Exploring St. George’s.


Using our one day transportation pass, we boarded the Ferry for St. George’s at 9:30 a.m., and sailed to the former capital of Bermuda and the place where the survivors of the shipwrecked "Sea Venture"– all 153 of them, came ashore on July 29, 1609 (Happy Birthday, Bro).

In St. George’s we met the Town Crier who told us a trial was under way for a wench accused of gossiping. If she was found guilty, she would be sentenced to be dunked in the harbor. She is always found guilty, he confided. It is a daily performance for we tourists.

Inasmuch as we arrived 90 minutes before the verdict came in, we struck out to explore other sites, first visiting St. Peter’s Church, the oldest on the island. They are the only church to have a separate cemetery for blacks and former slaves.

 One dweller in the cemetery was alive and enjoying the shade.

St. Peter’s has been designated Her Majesty’s Church on Bermuda. Charles and Diana once attended there and left their autographs. They evidently didn’t pay close attention to the service (Charles, especially – the part about thou shalt not commit adultery).

Not far from there is the Unfinished Church. It did not start out to be unfinished, in fact, the good folk at St. Peter’s decided they would build another building, but ran out of money (seemingly forgetting about what Jesus say about counting the cost). When they got more money, they couldn’t decide what denomination they wanted to belong to, so they went back to the original building, and the Unfinished Church is unfinished – and will remain so, having been purchased by the Bermuda Historical Trust.

From there, we completed our walk to Fort St. Catherine’s and Gate’s Bay, a total walk of over 3 miles, most of it uphill. Gate’s Bay, a very small strip of pink sandy beach is where the "Sea Venture" folk came ashore, having been blown off course four days earlier by a hurricane. They stayed on the island almost 10 months, and with lumber salvaged from their ship (which miraculously stayed upright after grounding on a reef) and cutting native cedar trees, they constructed two smaller ships, sailed to Jamestown, VA, with a load of dried ham, fish, and vegetables, and literally saved the Jamestown colony.

A model of the "Deliverance," one of the two ships (the other was the "Patience") has been recreated. It is incredibly small, only 40 feet long. When I commented to the ticket taker about the wonder of such a small craft, completely hand-built without sophisticated equipment, surviving a 600 mile journey, he pointed to my shirt, and said, "No, there’s the real wonder. The success of your Pittsburgh Pirates this year." Even in Bermuda they are raising the Jolly Roger!

We rode the shuttle back to St. George’s (named for the dragon slayer), and standing by a pink bus pole, caught Old # 11 to Hamilton. The pink bus poles are for buses going into Hamilton, the blue poles are for buses going out of Hamilton. Hamilton is the shopping capital of Bermuda. Pink is for
girls. Blue for boys. It’s easy to figure out.

In Hamilton we purchased a chicken salad sandwich which we shared, and two 20 ounce, frosty cold bottles of Mountain Dew. After four days of having only Coke to drink, nothing ever tasted better. I planned to bring one back to the ship, but with lunch concluded, I drank the second one for dessert.

After naptime, supper, and an enjoyable show by Bobby Brooks Wilson, son of the late Jackie Wilson, we walked back over to the Dock Yard for a performance by the Bermuda regiment’s marching band and bagpipe corps. It was a re-enactment of a retreat ceremony – not necessarily retreating from battle, but announcing the cessation of fighting for the evening and curfew (when there was no fighting going on it was the signal to local pubs to announce "last call"). Precision marching and good music.

We will go back to the Dock Yard for a brief visit in the morning. All aboard is 11:30 a.m.

TTFN and Raise the Jolly Roger!