A Little Adventure In The Bermuda

My wife, Elinor, and I are staying at a small, family-owned resort on the south coast of Bermuda. Our room is a villa atop a cliff, overlooking palm trees, pastel-colored houses, a winding road, and the Atlantic Ocean--endless ocean in every direction, as far as the eye can see, with the first few hundred feet out a shallow, bright blue-green and beyond that a deep, dark blue.

The vast ocean beckons tourists and natives alike, but there is, surprisingly little traffic in the water, making it even more inviting to people like us, not seafaring types.

Eventually we succumb and agree to rent a small, two-person, glass-bottom boat with a battery-driven motor and a steering stick that seems harmless enough and about the level of the ocean-going challenge that we can handle.

The Filipino marina attendant helps us down the slippery steps to the boat and we plunk ourselves in. I twist myself around and reach behind me to grab the steering stick and we slowly head out to sea.

"Turn the grip on the handle in one direction to go faster, and in the other direction to go slower," he says. "You direct the boat by moving the stick right or left."

Slowly we move out through the bright shallow water toward the darker depths--our destination where we are told we can see all sorts of fish through the boat bottom.

After a few minutes, we're at least a half a mile out when the boat appears to stop, dead in the water. We're in the middle of nothing except ocean--the shore a distant site away--and we're not moving. This doesn't look good. We start drifting with the gentle waves...A fast-moving fishing boat is heading toward us. Does he see us? Will his wake flood us? I begin to feel like we're in the start of a disaster movie.

Happily, the motor boat veers off to our right and passes us. But we're still not moving. Minutes pass as we wonder what to do. Suddenly, we see a small motor boat heading out from the marina toward our boat. It's the attendant who must have noticed us standing still in the water.

With a smile, he greets us and says our battery must have died. He jumps in the water and ties a rope to our boat. He's going to tow us back to land. We're relieved that we're being saved.

Our saviour returns to his small motor boat and tries to start the outboard motor. Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing. Is he going to be stranded, too? We notice there are oars on his boat. "You may have to start paddling," I comment.

Fortunately, he finally starts up the engine and we're off, back to the marina.

Our adventure at sea over, we decide to stick to shore activities and head over to the small beach, where we park ourselves in beach chairs and stare out at the inviting ocean.

Article Information

This article was submitted by Mr George Haber of United States of America to the HolidayCity Tips & Articles Contest and was published on 1 November 2006 as the winning entry.