Bermuda;
Elixir for the Late Winter Doldrums
If you’re like me, the long gray rainy days of March can really get to you. Depression sets in, relationships flounder, health wavers and despair pervades. So, for several years my go to solution has been to fly to the nearest warm climate.
In Massachusetts that would be Bermuda. Thanks to Nantucket, Bermuda is 11 miles closer to Massachusetts than any other state… makes for a good trivia question.
The first time I arrived it was aboard the oceanographic vessel Atlantis II and I was privileged to be guided through the Bermuda Botanical Garden by a fellow scientist who seemed to know the Latin name every plant tree and shrub. I wanted to be that man.
Years later my family would depart from Logan airport locked in snow and sleet. We would watch the ground crew with growing anxiety, as they de-iced our plane multiple times before clearing us for takeoff.
But after a few bumps and belly lurching dips we would break through the gray clouds to sunshine and the azure waters of the Gulf Stream.
Finally we would descend toward an improbable fishhook shaped island stranded on top of an extinct volcano, the northernmost coral island in the world.
Sometimes we would stay in an old citrus plantation near the Somerset Draw Bridge, the smallest in the world.
Every night my daughter and I would net minnows by moonlight then use them for bait to catch the schools of small tuna that would rush under the bridge from the Sound to the Atlantic.
Other times we bought lobsters from fishermen at our small local dock, and picked loquats, grapefruit and avocados off a hundred foot tree that towered above our home. Sometimes we would just inhale the aroma of the Easter Lilies, jasmine and anise that grew wild all over the island.
But most years I would take a science writing class at the Bermuda Biological Station. As one student said on her arrival, “Even if I don’t learn anything I figure I will have had a good vacation.”
There was always something going on at the Bio station. This is where William Beebe, the David Attenborough of his time, descended in the world’s first Bathysphere and wrote about the fantastic colors and creatures he saw just off Bermuda’s west coast.
One year we got off the plane, put on our bathing suits and lay in the sun on the Bio Station dock only to be drenched by the wake of their research vessel that had sped up to make a particularly potent rooster tail. Apparently this was the initiation rite for all researchers dumb enough to sunbath on the waterside dock.
Other times we witnessed scientists trying out new autonomous gliders that could transit the Atlantic Ocean underwater on a single battery charge.
Often we would dive through mangrove swamps and observe the underwater spawning of bioluminescent fire worms in Tobacco Bay.
So as an antidote to our late winter doldrums my next few Notes From an Environmentalist will be about the origins and features of this unique coral island just a few hours from Boston.
Yup I had forgotten that wonderful quote thanks!!
I really enjoyed this post. I have been fortunate to have visited Bermuda many times, reaching back to the 1970's when I stayed at Tim Clark's compound, to running IBM events in the 80's and 90's, to taking my family there in 2010's during the Christmas holidays (when it was so warm they reopened they beaches). It is too often overlooked. Yes, it is expensive - but the workers are given a living wage and you do not see the poverty one encounters in the Caribbean. I look forward to future posts.