Far out

I knew he was talking about the Sea Venture. We are descendants of a traveler on that ill-fated sailing-ship, the flagship in a convoy of nine vessels that left England on June 2, 1609, headed 700 miles across the Atlantic to deliver desperately-needed provisions to the two-year-old Virginia settlement known then as “James Fort.” We’d read about the tempest that battered the convoy and flooded the Sea Venture’s hold causing her to founder on the reefs of Bermuda. We knew the survivors rowed ashore in their small boats and spent almost 10 months on the deserted island. I liked Will’s choice: snorkeling and a personal look at the site of this important Virginia story.

Our venue was a Road Scholar program called “BERMUDA – International Snorkeling the Coral Island.” In a lively party of teenagers and grandparents, we settled in for a week’s stay at the BIOS (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) located in St. George’s, Bermuda, very close to the beach where the Sea Venture survivors came ashore.

Before our historical sleuthing could begin, however, came snorkeling. I’d pictured Will and me floating in the emerald waters of a calm lagoon surrounded by palm trees with a bank of pink coral just below our finger-tips. Well, I got that one wrong. After a brief dip in a peaceful bay to try out our snorkeling equipment, we headed out to sea.

Bermuda is made up of 180 small islands and rocks. What we generally call “Bermuda” is the main island, about 22 square miles in size (about the size of Manhattan). The island rises from the sea atop an extinct volcano which is capped by limestone from fossilized sand dunes, built up over centuries by corals that thrive in these clear warm waters. The marine biologists at the BIOS call this flat volcano top the “platform.” With its the deceptively shallow waters, this platform holds and hides the reefs and the skeleton timbers of many a sunken vessel from earlier centuries.

As land disappeared some 10 miles behind our motor boat, my heart began to pound. Were we going to swim out here in the ocean?