Royal
Naval Dockyard
The Royal Naval Dockyard was once the largest naval base in the Western
Atlantic. Its massive breakwaters,wharves, boat slips, barracks and keep
were constructed just before the 1812 war. The Keep was built with walls
20 feet wide, and visitors can enter after crossing a concrete drawbridge
over the surrounding moat.
The Maritime Museum
The Maritime Museum at the Royal Navy Dockyard was opened in 1975 by Queen
Elizabeth II. It is housed in Bermuda's largest fort, a 6-acre area and
was built to defend the Dockyard. The Museum contains exhibits relevant
to the Sea Venture, and artifacts from many of the ships that fell victim
to Bermuda's barrier reefs.
| Somerset
Bridge Leaving Somerset you will cross Somerset Bridge.... between Elys Harbor and the Great Sound. This bridge is the smallest drawbridge in the world, opening only 22 inches, just wide enough for a boat mast to pass through. |
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The Discovery
of Bermuda
On July 28, 1609 the Sea Venture (our namesake), under the command of
Sir George Somers, an English admiral, was destroyed at sea near the islands
during a hurricane. The castaways-colonists en route to the new Jamestown
settlement in Virginia-established a colony called Somers Islands and
settled in what is now St. George's Parish. They stayed long enough to
build two new vessels, the Deliverance and the Patience, from the remains
of the Sea Venture.
In May 1610 they gathered provisions to continue their journey to Virginia. Somers returned to Bermuda later that year for more food, but died of exhaustion. Because of the enthusiasm of Somers' crew for the newfound paradise, King James I of England was prompted to award a land grant to the Virginia Company so the islands could be colonized.
In 1612 a group of 60 Englishmen became the first permanent inhabitants of Bermuda. The Town of St. George served as the capital until the seat of government was moved to Hamilton in 1815.
The Legend
of the Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle legend really began in earnest on December 5, 1945,
with the famed disappearance of Flight 19. Five Navy Avenger bombers mysteriously
vanished while on a routine training mission, as did a rescue plane sent
to search for them -- six aircraft and 27 men, gone without a trace. Or
so the story goes. When all the facts are laid out, the tale of Flight
19 becomes far less puzzling. All of the crewmen of the five Avengers
were inexperienced trainees, with the exception of their patrol leader,
Lt. Charles Taylor. Taylor was perhaps not at the height of his abilities
that day, as some reports indicate that he had a hangover and failed in
his attempts to pass off this flight duty to someone else. With the four
rookie pilots entirely dependent on his guidance, Taylor found that his
compass malfunctioned soon into the flight.
Taylor chose to continue the run on dead reckoning, navigating by sighting landmarks below. Visibility became poor due to a brewing storm, and he quickly became disoriented. Flight 19 was still in radio contact with the Fort Lauderdale air base, although the weather and a bad receiver in one of the Avengers made communication very spotty. Taylor ended up thinking they were over the Gulf of Mexico, and ordered the patrol east in search of land. But in reality, they had been heading up the Atlantic coastline, and Taylor was mistakenly leading his hapless trainees much further out to sea.
A search party was dispatched, which included the Martin Mariner that many claim disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle along with Flight 19. While it is true that it never returned, the Mariner did not vanish; it blew up 23 seconds after takeoff, in an explosion that was witnessed by several at the base. This was unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence, because Mariners were known for their faulty gas tanks. No known wreckage from Flight 19 has ever been recovered. One reasonable explanation is that Taylor led the planes so far into the Atlantic that they were past the continental shelf. There the ocean abruptly drops from a few hundred feet deep to several thousand feet deep. Planes and ships that sink to such depths are seldom seen again. The deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean, the 30,100-foot-deep Puerto Rico Trench, lies within the Bermuda Triangle. Combining the circumstances of the failing compass, the difficulty of radio transmissions, and the absence of wreckage, tales of mysterious intervention befalling Flight 19 began to take form. Theories involving strange magnetic fields, time warps, Atlantis, and alien abduction began to appear. Even an official Navy report intimated that the Avengers had disappeared "as if they had flown to Mars."
About 200 prior and subsequent incidents have been attributed to the inherent strangeness of the area, which was forever christened the Bermuda Triangle by writer V. Gaddis in a 1964 issue of Argosy, a fiction magazine. Public interest in the "phenomenon" was whipped into a frenzy by Charles Berlitz's 1974 bestseller The Bermuda Triangle, a sensationalized and thoroughly inaccurate account that shunned the facts in favor of mysterious excitement.
Fun Facts
about Bermuda
Did you know?
The island of Bermuda is actually comprised of 138 islands. The overall
length of Bermuda is 21 miles, and the highest point is 259 Ft.
The population of Bermuda is 62,277, with a man to woman ratio of 50/50. 73% of the population is Bermuda-born.
Voltage Power is the same as the US - 110 volts
Bermuda has 9 golf courses and boasts more courses per square mile than Florida
Bermudian women outlive men by an average of 7 years (78 years for women to 71 years for men)
International soccer star Shaun Goater was born in Bermuda. This talented player now plays for Manchester City in the English Premier Division. Only 4 Bermudians have ever made it to this lofty level in World Class Soccer.
Motorcycles outnumber private cars on the island by nearly 3000 - (25,000 to 22,005.)
Tennis was introduced to America from Bermuda! There are over 180 tennis courts on the island and Bermuda is home to International Tennis Star - Patrick Rafter.
Bermuda's government is a Parliamentary system. There are 40 seats in the House of Parliament.
Bermudians import $619M of goods per year, while exporting only $57M.
Predictably, the US is Bermuda's largest trading partner providing 73% of the import total, while the UK, Canada and the Caribbean account for about 5% each.
The total workforce in Bermuda is 35,323, with employment income averaging $40,000+.