Pretty Placid Places

Apparently I like alliteration.  A lot.  Hence the title of today's blog, which really is a few photos of some pretty little places that I pulled off the road for and stopped to take in their beauty and tranquility.  Placid, pleasant, peaceful places to ponder and pontificate upon.  See, I really can't help myself

Picture A (compliments of moi) -- Horseshoe Bay in the tourist off season

There are a lot of beautiful places in Bermuda.  A lot.  And a lot of them are blissfully void of other people.  If you want to commune with nature, gather your thoughts, de-stress by listening to gentle waves on the beach, or watch the wind blow through flowers without being disturbed, you can do this.  But you won't likely be able to do it on some of the more popular locations on the island once tourist season opens.  In 2012, 265,000 tourists visited Bermuda.  Tourism brought in 431 Billion that year according to the World Bank stats.  What this means is that Horseshoe Bay goes from picture A (above) to picture B (below), which coincidentally I grabbed online as I tend to stay close to things that look like picture A and far away from picture B.

Picture B (not mine) -- Horseshoe Bay in the summer, peak tourist season

It doesn't matter where I reside, I always find a special place that I go when I want to sit alone and think.  Whether its the field west of the farm in Saskatchewan, a deserted park bench on the north side of the river valley in Edmonton that overlooks the parks and shows the skyline, or that patch of air above Eden North, I always have a cache of special places to give myself a little break from the world.  And so it is in Bermuda as well.  Even when the buses are crammed full, the ferries are surrounded by lines of people, and Dockyard is bustling with thousands of people stepping off of their cruise ship, Bermuda still has plenty of places where you can go and get alone time, if you step off the beaten path.  On this particular day, in February, I could go almost anywhere for a moment of silent beauty, but I decided to bypass some my usual haunts and take photos of some other gorgeous places.

This is one of my go to places to hide out with my camera.  I believe with some patience, this will be the year that I get the photo of the longtail bird that I have been longing to catch for, oh, about 5 years.  Every year I try and spend afternoons perched with my camera waiting and failing to catch the perfect picture until the season has gone by, and think...next year.  Well, this is it, the last chance.  And this is my secret spot.  So I am not telling you where it is until I get that shot, but it's lovely isn't it?

My secret favorite spot

My coworker Sue and I started out on a photo expedition a couple of Sundays ago, but at the worst possible time of day, high noon when the light and shadows are just a little too harsh.  We didn't stay out long, but we ducked under the bridge heading into dockyard to get some pictures, and discovered a little bench where one could sit and watch the slow waters ebb in and out from the sea.  The vehicles overhead may make it a little less placid than I like however.

Beneath the bridge going into Dockyard

Just a little further down the road you will find a gorgeous little patch of beach, only a few metres off the main road.  It used to be totally quiet, with nothing but a picnic bench set on the site.  As of last summer, there is now a kiosk that appears, rents, and unfortunately hangs, hammocks all along the site during tourist season.  It gives the tourists a nice view from the hammock, but unfortunately the view from the road gets obstructed by lucky tourists hanging in hammocks like ripe, plump melons over the crystal blue waters.  However, one cannot begrudge the tourists from enjoying a piece of paradise so close to where the ships dock, knowing how full the buses to the south shore get in the summer.  There are plenty of other empty places even in the summer.

A little roadside beach near Dockyard

The fun thing about photography is that it starts to change how you see what is in front of you.  Sometimes people who live here will ask where a photo is taken and be surprised to find out it is something they have seen many times, but never really stopped to take it in.  This next photo is taken about 5 steps away from the photo above.

Tranquil idyll bliss spot

Every second year Alberta Sport, Parks, Recreation, and Wildlife puts on a conference for it's sports groups in Banff, Alberta.  I will never forget one of the seminars, which was on change.  Change is such a cliche topic that there seems to be an unspoken rule that it must be addressed at all conferences.  This session focused on the changes in technology and the questioned the ability of the younger generation to process information in a world where they face constant input via cell phones, ipods, tablets etc and therefore have a dramatically diminished amount of time for reflection.  In a mind that is constantly bombarded with experiences and information without reflection as part of the processing, how does that change how they relate to those experiences and react to the world.  The research was out at that time as to whether modern technology would indeed to to a less introspective and environmentally reactive generation.  I don't know if the research is in.  But I do know this.  I grew up playing with dirt and rocks because my parents didn't have an ipad to put in my crib.  Granted there were loads of stuffed animals, games, even Barbie's and Cabbage Patch Kids (believe it or not, yes), but also mud pies, forts, rope swings and imaginary intergalactic adventures taken with the neighbours from a particularly large spaceship...well. it was a tree but you know what I mean.  Sometimes it was just hiding out among stalks of wheat watching the clouds go by.  As an adult I still crave that peace and it takes me off the beaten track, to find quiet beautiful places to sit and reflect on all the information that bears down on me from the day's events, interactions with others, media, social media, and thousands of blips of sensory information that bombard us every day.  On my cliff or under my tree it all filters through my thoughts and sorts out into what is important, and resets me for the next barrage of information to come.  I think I am glad that I had to spend a little time playing with rocks growing up.