Love on the Rocks, Shakerado Neat

When I was in 6th grade my mom took me to my first concert: Neil Diamond at Seattle Center. Is there anything like your first concert? The stage, the crowd, the showmanship? He was sparkling in sequins and made several costume changes over the course the night, which I loved. During "Heartlight" people took out lighters and swayed them back and forth in their outstretched arms.  I had never seen anything like that before. It was magical. Mom and I got t-shirts to remember the night. The next day, I wore that t-shirt to school, obviously. I'd been to a CONCERT!! I felt very grown up and cool. The shirt was white with pink and baby blue - I loved it.  Awkwardly, wearing her same shirt the next day at school, was my LA/SS teacher, Mrs Schoeppach. Obviously that made it cooler, right? RIGHT?? In my mind it totally did because she was a favorite. But honestly, how did middle school me have friends? LOL I've always been my own person, apparently. 

How does this relate to Bermuda, you ask? Well, on Friday night there was a cover artist. He actually tours doing Neil Diamond, and I have to tell you it was pretty uncanny how much he sounded like the original. Plus he wore black sequins! I was hoping to win some sort of an award for being the youngest in the audience to know all the lyrics, but no such award was given. Most of the hits were played, and we ALL sang Sweet Caroline. Is this the quintessential cruise show, a cover? Whatever, it was SO FUN!!!

Earlier in the day, we went to Hamilton, which is the main town in this section of the island. As today was day 2 of the Cup Match holiday, most stores and restaurants were closed, but we had fun just the same. 

Inlaid into the sidewalk. 

On the way back to the ship our driver stopped at one of the local beaches. It was so hot, but you have to see the beach! Mom walked down to the water and got her toesies wet. I labored down the stairs to the beach to see the pink sand, and called that the victory. :) 

This was a 7,000 step day, and it was hot. H O T. With two hours left until the boat departed, we decided to have lunch at Bonefish. Let's be honest, we decided to have frozen drinks, and thought what the heck, let's order food too! ;)

We love Bermuda. We think we might have visited previously in the spring, not the summer, but we still have loved our time here. The buildings are so colorful in pastel hues, and the water is a clear turquoise. We'd definitely love to come back!

The great think about cruising, is once you say goodbye to your destination, the vacation is not over. We look forward to some R&R and Shakerados at Cafe al Bacio tomorrow. 😊

Cup Match

Thursday, August 1, started at the crack of midnight, as it is prone to do. After hearing an unusual sound, I inquired if there was a pelican loose on our veranda. Then we both looked at each other and said,  "Fireworks!" and raced out in our pajamas onto our veranda to see that a fireworks show had indeed started. 

August 1st and 2nd are national holidays in Bermuda. August 1st specifically celebrates Emancipation Day. Great Britain's Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833, and went into effect in Bermuda on August 1, 1834. I read somewhere that 60% of Bermudians are of African descent, many being in direct relation to people enslaved in West Africa and the West Indies. August 2nd is officially Mary Prince Day. Mary Prince was a slave who was bought and sold many times during her lifetime.  While in London with her enslaver, she escaped. Her autobiography was published in 1831. Celebrating both of these days is the love of Bermuda: CRICKET! 

There is no amount of reading that I can do to understand and then explain cricket, but I will say that this country is jazzed about this two day match. It was first played in 1902, with teams from opposite ends of the island playing against each other. Many businesses are closed, and people are off work to be part of the celebration. We are docked in the Somerset parish, thus our colors for two days are blue and red. Go Somerset! 

Our adventure today took us on a tour of the island, ending with one of our favorite treats. Our first stop was what some claim to be the smallest drawbridge in the world. It's from about 1620, is cranked open by hand, and only opens about 30 inches, just enough to allow for the mast of a sailboat. 

Of course it is decked out in the Somerset colors! ;) Mom went down to the water where the bream (fish) were quite literally swarming. She also had an encounter with an inquisitive duck! I stayed up top and worked on my sunburn. 

We also stopped at Gibb's Lighthouse which gave us an amazing view of the island.

And then onward to tea! You know we have it wherever we can find it! A resort with a fabulous chef offered up the treat. She was very up front about the fact that despite being a British Territory Bermudians don't do tea. And they don't! Ha! The tea was....you know, not what my Great-Grandpa would have approved of, but they made up for it with all the sandwiches and desserts. I always mean to take pictures of everything, and then we're too busy enjoying it! Our favorite was obviously the scone and clotted cream, but the cucumber cream cheese bite was pretty darn good too!

That's lights out for us! It was a great day in Bermuda!

The Dockyard

Well, actually, it's the Royal Naval Dockyard, but whatever, we're here!! Sometimes when you're cruising, you go to bed in the middle of the ocean and wake up at a dock somewhere fabulous! From our room we have a view of the Clocktower Mall. Originally (completed in 1856), it was a warehouse built by the British Royal Navy. Like a lot of the repurposed navy buildings around here, the walls are three feet thick!

We've been to Bermuda before, but not spent time on this section of the island. From the Dockyard there is a free shuttle service that takes you around to several stops that are technically within walking distance, but it's H O T here right now! Our first look around was via this shuttle. 

We poked around in some shops, stopping at different stops until...I completely crapped out. Did I mention that it's hot? And you know, I'm 7 weeks out of surgery, so swelling is a thing. Anyway, we had to schlep me back to the boat for some deep breaths and many Vanilla Shakerados.  😊 

Our happy place!

We had lunch in town at the Frog & Onion Pub. It's located in a cooperage that was built in 1853. Cooperages (if you recall from your history classes) were places where barrels were made, repaired, stored etc. And we had English pub food!! Well, the bruschetta was a one off, but how can you pass that up on a menu.

beef pasty 😋

fish sandwich on raisin bread 

And because, when in Rome, or Bermuda, the Rum Swizzle.  You can Google different recipes, but basically it's a lot of different rums and fruit juices!

At this point we headed back to the ship for ice and naps, because we had one more adventure on deck!

Around sunset we boarded a glass bottom boat for a tour of the reefs. Bermuda is surrounded by a huge reef and here's the obligatory fun fact: Bermuda is closer to Canada than the Caribbean! It's the northern most tropical reef and as such, the coral colors aren's as bright, but it was still amazing to see. There were huge brain, fire, and tube corals. 

I am doing well after surgery, but probably not navigate-open-water-in-flippers good, so this was the second best thing. We had a fabulous captain who gave us a wealth of knowledge about the history of Bermuda and even though it is a tiny nation, it has played a big part in our history. My favorite new information is about how stolen gunpowder helped George Washington et al defeat the British in the Revolutionary War. It's slightly more complicated than that - if you're interested, here's a good source. 

Back to the boat, it was wonderful to be out on the water. I get the irony -- we're on a cruise! But this was just wind in the hair freedom!

One cool thing we saw was a shipwreck. The boat had wrecked on one side of the island, and was brought around to this side to provide an artificial reef.  Another fun fact: they have found that because of the iron in the ship, the coral has grown exponentially faster than in or on other places. Interesting idea as we think about restoring reefs that have been damaged by sunscreen etc. Plus I love a shipwreck! (even if it's on purpose - ha!)

And back to the ship for the night. All told, it was a 6,184 step day. I'm not sure if that's an oops, or a boom, or something in between. What I do know is that I have the BEST travel buddy, and Bermuda is still magical. 🩵