The Secret Fortress

When I last blogged the story left us half way through a day off, when I was arriving at the entrance of the site I had planned to visit -- scheduled fun, my sister would say with a touch of irony. 

My phone rang, my friend Simon who would be leaving the island in 4 days was on the other end of the line, and had finished selling the last of his stuff, and was free to come scoot-touring with me.  In a year of many challenges and changes, we had made it through the figurative ex-pat family wringer and now had one last afternoon to hang out, just us two.  Ex-pats are a bit of a pack animal, often sighted in a small herd.  But one on one time with any friend is both a treat and an essential part of forming deeper bonds and collective memories that give the friendship the basis for surviving distance and time apart.  I see this clearly in retrospect, but at the time I didn't realize that this is what the day would become.

The first part of the day was to discard my plan and start from scratch.  Randomness is always more fun anyway.  Stop 1, admittedly, had been on my to do list, I wanted to find the sea glass beach that I had occasionally heard mention of.  The few references I was able to find said that the beach and a little cave were right by the old Alexandra Battery in St. George's.  Bermuda has always had defense systems in place -- in the 1600's they were worried about the Spanish, later the French, then the America's in the 1800's, and lastly Bermuda became a valuable outpost for both World Wars.  Between Britain, Canada, and the US, military bases were in Bermuda from early in the 1600's to the 1990's.  So the Alexandra Battery is a little bit more modern munitions base than some of the other forts, but had a couple of cool cannons.

Front of the Alexandra Battery

I set my sights to the right looking for the little cave and the sea glass beach I had heard of, but Simon quickly said we should go to the left..."can't you hear it?"  "Hear what?" I said.  "Listen...you can hear the tinkling of glass, it's the little beach to the left."  Sure enough, as we got closer, I could hear it, almost like a faint wind chime, the rush of a wave, and then gentle tinkling of the glass bits bouncing against each other and the pebbles.

The Sea Glass Beach glitters in the sun

For some reason, sea glass washes up in certain places, and this is one of them.  The constant grinding and friction from the sea smooths and rounds the edges of the broken glass, and makes it cloudy rather than transparent.  It can be beautiful, and many local craftspeople make very pretty jewellery from it.  Green and brown and white glass can be quite common, blue is rare, and red is very rare.  Many people come to pick the glass, so the pieces were smaller and not as extraordinary as I had hoped, but, with frequent visits one could find some real beauties I am sure.

Close up of glass washed into the rocks of the cave at high tide

The next fort along the road is Gates Fort.  We found it abandoned by all but a couple of bikini clad tourists basking on its walls (tourists, obviously as the rest of us have packed away our bikinis until next summer...or at least a celebration worth getting a chill for, like Christmas for example).  A much smaller fort, Gates Fort is situated a little further south and a little further inland of St. Catherine's.  It's guns have a bead on any ship that would approach the larger fort of St. Catherine's.  So small but simple, it is the Fort that had the other's Fort's back.

Peering through the fort gun hole at the cannons still trained to sea

These walls have weathered the waves for about 400 years outside of Gates Fort

Following that, Simon suggested we go to "the hidden fort" that no one knows about in St. David's.  My curiosity was piqued.  I had just looked at a list of all of the old forts in Bermuda, and I knew there was one in St. David's, but the information available hadn't really caught my eye and I probably would not have gone otherwise.  From that point on the day took on a different quality.  When we are kids we really embrace exploring our backyards, imagining what great things might have happened in a place far older than us, and seeing exactly what could be possible -- for example what if storm troopers really did suddenly march out from the woods?  Somehow we think that we lose this imagination when we are adults.  But we don't this lose this capacity.  We just repress it most of the time under the weight of schedules and expectations.  The cure seems to be a little randomness.

On the way to St. David's we stopped in the town of St. George's and picked up some snacks and beverages before carrying on our way.  Before we reached our destination in St. David's, Simon suddenly pulled over across from a deserted and crumbling building that was once part of the US Air force Base...we think it was the daycare.  Pink and turquoise walls, the roof has caved in, the windows have been smashed...but the doors are still in place and some remain locked.  Despite the years of exposure to weather, the wooden fireplace mantle remains in excellent condition (Bermuda cedar perhaps).  I had stopped here before and peered inside, but today we crawled through the brushes and rubble to photograph the disrepair.  And have a little lunch and a nice cold beer.  Somewhere inside, a teenage me smiled at the familiarity of the situation, enjoying the novelty of being somewhere no one else wants to be and wondering about the people who once frequented these rooms decades ago.

Abandoned military base building

After our little lunch, and nearing 4 pm, we carried on towards the old St. David's Fort.  I am not the only one who gets lost in St. David's...there are several curvy little roads to turn down and follow only to find yourself at a dead end.  After getting directions to a landmark known to be near the fort, we finally found it, although I doubt I could find it again without a lot of driving around again.  Armed with cameras and the 4 remaining beer, we climbed the walls of the fort, and got some pictures of the big guns and the nearby Lost At Sea Memorial, erected in 2005 and unveiled by Prince Andrew of York.

Lost at Sea Memorial

A local kid, maybe 5 or 6 years old and dressed in the formal tie and dress of a local school, sensed our own childlike drive to explore and sought us out and stuck to us like glue.  Our inner adults convinced him that he should go home and ask his mom if he was allowed to play on the fort and its surrounding cliffs with a bunch of strange adults, and he finally and reluctantly relented. Which was a good thing because about 20 of his friends were calling out from the local soccer field and it looked like we were about to become boyscout troop leaders for the day. Outside of the fort walls, gun still aimed at sea, nature takes over the defensive wall and I found myself standing on the steepest and tallest cliff I have seen on the island.  My partner in crime verbally tugged at me to drag me further along, promising that I would get an even better view.  Indeed it was.

Edge of the St, David's Battery

We made our way through undergrowth, down a steep hill, and finally came across sound old concrete stairs.  There was no defined path through the growth, no signs that anyone had come this way for a very very long time.  We had found that secret fortress that we all dream of as children.  This old bunker is completely tucked away, pristine inside, and offering an equally perfect view of the waves smashing against the nearby cliffs with rivulets of water running down them to rejoin the process over and over and over.

The secret Fortress

And so we sat, in our secret fort, on our remote island, and retold the stories of our friendship over the years on this island, speculated on adventures to come, and laughed.  As the wave crashed onto the rocks and the sun set, both literally and figuratively, we shared a beer in a place where the history of many footfalls from long ago hangs heavy in the air.  A sense of peaceful nostalgia washed over me.  I realized I would remember this day for many, many years, for its beauty, its peacefulness, and its general ease and purity.  A perfect last day for two friends at the end of an era.  A treasure and a secret fortress...what more could one ask for on a day off?

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 Dinner, of course.

The Waterlot Inn is another old building, a perfect fit to the days theme, and quite simply, their steak is always perfection.  As it should be, as they have been refining their culinary arts there for almost 350 years.  When Bill and Hillary Clinton are in town, they can be spotted at the Waterlot.  However, so can (and should) a girl fresh from climbing through derelict buildings, heavy shrubbery, and scaling grubby old rocks (after quickly removing the visible grease and grime, locating a hair brush, and tossing on something a little more appropriate -- thank you Michael Kors for making elegance so much easier for us tomboys).  Dinner was of course, delicious and the ambiance perfect as always.  But the secret fortress was definitely the best part of my day.

The secret Fortress lies just below, tucked away like all good treasure is