Making waves in more ways than one

Making waves last week was a 4.4 magnitude earthquake, 50 miles off the coast of Bermuda. Actually, in reality, it was more of a ripple, but bread rolls did fall off the shelf at a local supermarket! Thanks Bermuda Sun for the photographic evidence to share...

Although in comparison to other natural disasters that have rocked the world of late this was a definite non-event, it did get people asking questions about whether Bermuda could experience a devastating Tsunami in the future. I don't like our chances having seen the footage from Japan and given the damage there as we are a mere blip on the radar.

Apparently the chances of a mega-quake here are slim to none but a Harvard University expert provided some clarity in a Bermuda Sun interview: “In terms of tsunami risk there is some risk as Bermuda is close to the Caribbean subduction zone. An earthquake in 1918 in Puerto Rico caused a tsunami which reached Bermuda two hours later.That gap provides some time for evacuation which should be a comfort.The size of the tsunami would depend on a lot of factors. Bermuda also has shallow water — but nothing like the continental shelf — which can cause the wave to rise up.The risk in Bermuda compared to seismically active areas is a lot lower because you don’t have a source nearby. One advantage is also that you are going to have some time to evacuate.The risk is lower than around the Pacific but it is not zero.” So, it's not quite time to pack my bags and head for a larger land mass just yet.

Also making waves, this time overseas rather than on them, is the great Gosling's rum. Awareness of this fine spirit rose significantly away from home following a feature in Fortune magazine this month. This local beverage of choice is now being shipped as far as Shanghai and Sydney and last year sold 83,000 cases of rum. I definitely know of a number of UK home drinks cabinets that now stock it, thanks to yours truly and my personal campaign of passion for the Black Seal. However fear not Bermudians, the secret of this masterpiece of rum blending to still relatively safe. Mr. Gosling from Gosling's told The Royal Gazette: "We’re not going to be a million-case brand. We want to grow in a controlled fashion. We don’t want to do anything that would sacrifice the quality of the product." Part of protecting its integrity and heritage was the company's move to brand the Dark N Stormy. 

I would argue however that more in need of protection (from themselves) over the long Easter weekend is the Dark N Stormy fans. Particularly after the first infamous Booze Cruise of the 2011 season. It's a simple concept... pay $60, all in the name of charidee of course for some sports team, board a boat for four hours and drink till you can drink no more. For many of us Good Friday became Bad Friday as we struggled through with storm force waves of nausea, celebrating our own resurrection for the weekend come Saturday morning. The expat fam makes up for the distance between them and blood relatives with what can only be described as the utmost unity and mutual appreciation as they disembark from a booze cruise. Joined not by blood lines but by arms draped around each other, friends and strangers, wearing the uniform of drink stains and the sweet smile of survival. 

Waves of dissatisfaction are crashing on these shores from a TripAdvisor.com review of the island posted in 2009. It's pretty damning. I will supply one quote and a link to the full post, simply because I cannot bear to give space to someone dissing my island on this blog!!! Luckily Bermuda Department of Tourism have come to TEAM BDA's defence. "Bermuda is a nasty rotten stinkhole" apparently. Bermuda is beautiful. Fact. Waves of anger!!!!!

Meanwhile, not making as many waves this weekend were the local ferries, which serve the smaller stops around Hamilton Harbour. Not much riles my still waters but this seems like utter stupidity in the name of budget cuts and as I live in town it doesn't really impact me. But, if I did live out of time, this issue might just get me joining the ranks of the firey Bermudians to let off some steam in a letter to editor or call to a talk show. Bermuda isn't the easiest place to get around as it is. Tourists can't hire cars, buses stop fairly early in the evening and taxis are an expensive luxury. The Government ain't backing down though. Last word was that it was now up to entrepreneurs to step up and save the day. Let's hope these mysterious ferry business people are waiting in the wings, ready to do the hero bit.

I really feel for the owners of the smattering of guesthouses that line Harbour Road. Especially, the lovely Greenbanks - my first home on this island. I wasn't sitting on the fortune required to stay in a hotel while I found a more permanent home (and still am not for that matter!), so it was perfect, with a minute walk to a regularly served ferry stop and a idyllic 10 mins ferry ride into Hamilton. With next to no ferries, I would have to have thought twice before staying there and no doubt others now will be doing just that. Not such a great brainwave hey, especially in times like these!

Bermudian Beauty & the Beholder

I've boasted of the extreme beauty of Bermuda's beaches more than once, so now it's time to look at other aesthetically pleasing aspects of the island. 


In the last couple of weeks, there's been a lot of interest in the beauty of Bermuda's people. A good place to start is with the future face of the island, the upcoming Miss Bermuda pageant. The infamous swimsuit photo suit took place this week, so for once all eyes weren't on those rolling pink sands and the curve of the aqua ocean at Elbow Beach. The star attraction was the rolling curves of the bikini-clad body beautiful.

This, some might say, old-fashioned competition definitely speaks to Bermuda's nostalgic old-skoolism. There seems a constant desire to return to days of holiday camp tourism. No doubt because this was when Bermuda was in it's hey day, not the comparative sad story it tells now of ever-decreasing hotel beds and new development that never quite seem to come to fruition. 


Beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder, which seems to be the thinking behind the Department of Tourism's latest ruse to lure people to this shore - a tell-a-friend loyalty scheme. The "Feel the Love" campaign launched last week promising financial rewards for those who encourage others to visit. Although I won't be giving up the day job just yet as you need to recruit 15 tourists to get off the starting block for cash back of $25 a head.


To remind us that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes is the Miss Big & Beautiful, also coming up soon.  This competition has attracted a storm of controversy and derogatory comments as ever. A lot of people question whether it's the right thing to do on an island struggling with obesity, one of the world's highest diabetes statistics and ever-increasing health insurance premiums partially resulting from unhealthy lifestyles. Then again, this response can be considered out-dated. The rest of the world has gradually cottoned on to the notion that a size 14 ain't that unusual and doesn't automatically mean unhealthy. So enough of the KFC Sponsorship deal jokes already!!

In other beauty news, Bermudian, Deandra Brangman, was crowned the winner of a professional model search in London last week. Previous winners have gone taken to the catwalks of the world's major fashion shows so Deandra could put Bermuda firmly on the beauty map.

If guys are more your thang then there's been plenty to look at on that front recently too. Yes, it's Bermuda Shorts season again as summer corporate dress codes kick in, and those hairy legs and nobly knees are once again out in all their glory. 


The prize for working the national look the best definitely goes to the boyz at The Fairmont Hamilton Princess. I leave you to feast your eyes these...

Bed bugs and beyond begone in Bermuda

Strange things happen in the triangle and they don't get much stranger than Friday night...

So I was out with the Fraggle Rock royalty and a colleague at The Fairmont Hamilton Princess happy hour. We were debating burning issues such as why would Miss Piggy go for Kermit the Frog with those skinny legs, whether Bert and Ernie really were gay and which in fact is the hottest muppet (we went for the Count with his sexy accent and mysterious cape), when we were joined in the conversation by a Canadian tourist. I believe he came along to help us out with another conundrum - is Transylvania a real place? Yes fact finders, it is indeed a region of Romania. Anyhoo, we were asking the usual questions, where d'you come from? What do you do? When we rather excitedly discovered that he was in Bermuda following a meeting with the U.S. Government in Washington D.C. as he had just developed a bio-pesticide that killed bed bugs. Given the magnitude of this issue in the States, this was big news!! And 'Long tails & Bermuda shorts' readers, you saw it here first, the photographic evidence...

Exhibit A - Bed buds, clearly VERY dead.

We took our new friend to sample the delights of Front Street. But I have to say I wasn't all that proud. No wonder the island has such a dwindling tourist industry when this is the image it presents - a heavy armed police presence, metal detection scanners on entry to a night club and a reminder from the DJ that smoking Cannabis was not permitted after a hash cloud filled the club. Oh dear.

For a few moments I felt like the police were after me as they were everywhere we were - for a variety of sins, e.g. bad jokes, poor grasp of the French language, consuming a bottle of Perrier not bought on the premises, etc. It could have been anything but it became painfully apparent that they had another target in their sights. They even had the Police Commissioner, Mike DeSilva, doing a search of Moon nightclub so it must have been serious. There were rumours that someone was stabbed circulating but the media has not since verified this so not entirely sure what was going down.

Things have been tense anyway since a 16-year-old boy was gunned down in the street last week. A popular  comedy club on Front Street even closed its doors as a direct reaction to the unrelenting gang violence as the owner was concerned about the gangster clientele it was attracting. Shame there isn't a bio-pesticide to get rid of this vermin!!

'Long tails & Bermuda shorts' has come full circle. With this post, I mark its anniversary, and the very first post (and many since) have charted the growing gun crime on this paradise island. Such a crying shame.

On a lighter note, I would like to dedicate this post to the handful of fans (that aren't my friends who are obliged to flatter my ego!!) that have been kind enough to write to me with their positive feedback. To Sal in Dublin, Dawn in rural Dublin, Ted in Sydney, Oman Collective Agency and Kym in New York - thank you for proving that blogs do get read by people you don't know and inspiring me to keep waffling on...

Against 'da tide

New artwork was unveiled this week on Front Street, which aptly summed up the mood of the times. Bill Ming's "Against 'da tide" depicts men in a boat pulling together against the roaring waves. In the words of the artist, it is supposed to represent the fact that "We are all in the same boat, striving, trying to make it together."

There has been a couple of bits of news this week representing the changing of the tides and a need to stick together. It is starting to truly hit home that Bermuda is not going to escape the global downturn as it looked like it might. Up till now, it seems to have escaped relatively unscathed.

Maybe not if you ask a local. There is still nostalgia about the island's heyday of tourism and economic boom being behind us, but speaking from the voice of some experience of just how bad things were in London when the credit crunch crunched, it hasn't been that bad. Yes shops have shut, there's been a handful of redundancies and homeowners and small businesses have felt the pinch, but then no one was throwing themselves from office blocks on Front Street and people are still sipping lavish cocktails and dining out. I remember the Big Smoke being like a ghost town in Autumn 2008 as the realisation of what lay ahead became all-consuming and people just stopped going out. Bars, restaurants and shops closed down and Tesco's starting raking it from all the stay at home revellers turning to a six-pack of beers and frozen pizza for a good time.

Times are however a-changing. The Friday night scene continues to buzz unabated and there's even been a few major bar and restaurant renovations in recent months (Flanagan's, Frescos, Indigo), as well as some entirely new faces. Flying Fish, I salute you, fantastic food and atmosphere. Never before have I had my shrimps and scallops flambeed in Pernod and dusted in paprika but I'd certainly go there again. I was drooling over the table cloth when it was right there in front of me and my saliva production is on the up again just thinking about it. Anyway... I digress... back to how bad things are getting here!!

Scallops and sparkling wine aside, there was a painful reminder that the recession isn't receding this week when 25 people got the chop from Butterfield Bank. Although not a total shocking following the over $200 million losses reported by the local bank last month, it was still nudge and a wink to many that all is not rosy and pink in paradise.

Perhaps even more worrying was the revelation that 1,000 customers have had their electricity cut by local energy supplier BELCO this year due to unpaid bills. And as many as 250 in one day faced life without power. That's a pretty significant percentage of BELCO's 36,000 customers, facing such financial hardship they can't pay their energy bills. It'll come as no surprise when I say that energy is expensive here. I live in a house share of three and bearing in mind there is no central heating in Bermuda and we are out most of the day in full-time jobs, we still have a hefty $400 to pay a month. This is something I think the Government needs to get a grip on before the cost of running A/C in the summer makes things even worse. Ironically the news of the cuts on Bernews.com was accompanied on the same page with an ad that read "BELCO...empowering Bermuda." Maybe time for a rebrand!

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel of a depressing week as some of the seasonal eateries re-open this week for summer and Fairmont Hamilton's happy hour kicked off again. Let's hope it's happy ever after...