Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine October 2016 | Page 108

BERMUDA . . .
“Everything looks strange. It looks
like we’re entering white water.
We’re completely lost.”
It was December 5, 1945. Ground
staff in Ft. Lauderdale listened
helplessly as five avenger planes
circled frantically above the
Atlantic. The routine flights had
unraveled into a nightmarish
scenario – stranded without
operational compasses and unable
to pick up the mainland staff ’s
relentless attempts to make contact.
When the planes’ locations were
ascertained, the information
was met with great chagrin.

by Madeline List

The pilots believed they were
in close proximity to Florida,
when they were in fact over miles
of capricious open ocean. The
planes never did manage to make
contact with Ft. Lauderdale. They
disappeared from the radar, never
to be seen or heard from again.
This was just one story in a
tragic pile of aviatic and nautical
calamities that occurred in the
triangular area of ocean between
Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda.
The set of disappearances
spurned a host of conspiracy
theories, and every supernatural
explanation from alien abductions
to giant octopi has been
considered in attempts to
expose the true nature of
the Bermuda Triangle.
One by one, the
preposterous and
fantastical stories have
fallen away, leaving the
area mostly demystified.
Travesties described like
works of science fiction
have been replaced
by sounder stories: a
navigational error here, a
technological malfunction
there. And once the
debris cleared away, a
sunny island nation was
left with its name on a
triangle of Atlantic waves
that had been falsely
sensationalized and
stigmatized for so many
104

years.
640 miles east of North Carolina,
volcanic Bermuda is composed of
180 islands and islets. Visitors will
find no shortage of engaging sights
and sounds. The islands interiors
are lush with greenery. Intricate
networks of limestone caves wind
beneath the ground and island
exteriors are lined with dazzling
coasts, including remarkable pinksanded beaches that will not be
easily forgotten.
Surrounding Bermuda is a set of
magnificent coral reefs. In times
when navigational technology
was primitive and ships were the
primary medium of reaching the
island, these reefs proved to be a
deadly force, causing shipwrecks
that only fed the rumors of the
island’s maleficent surroundings.
Today, the reefs and shipwrecks
serve as spectacular diving sights
and incredible opportunities for
exploration.
Wild chickens and feral cats roam
the islands, and the cities are abuzz
with scooter traffic, a favorite
local method of transportation.
Perhaps one of the islands’ assets is
what they are missing – Bermuda
has few snakes and ticks and the
mosquito population is minor.
Instead, there are an abundance of
lizards throughout the islands and
tropical fish flipping through the
surrounding waters.