Our traditional dish is ‘Codfish and Potato’. There is nothing remarkable about this. It is simply codfish and potato boiled in the same pot. Bermudians go crazy over it on Sunday mornings (when it is traditionally served). However….this meal is also served with boiled egg, a tasty onion and tomato-based sauce, banana and avocado. Now that is more like it!
We are an Overseas Territory of the UK (with internal self-government).
Before being inhabited our island was known as ‘Devils Island’ or ‘The isle of Devils’. This is because of the strange, eerie and frightening noises that was often heard coming from the island combined with the many shipwrecks that occured when getting to close to the island. Turns out the noises were simply from the cahow bird and the shipwrecks from our tricky reefs.
The Cahow bird
Our island is named after Juan de Bermudez – a Spanish sailor who discovered the island in 1503.
Bermuda is the oldest British Colony (yikes!)
The land size of Bermuda is almost equal to the size of London’s Heathrow Airport. (Shh…don’t tell anyone I told you that). We are also similar in size to Manhattan.
The Bermuda Triangle (triangular area between Bda, Miami and San Juan) is said to be responsible for mysterious shipwrecks, disappearances and air crashes. (Aside from our tricky reefs I dunno).
Our climate is sub-tropical so we are FREE of frost and snow. (though you will definitely freeze your ass off with the intense dampness we get here). It was reported in one of the first or early editions of The Royal Gazette (local paper) that snow fell in Bermuda in February 1784. Who knows.
Bermudians drive on the LEFT side of the road!
We are only allowed one car per household. The divorce rate in Bermuda is high due to couples fighting over car usage. (Just kidding about the divorce thing).
Bermuda has more churches per square mile than any other country in the world! Repent! Repent! lol
Yeah we have pink beaches, but it isn’t always apparent up close. Many times tourists approach me on the beach and say “Howdy! We just came off the cruise ship and they told us ya’ll have pink beaches! Well where can we find some pink beaches? The sand doesn’t look all that pink here!” Well, with most of the beaches here the sand looks to be more white than pink. The granules of sand aren’t all actually pink, there is pink mixed in with the white. The pink is actually crushed sea invertebrates (corals, clams etc) crushed by the waves combined with the red-colored remains of other sea organisms. All of the crushed or pulverized shells mix in with the white fluffy sand giving it a pink tint. Some of the beaches seem pinker than others but in either case it would probably appear more pinkish closer to sunset or from an aerial view.
We are not a Caribbean island. We are isolated, smack in the Atlantic ocean and not in the Caribbean sea. We’re probably closer to North Carolina than we are to any of the Caribbean islands. Despite this West Indians migrated here circa end of the 19th Century and as a result our culture has been influenced by that of the Caribbean culture (reggae music etc). Our culture seems to be an equal balance of British, Caribbean and perhaps American but that is just my opinion.
The second most popular language in Bermuda besides English is Portuguese. Most of us do not speak Portuguese, but because a significant segment of the population is of Portuguese heritage it kind of goes without saying. What is funny is that in a lot of cases the local Portuguese have a heavier Bermudian accent or dialect than black Bermudians! (blacks make up the majority of the population). Also I have met many older Portuguese who have been here for decades and cannot speak a lick of English. That is interesting. Portuguese are kind of considered a separate race here which is also pretty odd. Most of them migrated to Bermuda around the mid 1800s.
Hey, remember that John Rolfe guy? The early settler that married Pocahontas? He and a crew were headed over to Virginia in 1609 and ended up getting shipwrecked here on their fancy new ship the ‘Sea Venture’. Among the 150 or so passengers aboard were his wife and small child. They stuck around on the island for almost a year to build another couple of ships so that they could carry on to Virginia. However a number of people didn’t make it. They died, were killed or were lost at sea etc. His wife and small child died and he had to move on without them. They are buried here. Five years later he ended up marrying Pocahontas. The captain of that ship was Sir George Somers. He was the founder of the first colony here in Bermuda and thus the first official name for the island was ‘Somers Isles’ before it became ‘Bermuda’.
Sea Venture painting by Christopher M. Grimes
In Bermuda we have a kind of Britishy, New Yorkish, Bostonish accent. That may be stretching it but it seems to come closest (that I can think of). Like I just told a friend I need some coffee and was acutely aware (since I’m in the middle of typing this) that it came out as ‘cawfee’. That’s how we say coffee…’cawfee’. When you get heavy into our dialect, ‘boy’ becomes ‘bie’, ‘foolishness’ becomes ‘fullishness’, ‘worthless’ becomes ‘wuffless’. Our accent can sound kind of New Zelandish flat as well. ‘Pig’ is ‘peeg’, ‘Pen’ is ‘peyun’, ‘down’ is ‘dahn’. “Um goin’ dahn de road, bie!” (even though ‘bie’ is ‘boy’ it is also used in place of ‘buddy’, ‘mate’, ‘champ’, ‘pal’, ‘dude’, ‘man’ etc). For a milder curse word than f*ck we say ‘fak’. “Bie fak bie! I can’t beleeve (believe) dat dere (that there) wuffless bie ripped me off!” For ‘bloody’ we say ‘bladdy’. “Bie she can go to hayal (hell) for all I bladdy-well care!” Well…I think you get the picture.
Bermudians love to drink. A local comedian (Bootsie) even wrote a cool catchy song about it. Dark n Stormy and Rum Swizzle are probably our most popular drinks. The Bermudian Goslings black rum is the best.
Bermudians put mayo on damn near everything. I’ve seen Bermudians put mayonnaise on peas and rice (another local dish…brown rice mixed with black-eyed or kidney beans), I’ve seen them put it on fried egg sandwiches and french fries. I’m guilty of putting mayo and ketchup on my potpies. We like globs of mayo on our burgers and hotdogs. Remember the Codfish and Potato breakfast I told you about…our traditional dish? Despite there being an onion and tomato-based sauce for the fish, a lot of us like to dump mayo on the potato and avocado as well.
You would think that because of our small size and population (circa 69,000) we would be an unheard of, insignificant spit in the ocean. However we surprisingly have one of the highest GDPs in the world, thanks mostly to offshore companies. Our economy is steep and thriving. It is expensive as hell here. Bermuda is often referred to as the ‘millionaire’s playground’. Average salary here is about USD 55,000. It is rare to be able to purchase a small, modest (and not broken-down) home for under USD 1,000,000.
