July, 2005 ~ "Life is a Beach"
August 2005 ~ Bermuda!, Fire Fighting Training
September 2005 ~ Bermuda Highways, Gone Fishing, John Smith Beach, Hurricane
October 2005~ Imagery, Visiting Bermuda
November 2005 ~ Hello - We are still Here, Our Place, What do I Do?
December 2005 ~ "All I want to do is Catch a Big fIsh"!, Our First Visitor, Peugeot Cabriolet
January 2006 ~ Happy New Year!, Sonesta Beach
February 2006 ~ Winter in Bermuda
March 2006 ~ BRrrrrrr!
April 2006 ~ April Showers?
May 2006 ~ May Daze
June 2006 ~ June Joining
July 2006 ~ July Joy
Speaking of our Peugeot Cabriolet ....
One has to take a drivers exam in Bermuda. Imagine having to take a test after 40 years of driving. I was as nervous as a 16 year old! Many of the "rules of the road" are different and in order to pass the test it is prudent to purchase a few lessons from a driving school to find out what "not to do" and what "to do" in the driving exam.
Pictured at left is my instructor, "Winslow" and myself in his car which I used for the exam. (It is not as wide for these narrow roads and a standard which I wanted to test in). One of the rules is that you must not travel over 35 K/hr which is "hard"! Try it! (Of course any other time 50K is the norm) Another is that one must put on the emergency break at every stop if it is more than a few seconds. And not only do people drive on the wrong side of the road, but the steering wheel is on the right side of the car as well. I can't count the times I've got into the passenger side and reached for the steering wheel!
The hardest thing to get used to in Bermuda is width of the roads. Most are very narrow and on some, two vehicles cannot even pass. To make it even more claustrophobic, the edges of the road are often sheer sandstone with no verge. So the driver must at all times decide on whether to risk a head-on collision or loose the passenger side of the car against the bank. In my first week driving the Peugeot, I wiped out the passenger mirror and both tires on that side. Now I play chicken with oncoming traffic!
You can see in the image at right, we have a large patio that is covered by the owners deck above. This time of year it is great to have a large dry area outside. The BBQ is covered and so in use quite often even during the cold and rainy evenings. Our scooter is always nice and dry and even our outside table and chairs stay dry!
Mouse over the picture to see what it looks like inside!
At left are the stairs to the landlord's wine cellar :)
So why "title" this posting on our experiences in Bermuda, "March Madness"? Last month I mentioned that Lori and I joined the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society. This month we are assisting in our first production, "Famous for Fifteen Minutes". It is a series of six short plays showing off six different writers who are competing for the prestigious and lucrative"Golden Quill" award.
Lori is the official photographer and is part of the Lighting Crew. I have joined the sound crew and have offered my web designing abilities if they want. Of course we help out at the bar as well, usually on the customer side. It is all quite exciting and complete madness of course!
Pictured at left is a rear view of the Daylesford Theatre, located in downtown Hamilton. Mouse over the image and you'll see the "front door". The BMDS also produce plays for the City Hall Theatre which is a much larger venue.
Time to show off some more of Lori's photography. One night we traveled into Hamilton to try some tripod "night shots". At right is an example. This is only a part of the fountain located in the front of the Bacardi building.
As with all the images in these postings, clicking on them will give you a much larger version. This picture is worth clicking on.
The kiskadee eats insects like beetles, wasps, grasshoppers, bees and moths. Despite the fact that it is a flycatcher, it also eats berries, seeds, mice, frogs, fish and lizards. It also will dive straight into the water to catch fish.
Kiskadees were originally imported into Bermuda to help control the cockroach population.
This "blue heron " was shot at an inland lagoon right downtown. In the same lagoon were many turtles. This bird is found everywhere. There are usually one or two keeping me company at night in the tipping hall at work.
Last month Lori and I bought a used desk from the people living in the house pictured left. Transporting furniture is a costly business in Bermuda at about $100 per haul, but with our convertible we were able to disassemble the desk and stack the pieces on top of each other and then tie it all down.
I included this image as it shows the style of architecture of many of the private buildings here.
Look at a satellite image of Bermuda and you'll notice that all the tops of the buildings are white! This is because the only source of fresh water for everyone on the island is in the form of rain and so the roof of every building is constructed so as to catch all of the precious water it can. Underneath each house is a cistern to hold the runoff. To ensure the greatest cleanliness, the roofs are all painted white and cleaned on a regular basis.
Also some of the hillsides are cemented over as catch basins for drinking water. Even so, there are times in the summer that Bermuda must bring in a tanker ship of fresh water.
It turns out to be an unfinished cathedral. Twice in it's history the builders ran out of money just as it was about to be completed. Finally a hurricane ripped off the roof and sealed it's fate forever as a ruin.
Today it offers the photographer incredible possibilities with different angles and lighting. We spent an hour with the tripod and different lenses. At left are only two examples of at least 50 shots taken. Oh the wonders of digital photography!
I've left the resolution fairly high on the larger copies but if you have a fast connection, be sure to check them out! (Click!)
On the way back from St. Georges we drove through this little cove village and stopped at the local park overlooking a sheltered moorage. We had to take a picture of the yellow dingy. Don't ask why. When one look at things with a photographer's eye, one takes pictures of the damndest things!
We've had offers to go with the local Bermudian fishermen out beyond the reef (about 20 miles off shore) in boats like this one. If you get seasick that is your problem. They stay out there until the fish stop biting.
(But I do get to hold the camera now and then)
To the left is an image of a section of the South coast I thought typical of the Bermuda Islands. Typical because of the rough nature of the rocks, the clarity of the water and the smooth sandy bottom with many small out of the way beaches. (Often inaccessible)
Speaking of rusting metal, at right is a shot of an old "bollard" (look it up.... "a post to which one ties up a horse or a boat")
Another "art" image. Very nautical with various sizes of old rope .... symbolic of an octopus perhaps? (I had to jump a chasm between the cement dock and an old rusting barge to shoot this one. Anything for the perfect shot!)
Both of these next two images are man made and kind of cool. The shutter picture is like the old "barn" pictures of the interior of BC ... great stuff. My favorite is the old gate image above. It invites one to open and enter into paradise, except when I tried, it fell off its hinges!
Below is Mangrove Bay in the morning! I've made it my "desktop background" on my computer. Lori had to get up early for this one ... "best light" she says.
That is it folks for this month. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and my rhetoric.
