Back on the boats, we met up with some other friends on their boats and tied the 4 together in what is called a "raft-up". The next couple of hours were spent jumping from boat to boat and floating in the water on noodles. Boun spotted a Sea cucumber on the bottom and had Kevin dive down to get it for him. It turns out not to be a plant, but an animal that is like a big, bumpy slug-like thing about a foot long by about 4" thick. He said you could eat them ?? Hmmm, didn't look very appetizing to me.

Once it was time to head back to Hamilton, we put on the tunes, and sang and danced all the way. But, when we got there, Kevin wanted to know if any of us were interested in accompanying him to St. George to dock the boat, and then he'd give us a ride back to our bikes. I figured, what the hell, I didn't have anywhere important to be, so Sean and Jo and I stayed on board.

Good choice, because we blasted the tunes again and got to see the most amazing sunset. We got a few pictures before the camera batteries ran out.

Just as we pulled into the harbour, the song playing was "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley. I thought to myself, "what a great end to a great day". But the story was not over.

The 4 of us climbed into the small plastic boat that was to take us to shore. Sean and I were sitting in the front, Kevin rowed and Jo sat beside him. Each time he rowed, water came over the front which was concerning us. Finally, a big gush came over the front, and next thing we were all in the water. Good thing we were fairly close to shore, and the water was warm.

We swam and pulled the boat to shore, and got out completely soaked through, but laughing.

One thing we all agreed on was that this would make for a great story.

To see more photos, check out this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=125153&l=22ad0&id=658425205

Bermuda Day

Last Monday was a long weekend in honour of Bermuda Day. It's officially the start of summer for Bermudians. It's the first day that they go in the water. Also, they have a big parade where everyone gets dressed up, and watch majorettes, marching bands and gombey dancers along with brightly coloured floats. (Gombey is a traditional Bermudian dance where mostly male dancers dressed in brightly coloured costumes dance to drums). http://www.bermuda4u.com/Essential/video-gombey.html

Days before the parade, rectangles marked with tape started appearing along the sidewalks in town. The tape was to save a prime spot to watch the parade and the people would mark the family name on it. I asked my landlord's family, and people do honour it! Someone else also told me that they tried to make putting tape down illegal, so then people started spray painting. I didn't see any of that though.

Actually, I didn't see the parade either. I had other plans to spend the afternoon at a friend's place which is by the water. We spent the day drinking cosmopolitans, and enjoying the sun. Another Bermuda tradition is to go in the water this weekend (since Bermudians will not go in before this date). The day ended up with everyone on the balcony singing and dancing as the sun went down.

Enjoy the photos...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119294&l=ce175&id=658425205