Beaches in Bermuda

Not the Caribbean, which is the first thing to correct: a mid-Atlantic archipelago of some hundred and eighty islands around a thousand kilometres east of North Carolina, habitable at that latitude only because the Gulf Stream passes it. That current gives warm clear water and the northernmost coral reefs in the Atlantic, and it also gives a defined season — around 28°C in August against 18°C in February, with winters that are cool, windy and wet rather than cold. The sand is pink from foraminifera shell mixed into carbonate, the same organism that colours the Bahamian beaches, and it is genuine rather than a trick of photography. The south shore holds the beaches, a series of coves and bays cut into limestone and linked by a park path that is the best way to see several in a morning; the rest of the coastline is rock, harbour and the reef platform that wrecked some three hundred ships and gave the islands their first English settlers in 1609. Practically: car hire is not available to visitors at all, by long-standing law, so buses, ferries, taxis, scooters and the small two-seat electric rentals are the options, and the bus and ferry network is good enough to make that workable. Hurricane season runs June to November and the islands are struck directly every few years. Prices are high across the board, the island is only twenty-one square miles, and the swimming season for most visitors runs May to October.