August 12, 2025 - Bermuda Cruise
Bermuda National Museum

The next morning we hit the Bermuda National Museum which is a short walk from the dockyard wharf.  We had to be back to the ship by 11 AM.

The museum is located within the grounds of the fortress Keep of the former Royal Naval Dockyard.
   
Here we go!
 
After the English colonies in North America had established their independence, Bermuda was developed as a major British naval base to control the sea lanes to North America. The Dockyard construction started in 1809 and continued for a century.
 
Buildings of the Keep were constructed using the local limestone. Work was done initially by slaves, later by convicts, prisoners, and laborers imported from the West Indies.
 
The dockyard closed in the late fifties, and buildings started to fall into disrepair. In 1974 the Bermuda Maritime Museum took over the site of the Keep and restoration began.  The museum changed its name in 2009 to reflect its broader national focus
   
The main part of the museum is in the big Commissioner's House.
   
Aerial photo of the Royal Dockyard and Keep area.
   
The Commissioner's House veranda overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.
   
A nice look at our ride:  Vision of the Seas.
   
A model of a "Millionaire Ship".  Two such ships carried well-to-do passengers to and from Bermuda before  the advent of widespread commercial aviation.
   
A model of the German U-boat U-505 which was captured by an American hunter-killer task force off the coast of Africa.  The U-505 was towed all the way to Bermuda where the sub and crew were kept until the end of World War II.
   
This aerial picture of the Great Sound was of interest to me because when my Dad was stationed in Bermuda for four years with Patrol Squadron 49 flying P-5M Marlins, he was at the Navy Annex which is that artifical island at lower right.  The Navy Annex has long since been closed but the island is still there not being used for anything.  I wanted to go see it but we did not have the time.
   
VP-49 lost a Marlin in 1956.
   
My old squadron VP-45 also lost a Marlin in 1961.
   

A painting titled The Royal Naval Fleet at Anchor in Grassy Bay, 1861, painted by Deryck Foster in 1986.  Most of these ships had auxiliary steam engines as well as sail.
   
A painting of the HMS Jervis Bay, an armed merchant cruiser based out of Bermuda performing trans-Atlantic convoy escort duties in World War II.  On November 5, 1940, a convoy Jervis Bay was escorting was attacked by a German pocket battleship, Admiral Scheer. Jervis Bay engaged the Scheer in a sacrificial action which allowed the convoy to disperse but Jervis Bay was sunk with the loss of 187 men including the Captain E. Fogarty Fegan who received the Victoria Cross posthumously.
   
The Commissioner must have had some large meetings.  Nice room, though.
   
Painting of a Bermuda Longtail, formally known as a white-tailed tropicbird.
   
 Hey I know those dudes!
   
 
   
 Cannons laying about in the grass.
   
Big naval gun.
   
Boy down!
   
On the other side of the Keep is Snorkel Park Beach where you pay a certain amount and can partake in all the activities there are to do.
   
A closer look at the Snorkel Park Beach.
   
Looking back at the Keep's center.
   
In an old magazine area was an exhibit on prisoners locked up on Bermuda.
   
The British kept prisoners of war in prison hulks.  The hulks were not a place you wanted to be.
   
We discovered the Museum's Annex and learned about Bermuda's fascinating early history.
   
Spanish mariners intentially left hogs on Bermuda -- or dropped them overboard within swimming distance while sailing by -- to create a ready source of food for future castaways.  The hogs soon multiplied and covered most of the island.  Shipwrwecked sailors found them a welcome source of sustenance.
   
 
   
Artifacts from the Sea Venture.
   
Model of the Sea Venture.
   
The two ships built at Bermuda from Bermuda cedar, loaded with food, sailed on to Jamestown and saved the colony.
   
This satellite map shows why the Vision of the Sea approached Bermuda from the east.  I guess threre are no passages through the reef for a big ship from the west and north.   There is only the one passage just north of Fort St. Catherine's.
   
Wooden ships and iron men.
   
Outside the museum annex.
   
All too soon it was time to return to the ship.
   
Looking down at the line to get back on the ship.
   
Underway!
   
I got a lot of reading done on the day and a half transits.
   
Back in Baltimore.  The party's over.
   
 
 
   
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