"Bermuda - A snapshoot from an outsider " a Bermuda Travel Page by Ekahau

I saw in this photo the future of Bermuda not just in the beautiful children embracing each other going forward into the future – But, the richness of it all over the Island - Yes Bermuda is thought of as rich and very well off. But, stop and think about what a place you have wow a “peace” of heaven on earth. But like this photos shows Bermudas real wealth is not in the beautiful homes, the full bank accounts or the reinsurance industry. Bermuda's richness, its real wealth is the promise and wealth of talent that resided with each of these bright young people embracing the future of togetherness with hope.

I sure hope Bermuda does not let this walk by.

I had the privilege of sitting next to An articulate, bright, charming and very gracious Bermudian civil administrator on my flight home and we talked a lot abut Bermuda and Britannia. Great Britain still rules the waves, at least here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in this overseas territory that is now the largest population and oldest part of what little is left of the “British Empire”. Seems the Bermudians are happy and in fact intend to keep it that way. Although to most Bermudians I talked to they felt no more British than the Penguins in the British Antarctic Territory.

We talked a great deal about the changes in the “British Empire” after Hong Kong. I think no body stood to gain more from this change than the young insurance brokers, bankers in Bermuda. You see this world shift opened up a wonderful business opportunity for the 70,000 people who live in Bermuda. Close to half companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, from reinsurance, banking shipowners to real estate dealers, have also established some sort of legal presence in Bermuda because all are looking for something Hong Kong no longer can assure them: the impartiality and absence of political interference offered by British law. I don't think it is so much because Bermudians want to be British really (after all what could be better than being a Bermudian) but more like the Penguin in the BAT this is their place in the sun where under the British Flag the can be themselves and be left alone.

As the story goes Bermuda was discovered in 1503 by Juan de Bermudez , mentioned in 1511 by Peter Martyr in his Legatio Babylonica and visited again by Bermudez in 1515. Bermuda was first settled in 1609 by shipwrecked English colonists lead by Somerswho were originally headed for Jamestown Virginia. They built two new ships, Deliverance and the Patience, to replace their shipwreck and sailed from Bermuda for Jamestown leaving behind three men. Three years later, in 1612, 60 settlers moved to Bermuda under the leadership of Sir Thomas Moore, the island's first governor, they founded the town of St. George. Slaves from Africa were brought to Bermuda soon after the colony was established. Unlike in the more well-known plantation-style slavery, the slaves in Bermuda were brought in for specialized labor, such as pearl diving and shipbuilding. The slave trade would be outlawed in Bermuda in 1807, and all slaves were freed in 1834. (Today, about 60+% of Bermudians are of African descent. Bermuda has struggled hard to recover from its history and during the 70s, saw the assassinations of the police commissioner and the Governor. In 1977, the killers Buck Burrows and Larry Tacklyn were hanged. After this experience the people of Bermuda but Bermuda’s racial inequities under the microscope and presented a host of recommendations to bridge the gulf between the races.