Blogging Through Bermuda

"The life boat drill begins in 15 minutes. All passengers must attend. Repeat: the life boat drill begins at 3:15. All passengers must attend. This is a mandatory event. If you even think about skipping it, we will throw you overboard and blame it on pirates. And then we will throw a set of pirates overboard, just to ensure you don't survive."


An announcement to that effect has blared every half hour since we boarded a few hours ago. That stupid drill--and a couple hundred miles of ocean--are all that separate me from Bermuda, so I just want to get it over with. But the boat won't move until all the passengers are loaded and their presence is accounted for at the Mandatory Life Boat Drill of Non-Negotiability.


I can't wait. (For the cruise. I could do without the Life Boat Drill.). It's been a long few months, but my biggest current worry is whether the fedora I wore to celebrate British formality will fly off during the sail away party. That, and finishing my beverage in time for the life boat drill, which apparently I'm not supposed to skip, as The PA system just reminded me.


I wonder if I really have to go?


My wife and I shuffle off to our required Muster Station, which, delightfully, one of my travel companions would consistently refer to as the "Muenster Station," through the cruise, as if they were handing out free cheese there. To the naked eye, our "Muster Station" looked a lot like the ship's casino, but perhaps that was just a coincidence. As I gaze at the image of children sitting on stools in front of slot machines, a crew member verifies our attendance while a voice is heard on the loudspeaker:


In the case of an emergency, don't actually come to the casino, err, this Muster Station. Go wherever our crew members, who will be yelling at the top of their lungs, tell you that you are least likely to drown. But honestly, if it comes to that, you're pretty much dead.


There are some life jackets in your cabin, and some more on the life boats, but they will probably be underwater by the time you get to them, especially if you are on a roll at the casino, which looks remarkably like this Muster Station. Thank you, and Bon Voyage. Don't forget to grab some cheese on your way out the door.


I felt negative 15 percent safer at the end of the "drill" than I did before it. It was 15 minutes well spent.


But once it ends, the cruise really starts:


Days 1-2: The first few days of cruising at sea are always the same. A bad band plays poolside while passengers relax and sip refreshing beverages. A daily itinerary offers promising entertainment options--game shows, cooking demonstrations, cultural happenings, Hairy Chest Contests (only on Carnival)--with mixed results.


If you look hard enough you can find one overlooked-but-pleasant public space on the boat that feels like Heaven, at least until the geriatric set takes it over for bingo. Everyone eats too much at dinner, and then feels awful the rest of the night. At least one over-eager 30-something can't hold their liquor, thoroughly embarrasses themselves, develops a reputation for the remainder of the cruise. Ours was named Katrina, from Jersey.


The next day repeats.


It was wonderful. At least I thought so. I have the feeling Katrina didn't really enjoy the morning of day two.


Day 3: The old British fortress outside my stateroom window means that we've arrived in Bermuda. After two days of too much stimulaiton, I'm content to hang back while the boat empties. We don't have plans until we meet our friends at Glass Beach at noon.


Unlike our casino disguised as a Muster (or Muenster) Station, Glass Beach is actually what it claims to be. When British soldiers were stationed at the fort that now doubles as a cruise dock, they buried their non-flammable waste, including glass, at sea. The tides return the glass--rough edges smoothed by the pounding of the waves--to one specific beach. The result is a mosaic in the sand. You can walk in it, even sit on it, but, for reasons that will later be explained, the signs request that you not take any home.


On this beach, what was meant to be litter was transformed it into something more beautiful than anyone could have planned. There's an awesome symbolic message in that somewhere, but I'm more concerned about my impending sunburn and returning a relic I took from the island three years ago. That quest would become the subject of:


Day 4: So, outside of Glass Beach, almost all the sand in Bermuda is pink. Enough local red coral is mixed in with it that it changes the color, especially near dusk. My wife was so enamored with it when we were last here that she bottled it and took it home. As I wrote about here, every electronic device in our house broke when we returned from Bermuda three years ago. Our coffee maker, refrigerator, air conditioner, computer and modem all broke within the first two weeks home, as did both of our cars. I have no idea if the sand carried some weird electromagnetism, or if it was just cursed, but there was no way we coming back without giving the island back its due.


It just turned out to be harder than we thought.


After we unpacked our luggage, neither of us had any memory of seeing our bottle of sand inside. We concluded that boat security must have seen it on the X-ray machine and tossed it as an unknown substance, and wondered if this would suffice to end our suffering. On the night of Day 2, the bottle turned up under our sink. We planned to return it the next morning. We forgot.


It was almost as though the sand didn't want to go back home, but today, we vowed, the sand wasn't going to have a say in the matter. But we were so busy vowing that, that we forgot to carry it off the boat with us that morning.


Somewhere around lunch time, as the thrill of counting the different shades of blue in the water began to lose out to the threat of overcast skies, we decided to return to the boat for lunch and grab our sand before coming back to a different beach. We came back to a beach even more beautiful, a 15-foot isolated crescent of sand tucked between rock formations, and plopped down on our private hideaway to enjoy the good life. Then we realized we'd once again forgotten the sand.


Somehow, my sandcastle managed to win a battle with an invading Portuguese Man-of-War regardless.


Day 5: Bermuda looks beautifully different than anything else. The 21-mile island (actually an archipelago) is a giant botanical garden, with blooming plant life in vivid colors on every turn. A bright pink flower that's apparently poisonous appears every few feet, intermingled with a blooming something -or-other of every other shade of color known to humanity. The sand is peacefully pink and the water that alternates between crystal and turquoise. As we bused and ferried around the island the final day, I became convinced that the people who get lost in the Bermuda Triangle do so voluntarily.


I finally remembered the sand, which was never really mine, and sought a place to dump it back where it belongs. There was no beach on the itinerary, but I hoped the harbour (note the British spelling) would be good enough.


I guess we'll see.


After a day of sightseeing, scone-eating, and conversing with astoundingly polite British people, we had just enough time to stop by and see one more beach, with reefs and snorkeling and giant climbable rock formations sticking out of the water. It might have been the prettiest beach yet.


It was a mixed feeling as I sat on the deck of the sunset bar as the boat pulled away: sad to leave the island, but relieved to see that our friends, who had rented motor scooters and driven around the island of-left-side-driving adrenaline junkies, had survived.  Still, reality was starting to hit. The vacation wasn't over, but the proverbial vultures were starting to hover.


Midway across the Atlantic, reality awaited. As the guitar player in the sunset bar offered his condolences through song, the island slowly slipped away, almost taunting me with its refusal to leave the horizon.


Day 6: It was dark and stormy outside, and either I drank too much last night or the boat is swaying like mad. (In case my boss is reading, it was DEFINITELY the boat). I'm tempted to make my way down to my muster station just in case, but I'm out of quarters. In the absence of sunshine, my wife and I decide to watch the feature film in the main auditorium and fight our way down through the rocking boat. The ship is playing Gravity, which about a vessel losing power and getting lost in nothingness while the elements batter it around. I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but given the conditions at sea, it was perfect. The sun finally comes out mid-afternoon, but there's a short window before it's too cold to enjoy, another confirmation that the vacation is ending.


The cruise experience comes to a striking halt on the last night. Restaurant service is bad and the food quality suffers. Checked luggage is due by 11, the public spaces shut down early, and there's no itinerary of the next day's events greeting you after dinner. We wander to the sole remaining open lounge to watch the finals of the karaoke competition and soak in the last moments of our vacation. "How did it go by so quickly,?" we wonder.

Day 7: At 8, we must leave our room. At 10, we disembark and haggle with a taxi company for a ride to the airport. We arrive by 10:30, wade through security and wait until 1:15 for our flight. Three hours later, we're back in Nashville, waiting for our luggage, and our shuttle to the parking lot. Finally, at least nine hours after we left our stateroom, we are home.


Somewhere along the way, I think of all that's changed in life over the past three years since I was last in Bermuda. I think of the new friendships I've made, the new places I've seen, the unexpected challenges overcome and the answered prayers, along with the heartbreaks, along the way. As I wonder what life will look like whenever I make it back to this enchanted isle, one inescapable thought rushes through my head.


"Another set of passengers are going through that life boat drill right about now. Maybe if someone skips it, I can take their place onboard."