Discovering Bermuda: Top 3 Family Activities – Number 1

Posted on by

I could live in the ocean if I could only breathe under water. I love everything about it… the Fairmont Beach Club in Southamptonsounds, the smells, the sights, nothing is more relaxing or refreshing. I grew up next to the ocean so it brings me back to my childhood and elicits some of the fondest memories of my life. Any location that offers great beach destinations automatically draws me so Bermuda was always high on my list of places to visit. With azure blue waters and bold, colorful fish, the snorkeling in Bermuda is some of the best in the world, making it my favorite family activity in the country. It doesn’t take much to fill an afternoon in Bermuda. I just grabbed a snorkel, mask, and fins and made my way to the beach. You don’t have to drive far to find the most beautiful waters filled with coral and tropical fish.

Bermuda

Fairmont Beach Club in Southampton

Although I went alone, it would be a perfect way to spend the afternoon with family. The waves at most beaches are minimal making it safe for children and if you already own a snorkel and mask, it’s a cheap way to spend a family day together.

I’m no expert in naming fish, but the bright blue schools of our underwater friends are stunning. It’s like watching high-definition for the first time.

Tropical fish in BermudaI use to fear what lurked below the ocean waves. Murky waters caused me anxiety. Thoughts of razor sharp teeth and swift predators plagued my mind like a virus. Exploring with a snorkel and mask opened my eyes to the beauty of a whole new world. Elegant sea life moves in unison creating music without a sound. Colorful creatures appear and disappear as fluid and graceful as ballerinas.  Grab your mask and explore; Bermuda has opportunities around every corner.

50 thoughts on “Discovering Bermuda: Top 3 Family Activities – Number 1”

  10. The snorkel tours which take you out on the reefs are well worth doing, too. In some places you’re quite a distance from the island, yet the water’s only 30 feet deep where the reef is. Spectacular corals and lovely technicolour fish … it’s my favourite way to introduce Bermuda to newbies. (And the tour boats have inflatable vests so even the weakest swimmers can feel confident even way out there on the open ocean.)

    Like

    Reply ↓

      • It’s been a few years and they come and go to some extent, but I’ve had good experiences both with scuba and snorkeling with Fantasea: http://www.fantasea.bm/snorkeling/. The best tours will take you out to at least two spots, one of which is usually a site just off-shore where there are two shipwrecks so close to the surface that you can actually appreciate them just with snorkels. (Bermuda has close to 800 wrecks scattered around the reefs, making it one of the richest shipwreck sites on the planet for those who are into that.)

        I worked in Bermuda managing a riding school, but the first time I went snorkeling there, I thought, “The heck with horses, I think I’ll just spend the rest of my time here with my face in the water and my tush in the air, peering at pretty fishes!”

        Like

        Reply ↓

  15. I love blue and green and I like water. I lived next to a lake not an ocean but I know the feeling of living near water. These pictures of water are astonishing. And blue fish…I’ve never seen any. Wonderful post.

    Like

    Reply ↓

  25. This makes me want to book a real vacation now! Thanks for providing a glimpse for those of us who have not been there. I heard hotels tend to be pretty expensive in Bermuda – have others found good deals on hotels there?

    Like

    Reply ↓

  26. I love snorkeling too… What an awesome post. About the murky water and sharp teeth, you are right to fear the murky water. Murky is bad. On the other hand, the more time you spend beneath the surface, the better off you are. We went to the west coast if Florida a couple years ago, enjoyed a week of shallow swimming and a jaunt out to a buoy and back (about 500 yards out)… Turns out another 100 yards out was the shrimp lane – and where the sharks hung out to feed, locals called it shark ally. Sometimes being lucky is awesome, but quite spooky in this case – the water was incredibly murky (and I knew better).

    Like

    Reply ↓

  28. If I could, I would love to live in a place which is max. 1 hour drive from the sea/ocean so that I could go surfing and at the same time max. 1h drive from the mountains, so that I could go skiing… Do you know if such a place exists?:D
    Eh, Bermuda looks fantastic… But so far I have to stick with my old Europe…;)

    Like

    Reply ↓

  33. Your introductory sentence was great – “I could live in the ocean if I could only breathe under water.”

    I too miss living NEAR/NEXT TO the ocean – sound of the waves, sightings of dolphins/whales, changing color & condition of water, etc. While I wanted to be an oceanographer growing up (this, probably only because I used to love reading Willard Price adventure books), I’m too fearful of undercurrents and Great Whites! Maybe this has to do with all the incidents reported through the years of living in South Africa, with its seemingly endless ocean shorelines.

    Like

    Reply ↓

  34. I’ve never been to Bermuda, but it does indeed seem like a paradise. One thing that troubles me, though, is that all of that azure water and colorful fish belie an island archipelago that is in serious, serious trouble.
    Pollution, pesticides, and over-development are essentially destroying the islands. “Since 1997, the island’s sea grass beds—vital habitats for conch, sea urchins, rockfish, turtles, and spiny lobsters—have drastically declined; marine biologists say 20 percent of the 5,100 acres have been eradicated in the last decade alone.”
    Almost all of the islands’ mangrove forests, vital as nurseries for reef and pelagic fish and as buffers against violent storms, have been destroyed to make room for luxury hotels and golf courses.
    Cruise ships put a “strain on the island’s already stretched transportation, garbage, sewage, and water systems, given that ships in port make liberal use of those services.”
    For further really depressing information, see http://www.bermuda-online.org/environ.htm
    I’m not here at all to rain on your parade, and I think that your adventures are totally cool. I’d just like to see a bit of balance in showing that the choices we make in our holiday destinations can have real – and really negative – impacts on the places we visit.
    Or they can be done responsibly with an eye to using tourism as a motivation – and an economic incentive – to protect habitats and species from degradation and possible extinction.

    Like

    Reply ↓

  36. I too have many happy memories of the sea – except living on the Thames Estuary does not quite have the same exotic feel to it as Bermuda, It connects me with feeling happy, which can only be a good thing.:-)

    Like

    Reply ↓

  41. Pingback: 2013 Bucket List | Bucket List Publications

  42. Bermuda looks like a beautiful place for snorkeling and your idea of making exotic bucket lists with the craziest of dreams is very inspiring. I think I have to level up my own bucket list!

    Like

    Reply ↓

  44. Pingback: Accepting Defeat or Recognizing Greatness | Bucket List Publications

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s