Bermuda Online E-mail Guest book Year 2020

Your comments about our island home are welcomed here

By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us)

They are sought and valued. When they meet internationally-accepted standards we publish them below with the flag of your country (where you live) and show by date of receipt. Send them in plain text please, using subject "Bermuda Online Guest Book" - to https://www.royalgazette.com/contact-us/ Please give your name, email address and name of town or city or its zip or postal code, where you live (a standard online request). We reserve the right to modify or shorten comments and cannot use any deemed offensive. (Please do not send photographs without asking us first as our system automatically blocks all unauthorized attachments). We comply with international data regulations and will not hold or show or retain or use your email address or pass it on to any third party.

Comments for this issue of our Guest Book

I am normally a Democrat in a traditionally Democrat state, with friends who live in work in Bermuda. But I was dismayed and my Bermuda friends are alarmed to hear some disturbing news from confidential informants in the Democrat election campaign elite. It appears that in the event of a Joe Biden victory over President Trump in the November 2020 Presidential campaign, Bermuda will see the cessation of the US-Bermuda Tax Convention Act 1986, so beneficial to Bermuda, negotiated when Ronald Reagan was the Republican President of the USA.  This has apparently been deemed of key interest primarily because of the use by many prominent American corporations of Bermuda as a tax haven. Democrats in Congress conscious of this want to finally put an end to it for the harm it does to America's economy when American corporations can use Bermuda in this way and they and others can also host their conventions in Bermuda while claiming US taxpayer tax deductions for business expenses yet leave American taxpayers to bear the costs while Bermuda, considered one of the world's richest countries, far more so than the USA, gets the financial gain. Hope this is of interest. Benjamin J. Jacobs, America Street, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, July 22, 2020

I discovered your website while doing some research on the web. I am a writer from Boston, working on a novel which takes place in Bermuda in 1946. My story basically involves a group of ex-pats—two U.S. Army veterans, a former RAF pilot, and a couple of ex “censorettes.” I am trying to get a sense of the “atmospherics” of that period. I assume you weren’t born yet, but was hoping that, with your Bermuda history expertise, you might have some suggestions. I imagine (although I don’t quite know) that in 1946 there was a great feeling of reckless optimism and exhilaration in Bermuda, much like Paris after WWII. Lots of music, drinking…maybe even a little intrigue? I envision soldiers still wandering the streets of Hamilton at night—the ominous presence of Navy ships in St. George’s Harbour and elsewhere. If you had any thoughts, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve been coming to Bermuda since ’87, and it’s a place that is very dear to my heart. Jon Cullen, Boston, Mass, USA, May 13, 2020.

Many of us who study the economies of the Caribbean and compare them with Bermuda are appalled by what your government has done and is likely to do in further damage to Bermuda's economic, financial and tourism future. It was hoped that the recent change of government would result in wholesale changes to Bermuda's methodology of governance to make your island more competitive in every way. Instead, it  seems your government is hell-bent on driving up the cost of living, already the highest in the world by far, even further for your residents and visitors. Bermuda also already has by far the highest cruise ship taxes in the world, yet it seems they will rise even further. It is now becoming too well known by more and more influential business and tourism-minded people that Bermuda is already the most expensive place in the world in which to live, work, operate a business and retire, thanks mostly to your government's archaic customs duties, payroll tax of the type no other country in the world has, property taxes that are truly scary, worse than New York, for high-value homes, government costs, legal fees and medical fees ad nauseam. So why is your government now considering a  dividend tax to heap more misery? Instead, before it prices itself completely out of business as an offshore business center it must cut at least 70% of its 36 legislators plus numerous senators in its mere 20 square miles, slash the size of its police service by 50%, massively reduce its taxes, costs and hotel prices to visitors. Bermuda costs have gotten completely out of hand and the restrictions you place on visitors in not being able to rent a decent automobile and on non-local employees in what they cannot to in Bermuda but can everywhere else are lethal. In tourism the Caribbean as a whole and places like the Cayman Islands, Turks & Caicos and Dominican Republic in particular are doing exceptionally well while Bermuda suffers. Do something about it, Bermuda, you were wonderful once but, sadly, are no more. You have to learn to live within your means. Arthur W. Robinson, Towson, Maryland 21204, USA, February 8, 2020. 

I am a US senior citizen activist (with a relative presently living in Bermuda with a leading American insurance company). It really disturbed me (and others of my ilk) when I heard via my AARP friends' international informal grapevine that your government seems unconcerned about its senior citizens. Here in the USA, our Social Security kicks in after a minimum of 10 years of payments. But in Bermuda your Contributory Pension equivalent to our SS requires about 20 years of contributions and is much less generous than ours despite your cost of living being three times higher overall than here in the USA. And because Bermuda does not have any equivalent of Medicare or Medicaid, senior citizens there are paying huge amounts for hospitalization, medical visits, prescriptions and surgery compared to us. Our average national cost for all the above appears to be about $320 a month. Gordon G Henry, Willow Street, PA 17584, USA, October 14, 2019.

I read with incredulity how a recent attempt was made by your government's Post Office to charge a $5 customs import duty on all normally Duty Free items. Thankfully, this was thwarted. How ridiculous! No other government anywhere else in the world has anything like it. I understand one reason is because Bermuda has well over 47 legislators, 36 members of Parliament and 11 senators, in its mere 20 square miles, with their collective average salaries and perks at least equal to those of members of the US Congress and Senate. That equates to well over two legislators per square mile which is unheard of anywhere else. It has been reported from reliable external sources that with your government's lust for money from any and every possible local revenue source to feed its grossly inflated bureaucracy, Bermuda has now gained the unenviable reputation of being the single most expensive place on the world in terms of cost of living to live in, visit on vacation and retire. No wonder your tourism statistics for 2019 are disappointing. In contrast, most places in the Caribbean, with far fewer legislators per square mile and fewer restrictions on residents and visitors, are booming in tourism numbers for 2019. Stephen P. Egan, Brooklyn, New York 11208, USA. August 12, 2019.

It was significant to read in your website that the Bermuda Government will be spending possibly millions of your taxpayer Bermuda dollars on trying to persuade the UK's Privy Council on the merits of banning same-sex marriages in Bermuda. The problem with this approach are the likely repercussions, one in a probable rejection of the argument, the other in the likelihood that the said Privy Council - already armed i believe with complaints sent to UK Members of Parliament and House of Lords members from long-term and law-abiding Bermuda residents who would easily qualify anywhere else in the world for citizenship  by length of residence and/or place of birth, but who have so far been unjustifiably denied Bermuda citizenship by status - will be mentioned, made public and finally granted by or at the express wish of  the UK government and with bad publicity for the Bermuda Government. To avoid any such problems I recommend your government drop its anti-same-sex submission to the Privy Council and  without any further delay grant citizenship to all worthy non-citizen applicants who have lived in Bermuda for more than five years or been born there. Donald St. John, London, SW1A OPW, England, 31 May, 2019.

I write once more as an European who is not surprised by the recent decision of our European Commission and its financial experts to decline to accept the rationale and Economic Substance proposals of Bermuda and other tax havens. As I said in my letter of 18 December 2018  the days are over in Europe when a company with no actual legitimate active and clearly defined local business dealings actually in the internal marketplaces of Bermuda or British Virgin Islands or Cayman Islands or Gibraltar, etc. can incorporate from these tax haven jurisdictions solely or primarily or even partially to avoid taxes in countries such as in the European Union, USA, etc where they do substantial business.  Economic substance is significantly more than merely paying local legal fees to incorporate, settling annual Bermuda government fees depending on share capital to maintain a corporate presence, paying for their offices if they have them at all, and paying, as exempted companies local accounting or audit or legal firms their requisite fees. That word word "exempted" is a black mark - taken to mean they are exempted from the potential liabilities of other companies within their jurisdiction and that their ultimate purpose is to gain tax-haven status to conduct business in Europe and rest of the world that are not tax havens. It is simply not acceptable under European law for foreign-owned businesses to be denied full access under Bermuda law to local markets but to have unlimited access to European and other markets from a Bermuda tax haven corporate base. Jean-Paul leMaitre, Strasbourg 67200, France, 27 March 2019. 

It was disturbing to read in your daily newspaper and website how Bermuda's legislators have attacked the European Union's Code of Conduct Group for our non-acceptance of Bermuda's Economic Substance proposals. It must be understood by your your island's government and residents that if Bermuda-registered companies want unrestricted access to European Union markets they must abide by EU economic substance laws and regulations. It annoys our European Commissioners here in Strasbourg and our colleagues in Bruxelles and Den Haag that your government expects it and its corporate clientele to have unrestricted access to our aviation, insurance, investment, money, shipping, and other markets in European Union and other countries but denies us here in the EU any reciprocal  unrestricted access to Bermuda's own local markets because of your local 60/40 legal requirements. Items unacceptable to us include the fact that Bermuda's legislative system generally prohibits so-called Bermuda "exempted" companies from entering your local market to compete with local firms but expects exempted companies to go into and poach markets beyond Bermuda such as ours. That protectionist policy of restricting Bermuda-incorporated entities to overseas business or dealing only with other Bermuda exempted companies in their overseas business only is unacceptable. Economic substance should mean internationally that Bermuda-incorporated companies whether "local" or "exempted" should be required to operate both in the physical Bermuda marketplace within Bermuda and beyond Bermuda, to avoid being regarded as tax-haven shell or profit-gathering wholly-owned subsidiaries of other foreign companies beyond Bermuda that make all the key decisions. Bermuda-incorporated companies wishing to trade in Europe should have their own decision-making staff. They should not merely have staff from a Bermuda lawyer's office professing to be an employee or officer or director of that Bermuda-incorporated or registered "exempted" company  as happens all too often presently. The days are over in Europe when a company with no actual legitimate active and clearly defined business dealings in places like Bermuda or British Virgin Islands or Cayman Islands or Gibraltar, etc. can incorporate from these tax haven jurisdictions solely or primarily or even partially to avoid taxes in countries such as in the European Union, USA, etc where they do substantial business.  Economic substance must be defined as significantly more than merely paying legal fees to incorporate, settling annual Bermuda government fees depending on share capital to maintain a corporate presence, paying for their offices if they have them at all, and other local accounting or audit or other fees arising from their incorporation as "exempted" companies. In fact, the word "exempted" implies strongly they are exempted from the potential liabilities of other companies and that their quest is primarily to gain tax-haven status. Bermuda's legislators collectively irrespective of their political party stripe must be very careful to avoid any further arrogance of the type already displayed. If they and their corporate clients want access to our markets but continue to deny access to Bermuda's market it will create a watershed moment that will surely reverberate in world-wide corporate circles and affect Bermuda's international reputation until full reciprocity is reached with every overseas jurisdiction and harmony is restored. Jean-Paul leMaitre, Strasbourg 67200, France,  18 Decembre 2018. 

I am one of many who disagree with the claims by Anthony Bennett,  managing director of marketing consultants RedSky Strategy, reported yesterday by your daily newspaper, re the Bermuda National Tourism Plan 2019-2025. I disagree with him that one of the major reasons people love to come to Bermuda - or anywhere else - is to interact with the locals. In my view and those of most others in our business of tourism promotion what short-stay tourist visitors most like about Bermuda are the sun and beaches. Number 3 is not the locals. You interact with locals when you plan a longer or permanent stay. If the Bermuda tourism hierarchy hope to boost business in the winter months it should not be for sun, sea and beaches because Bermuda is cold compared to the Caribbean. It seems that has never been made clear to air and cruise ship tourists.. But yes, encourage Bermuda for off-season international meetings, conferences and sports groups. They will want to know more about the culture, the food and more.  If Europe remains a difficult market for Bermuda because of the high cost of travel to Bermuda and limited flights it is because most Brits and Europeans realize it is not at all part of the Caribbean in climate and in the summer, when it is far less costly in the Caribbean in their off-season, it is, quite frankly, much more expensive in Bermuda. Bermuda should not be misleading Europeans and their cruise ship operators into believing that winter cruises to Bermuda are places for sea, beaches, sun and fun. Instead, Bermuda Tourism should be working on getting  Brits, Europeans and North Americans far better value for money in their late spring, summer and early autumn Bermuda vacations. Once, not that long ago, Bermuda welcomed more visitors than all the Caribbean islands combined. Now, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Martin, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos Islands, etc are far ahead of Bermuda in tourism arrivals. Why? Because for both Europeans and North Americans they offer far better value in pricing and accommodations than Bermuda, regarded now as the world's most expensive place to go on vacation. Anthony Drummond, Brighton, East Sussex, England, December 5, 2018.

I particularly like the fact that your website has a comprehensive file on items illegal in Bermuda. Yet your government does not, except in a Customs report that few if any tourists read, nor does it link to your site that does. It should. That it does neither makes your government look petty. It needs to either let people know directly or link to an outfit like yours that does. Cruise ship and airline visitors to Bermuda have only themselves to blame if they fail to respect your laws that presently only you guys show online but your judicial system enforces and fines folks heavily or imprisons them for bringing in any illegal-in-Bermuda drugs or weapons or ammunition. Neil P Drummond, Buffalo, New York 14201, USA, November 24, 2018.

I'm told by a friend presently working in Bermuda for a major multinational insurance company using Bermuda as its tax haven, with Bermuda's main source of tourism and international business coming from the USA, that Bermuda should avoid at costs being impacted by bad international human rights-related publicity likely to come about if Bermuda does not correct its laws in two specific areas. One relates to persons of the same gender who cannot get married in Bermuda, only enter into a domestic partnership. The other concerns expatriates and  their families, believed to be at least 600, who have lived solely in Bermuda for generations, mostly people originally  from the Azores or Caribbean islands, who have have always been law-abiding, paid their taxes, contributed to the economy but have been denied citizenship, voting and certain real estate property rights despite having had children born in Bermuda. Bermuda residents should know that both these Human Rights wrongs matters are now being actively investigated by Human Rights organizations here in the USA and elsewhere. Thomas G. Mason, Fifth Avenue, New York 10103, USA, September 29, 2018.

Such a shame that you guys in Bermuda only have one "all-inclusive" place at Grotto Bay. Antigua, Barbados,  Jamaica, St. Lucia, etc have stacks of them, with really nice restaurants offering different cuisines and bars and they are paying dividends. I understand all-inclusive places such as the latter have become so popular that they all now get more tourists each year than Bermuda. Once, they were far behind Bermuda. Nor do they have a "resort" charge that Bermuda has. Pity, c'mon, Bermuda, loosen up. You were once so nice, with loads of options, don't be behind the times. Joe E. Martinez, Clearwater, Florida 33756. USA. September 27, 2018.

I was dismayed to note in a recent Bermuda newspaper report your excellent website reviewed that some of Bermuda's new breed of politicians clearly resent the fact that the white residents on your island have much higher incomes than black residents who comprise the majority. It has to be both recognized and understood by all in Bermuda, regardless of race, that this is one of the inevitable consequences of Bermuda being an international business center and residence of some of the world's wealthiest people who just happen to be white. I wish we in St. Lucia were so lucky with such overall affluence. Because of it Bermuda is streets ahead in international commerce. It should be regarded as a simple but fortunate fact of Bermuda life, not with resentment. All who live and/or work in Bermuda benefit directly or indirectly from it. What is disconcerting is that Bermuda is one of the very few countries where whites and blacks are shown separately. We do not do this here in St. Lucia or other Caribbean islands and I don't think they do it any more in Britain or Canada or the USA or elsewhere. It just creates unnecessary dissent among politicians anxious to score cheap political shots. It is also one of the many negative factors of political parties. Andrew Bristol, Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies, 3 June 2018. 

Bermuda must now be regarded as Russia's best friend. At a time when we here in the USA, most of Europe and elsehere have applied significant sanctions against Russia for its attempted killing of British-Russian citizens in Salisbury, England, Bermuda accords huge benefits to Russian-owned aircraft by having them registered in Bermuda. It is by far the largest tax haven in the world for Russian aircraft both private and commercial. It also allows hundreds of other wealthy Russians to own and operate Bermuda-based companies, with no intention whatsoever to cancel any of these corporate advantages. Why? Surely this is wrong? John D. Martin, Wall Street, New York, NY 10005, USA, April 6, 2018. 

I write as a US citizen with family links in Bermuda. I am deeply offended, ashamed and embarrassed by the attempt of a plainly biased US talk show host and others of her ilk to try to boycott Bermuda for no longer allowing same-sex "mirage" after May 31, 2018. (I refuse to call it marriage). She and others who believe in her cause have completely and likely deliberately failed to mention that most of the Caribbean territories (other than the US entities there) don't allow same-sex mirages at all. Yet they have not been threatened with boycotts and worse. So why should Bermuda government officials and others be worried by their whining and Hitler-Mussolini-like ravings. Hope you publish this. Virginia M. Williams, Boston MA 02101, USA, March 12, 2018.

I write to respectfully recommend that the Bermuda Government avoid at all costs any further bad publicity after the debacle of the Appleby Paradise Papers noted in your website. It will attract further grief on both sides of the Atlantic if it goes ahead with its proposed attempts to have Bermuda gambling casinos come under the personal control of your Minister of Tourism. When I heard about that it seemed Bermuda was in the process of becoming a less-than-desirable gambling banana republic. No country in the world with gambling or gaming has such an industry under the overall regulatory administration of a single government minister. Instead, they all have gambling or gaming commissions completely independent of their local or national legislature, to help ensure fairness, honesty and integrity. I know for a fact, as a journalist myself, that if Bermuda does not comply with international gambling or gaming conventions your island is going to get creamed by the US, UK, European and other news media.  Your gambling license fees for hotels, hugely expensive by international standards, already mean the chances of winning are less in Bermuda than anywhere else. It will not attract gamblers, it will further harm Bermuda's reputation. Stuart P Wright, Newark, NJ  07102, USA, November 16, 2017.

All that British and international news about the Appleby Paradise Papers and their revelations mentioned in your excellent Bermuda Online has surely had an enormous negative impact on average persons in any democratic country who work and pay their taxes in that country. In my view, any for-profit or non-profit business entity or individual who does any kind of business in any country should pay all the taxes in that country that others have to pay. Apple, Google and other multi-nationals should not be allowed to evade paying corporate taxes where they earn good money by going to another country such as Bermuda or Grand Cayman or Bahamas or Turks & Caicos or Gibraltar or Channel Islands or wherever, especially when individual US citizens are legally required to pay taxes from wherever in the world they do business. It is manifestly wrong for Bermuda to unreservedly welcome legally wholesome business entities for tax avoidance purposes (which is why they do it) from other countries to register in Bermuda, yet on the other hand to be so protectionist in local legislation that they cannot actually do business in Bermuda except with other international companies unless they are 40% owned and managed by local individuals, which 99+ percent of Bermuda-registered but not actual Bermuda companies are not. Such non-local entities, to justify going to places like Bermuda, should be required to undertake some form of business in the local marketplace in competition with local entities or should not be allowed to incorporate in Bermuda, period. John D. Goodman, Jamestown, Virginia 23081, USA, November 8, 2017.

It's monstrously unfair of the BBC in London, not honest, factual, impartial, comprehensive at all in this case, to give such concentrated publicity via its team of Panorama investigative journalists to the Bermuda Appleby law firm and the Paradise Papers while the BBC has conveniently totally ignored the fact that its pensions to its staff are, now, or were once, lodged with a Bermuda-based entity. The BBC, as well as noting that the Queen, Prince Charles and others once had Bermuda accounts, should have had the integrity and honesty to admit it has been just as culpable. The world expects more from the BBC than flagrant journalistic hypocrisy and news twisted to hide its own sins. Thanks for allowing me to say this in your superb Bermuda Online. Thomas Mason, Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 3DE, England, 8 November, 2017.

I note from your Bermuda Online how your new Bermuda Government is claiming many of its first 100 days of resolutions have been achieved. I believe it should first concentrate on resolving long-standing immigration issues, focus on long-standing Bermuda Human Rights wrongs, to avoid problems and publicity that will surely otherwise occur with or from international Human Rights organizations. Without any further delay, your government should give all the people who have applied for it and have long deserved it from their unblemished local residency but so far have been denied it, their Bermuda Status citizenship. Amend your laws so that anyone born there, whether or not either parent had citizenship at the time, automatically has it. All other democratic countries offer this, Bermuda should do the same. Thomas V. Morton from Arlington, VA, currently visiting a friend at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. November 8, 2017, USA.

Further to viewing your comprehensive Bermuda Online website I write to request some advice on swimming in Bermuda.  We are a swimming holiday company and arrange worldwide swims in both warm and cold water locations and you are more than welcome to look at our website swimquest.uk.com. In past years I have had experience of arranging swims in the Caribbean but am keen to research Bermuda and I have detailed below some questions and any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

• Swim Guides on all tours:  All our tours are managed by two Swim Guides who are very competent swimmers and coaches, are qualified beach lifeguards, in first aid and have a Royal Yachting Association Powerboat Level 2 license with an international endorsement.

• Tour Type 1 – Hotel or Villa Based – Saturday - Friday. We usually base ourselves at an hotel with a boat that takes our group of 8-14 swimmers out each day for the day.  We usually do one swim in the morning and one in the afternoon of approximately 1.5 – 3km each swim.  This distance varies on the ability of the swimmers and the prevailing weather.  The hotel is usually half board for our guests as for dinners we usually go out to local restaurants.

• Tour Type 2 – Live-aboard boat cruiser/sailing yacht – Saturday - Friday. We also arrange tours on a live-aboard boat.  The boat would be similar to a dive boat but we would live on the boat all week – our current example is our Maldives tour. The boat is usually to a high standard with a mixture of double and twin share air-conditioned en suite cabins and we motor around the islands with a route that is dependent on the prevailing weather conditions.

• Weather in Bermuda. Given the weather conditions throughout the year, what would suggest are the best times to swim in Bermuda? Is November 2017 or early January to March 2018 a good time.

• Safety boats for swims and daily itinerary. For our hotel/villa based tours, we would usually use a large boat (normally a fishing boat) that can take the entire group and have a small tender (with engine – approx. 10-15 hp) towed behind so that when we swim one boat is up front of the group and one is at the back.  Our usual plan is two swims per day with lunch in between the swims and maybe some days we would require a packed lunch. The large boat would be skippered and we would work with the Skipper to arrange the swim itinerary based upon the weather and his/her local knowledge and expertise.   

• Do you have the details of any maps of the area that you would recommend? 

• Dangerous sea life. What dangerous sea life do you have in the region – sharks, Portuguese Man-O’war, jellyfish?

 I trust this covers all points and should you have any queries please do come back to me at any time and I look forward to hearing from you soon. John Coningham-Rolls, SwimQuest Ltd, 6/51 Cavendish Road, Clapham, London, SW12 0BL, UK, 1 August 2017. 

Referred the writer to the Bermuda Business Development Agency.

It's so sad to see that Bermuda, with its constantly nasty racially-divisive politics, now faces the prospect of an unexpectedly early General Election after the America's Cup  but before the end of summer. If that occurs and the political party causing all the trouble get in, then bang goes any hope of having any of Bermuda's Human Rights wrongs addressed, as the present government has, to its credit albeit belatedly tried to do. For those beyond Bermuda who do not yet know, over 700 Bermuda-based individuals and their families originally from the Caribbean, United Kingdom, Azores and more, with unblemished, crime-free decades of full-time Bermuda residence, have been denied citizenship, voting, home ownership in any price bracket and more for solely political reasons, in deliberate contravention of internationally accepted Human Rights codes. Appallingly, the Human Rights Commission in Bermuda has not been campaigning for their Human Rights wrongs to be righted. Sadly, the organization that could and should have done something about it, namely the America's Cup entity, before they picked Bermuda to have their events, totally ignored it. With their world power, they should have insisted that Bermuda first correct its Human Rights wrongs. It is good to know Human Rights authorities in other parts of the world will now be formally demanding that those individuals concerned  are given citizenship. Bermuda, in its best interests, to  avoid further international Human Rights wrongs censure, must be made to comply. John H. Robinson, East 49th Street, New York, NY 10017, USA, May 20, 2017.

With your remarkably comprehensive Bermuda Online as my guide, I tried, as part of my job, to access the Bermuda Government's Registrar of Companies public listing of A-listed Bermuda-incorporated companies. I had read earlier on your site and in public announcements put out by your government that it had long been complying with basic public information of this type.  But instead, what I got was a warning that I was doing so at my own risk. I tried other alphabetical listings as well, in case it was a one-time fault, but the problem was repeated. The warning was quite stark. It says "there is a problem with that website's security certificate. The security certificate presented by that website has expired or is not yet valid. Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server. We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website. Continuing to this website is not recommended." I did so anyway, as my system's anti-virus etc. protection is fully up to date. But it creates a deterrent to others. If the information is indeed public and as such publicly available then surely these warnings should not be appearing? Does your Registrar of Companies need to update its software? I wanted to report this to you before it is misinterpreted or seen as an attempt to actively discourage people from accessing information understood to be publicly available.. Kenneth Dawson, Fulham Road, London, England SW10 9EL, 29 April 2017.

I and many others here in Florida read your December 30, 2016 Bermuda Online news report on how a decades-long rum war between the Communist Cuban government and Bermuda-based drinks giant Bacardi featured on January 4, 2017 in a top US TV news show. CBS current affairs flagship 60 Minutes examined the fight for control of the Havana Club brand name — which has been running since Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959 — in a segment called “The Rum War”. The Havana Club trademark originally belonged to Cuban rum-makers Jose Arechabala, whose family company was seized and nationalized after the revolution that deposed hated dictator Fulgencio Batista. The family left Cuba, stopped producing rum and allowed the US trade mark to lapse in 1973. The Cuban government registered the trade mark in the US in 1976 and assigned it to French partners Pernod-Ricard in 1993. Since 1994, Havana Club has been sold around the world, but not in the US. Bacardi, however, obtained the Arechabala family’s remaining rights to the brand in 1994 and began selling limited amounts of Havana Club in the US, which sparked a legal battle with Pernod Ricard, which was successful in two of the first three court decisions in the matter. After further legal battles, the Cuban government’s US trademark registration expired in 2006 — but in January, amid a thaw in relations between the US and Cuba, the American government gave Cuba rights to the Havana Club name, a decision Bacardi insists should be reversed. Bacardi also mounted a major marketing campaign for its version of the brand and maintains that the renewal for Cuba breaches a 1998 Act of the US Congress designed to protect trademarks taken over in the wake of the country’s revolution. The Bacardi family, whose distillery company was founded in Santiago de Cuba in 1862, were also forced to flee Cuba after their assets were also seized and nationalized without compensation. The company set up its world headquarters in Bermuda a few years later and has become the largest privately held and family owned spirits company in the world. Our view, and we believe the view of the majority of  Republican Americans, is that if Bacardi commits to relocate from Bermuda back to the USA mainland or Puerto Rico (where its rums are made) in both corporate relocation and physical headquarters, and guarantees to stay there with the incentive being a massive decrease in corporate taxes President Trump has pledged to implement, then the US Congress should empower Bacardi to regain control of the Havana Club brand. But if it will not commit to relocate from Bermuda back to the USA or Puerto Rico, then Cuba should win. No offense meant to Bermuda but we have to think of America first in a much-needed wholesale review of the USA's tax system to bring businesses back here instead of going abroad primarily for tax avoidance or tax evasion reasons. This also has to include no longer allowing US corporations to go abroad to places like Bermuda to have their conferences or conventions but claiming their conference or convention expenses as deductibles in their US tax returns. Andrew J. Strauss, Sarasota, Florida 34231, USA, January 24, 2017.

I read with dismay in your  website and in the news section of your Royal Gazette how women from Bermuda went to Washington DC on the day after President Trump's inauguration to protest about him. Why, when at least 53% of American women voted for him? I am not a Republican but I fully accept the result of the Presidential vote and hope President Trump succeeds in his ambition to make America great again. The rage and frenzy of those Demonrat women - a good word to describe them as they are too nasty to be Democrats - was internationally appalling. They came to Washington DC not as good-mannered guests of our country to obey our laws but simply to cause trouble. Their blatant hypocrisy deserves international condemnation. What were also outrageous were the constantly anti-Trump comments from other British and in particular British Broadcasting Corporation staffers. The women and BBC collectively did their best to crucify President Trump as the worst of all men, but he has never treated any of them in the way King Henry VIII of the UK did. He had them executed for offending him, but President Trump employs hundreds if not thousands and has treated them fairly. Why have those women never publicly reviled that murderous lecherous British king and stripped him of his Royal lineage? Why do women in particular worldwide seem to love the British royal family despite all its executions, murders by King Henry VIII and his ilk and clear modern-day bias against only Catholics among all religions. Other kings and British Prime Ministers have been horribly promiscuous but this is ignored by militant women. In France, this has happened regularly. In the USA, presidents have had mistresses, Democrats John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton were sexual predators. Yet only President Trump gets publicly bashed and not by Republican women, just Demonrats. Clearly, they are not in need of a job, don't want their economic circumstances improved It is sickening.  Arthur J. Armstrong, America Street, Rhode Island 02903, USA, January 22, 2017.

I write as an incredulous resident of Lewes, East Sussex, UK. I read your newspaper's report that if a car valued at more than £35,000 stops at a set of traffic lights in a well-heeled London neighborhood, the driver is likely to see a Bermuda Tourism Authority advertisement flash up on a billboard screen opposite. The driver will see an enticing offer to visit Bermuda, and the invite will be personalized with a message such as “Hello Bermudaful in the Range Rover”, depending on the make of car they are driving. To me, this kind of advertisement should never have been approved. It totally misleads the public. No UK resident intending to visit Bermuda will ever be allowed in Bermuda to rent a Range Rover, only some dumb tiny little two-seater. Why has the Bermuda Tourism Authority worked with Britain’s Media Agency Group to create this totally untrue farce? The latter clearly needs to know that Bermuda has massive tourism-related restrictions not shared by any other island. Neal Adams, Friar's Walk, East Sussex BN7 2XW, UK. 7th January 2017. 

My name is Michelle (Wilhelm) Dorbert. First, let me say, thank you for your dedication to this entire site, I've scoured it many times over the last several years and it always brings back some of the fondest memories of my life - I've lived many places, and there is just no better place than Bermuda! Anyway, the reason I'm writing you today is because, as luck would have it, I was rummaging through some [very] old stuff and happened to find a box full of my elementary school things.  Of particular interest are a Roger B. Chaffee handbook (1971-72 school year) and a 1971 3x5 fold-up map of Bermuda. I have the ability to scan them into .pdf format and can upload them to Google Drive and share them to you if you have an interest in them. I'd also love to share my Father's information here - I know people will remember him.  His name is James (Jim) Wilhelm. He was in communications and worked for the Base Commander - I think he even arranged special leave and travel for people to come state side - I just don't remember his rank/unit. We lived at Building Bay on St. George's (actually moved in the day before Hurricane Ginger hit 22 September, 1971) then we moved to Crawl Hill and then we finally moved on base and lived on the hill overlooking the airport next door to the EM/Officers Club (for some reason I think it was a combined club). My fondest memories are of the many multi-family weekend parties at Clearwater Beach or at someone's home - our parents all played Pinochle - that's what they did, there wasn't anything else to do! My best friend was Mary Gietz, her father was the base Commander, so I got to play at her house many times which was amazing! I wish I had pictures of that house to share with you - It truly was a sight to see inside! My Mom has a ton of photos from the Wives Club - I'll see if I can get some from her and scan them for you if you're interested.  Again, I can post them to my Google Drive and share them to you so they don't take up your drive space - that way you can pick and choose what you want and download at your discretion.  Just let me know. Again, I really want to thank you for the dedication you put into this site and for sharing your passion - coming to your site kinda feels like coming "home" for a girl that always thought Bermuda was her "real" home... at least in my heart. ​Michelle Dorbert - (dependent daughter of James I. Wilhelm - USNAS/Bermuda​ - 1971-1975). Odenton, MD, USA, August 25, 2016. 

At long last, a US state, my neighbor, has objected to those from Bermuda being allowed to drive and rent automobiles while here but we as US citizens or residents cannot similarly drive or rent vehicles when we vacation in or visit Bermuda. I object strongly to the latter's undemocratic, unfair ban, as I know personally that many Bostonians and others from MA do too . But I and others will gladly support a reciprocal agreement. If those from your island wish to drive here we must be permitted to drive there, otherwise no deal.  Kenneth W. Brown, America Street. Providence, Rhode Island 02903, USA, August 1, 2016.

Thank you for mentioning that in Bermuda there has to be a formal legal revaluation of property once every five years. I understand there are similar requirements in the USA, Canada and beyond, with one result being that within towns or cities or states or provinces local authorities in those countries all owners of homes including their acreage area of about the same market value pay a comparable and equitable property or real estate tax. Also, you mention how your many of your homeowner Bermuda senior citizens over 65 pay no property tax or land tax as you refer to it, at all, or they are significantly discounted.  I know authorities in another island, Barbados, have a similar concession for their pensioners. I wish we here in the UK were as fair and democratic in both areas. We have not had a countrywide or local revaluation system since 1991. Our local authorities here in Eastbourne have long had monstrous inequities in their equivalent (council taxes), which they will not change. I gather other UK local authorities have similar horror stories in council tax inequities and because these inequities are also reflected in their grossly unfair water and waste water or sewage charges, they give clear evidence how undemocratic and autocratic, not democratic, the UK really is in this regard. What you pay in your dollars for much larger and appreciably more expensive homes on average, we have to pay far more in British £ sterling. I really hope international publicity will soon focus on the UK in this matter. In the meantime, thanks again, Bermuda, for being one of those places with decency and fairness in property taxes for your people. Bertram Forbes, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 5PU, UK, 27 July 2016.

I write to say that in order to attract and retain international businesses and tourists, not drive them away, Bermuda has to change its ridiculous laws. I refer to those that (a) permit sudden wildcat strikes affecting public transport that hugely upset visitors; (b) don't allow buses to service hotels directly from the airport with passengers' luggage, as they do in any other developed country; (c) don't allow major hotels to arrange their own courtesy car or bus transport to and from the airport and hotel as they do in most places elsewhere; and (d) don't allow tourists to rent 4-6 passenger cars as they can do in any other country including all of Bermuda's principal competitors including those with, for Americans, constant and wrong-side-of-the road driving and traffic jams such as in London and much of the Caribbean. When these outdated laws change Bermuda may be a more practical realistic tourist destination. In the meantime, thinking about permitting Americans and other visitors to drive tiny electric 2-passengers only minicars adds insult to injury. As Bermuda, despite its small size, charges tourists far higher fees and taxes than most other jurisdictions it should at least match if not exceed them in  facilities and services, not  offer them far less in comparison. Alexander A White, Jersey City 07302, USA, July 18, 2016.

I would like to commend and thank you for publishing bermuda-online.org which we at Greenock find to be an extremely useful and insightful source of information. In particular, I find it to be the best source of information on Bermuda's electricity sector.  I wondered if, by any chance, you knew or could point me to a source to find the current and historic $ amounts Belco pay/have paid per barrel of fuel oil? Carol Dixon, Greenrock Director, 48 Par-La-Ville Rd, Hamilton HM11, Bermuda, July 5, 2016.

Bermuda Mobile Licensing Oddities. My name is Andras Szucsik, and I’m working with BodyTrace, a mobile operator from Netherlands. We are contacting you as a person who seems to care much about Bermuda. We have gathered a lot of information from your website about your beautiful island and appreciate your tireless work in past years. As you may have heard, the Regulatory Authority of Bermuda (RAB) is planning to assign 4G mobile frequencies and the final Request for Applications (RFA) is about to be released any minute. Being a mobile operator ourselves too, we were very much excited about it, especially because RAB seemed to be very encouraging and eager to attract a new entrant to the Bermuda mobile telecommunication market. A third player could stir up a rigid, duopolistic market and could imply innovation and competition. Our enthusiasm diminished when we saw the planned RFA with some barriers to entry in spite of the declared goal of welcoming new entrants. One of the biggest barriers is the prerequisite to be an ICOL (Integrated Communications Operating Licence) holder even for being able to participate in the application process, while there is a moratorium on the issuance of ICOLs at the moment. This means for us (and for any other potential new player on the market) that we need to obtain a license which is impossible to obtain, resulting in the fact that no one but the 2 incumbents will remain the only players on the market keeping the status quo. We have indicated our concerns to RAB, but at the end the RFA did not change very much. What do you think we could do in this situation? I’m looking forward to your kind feedback! Andras Szucsik, Director of Business Development, BodyTrace Netherlands B.V, bodytrace.com, Netherlands, Europe, May 23, 2016.

Replied suggesting he contact the Business Editor, Royal Gazette at www.royalgazette.com and give the above details in hope of publication.

We had been hoping to go to Bermuda this year on a cruise after honeymooning there 50 years ago. But your 2016 accommodation, departure and other taxes now known by all reputable travel agencies have put us off. Travel agencies and travel agents, including several of the latter in our extended family, have told us privately how shocked they are. Please Bermuda, don't alarm me and my family. We want to go back but we are not willing to pay what are now the highest taxes in the world by far in Bermuda in cruise ship cabin taxes and for airline passengers in hotel occupancy, gratuities and much more, then have to pay Bermuda WIFI costs other cruise ship destinations don't charge for at all while in port. When your government applies these outrageous taxes compared to other islands in the way it has done, it ruins Bermuda's previously good tourism reputation. We are not looking for cheap prices but we absolutely insist on good value for money. More and more would-be Bermuda tourists will go to Barbados, Cuba or Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands instead if you do not moderate your tourism and related taxes. Simon Johnson and family, Coopersburg, PA 18036, USA, May 5, 2016.

Until recently, my wife and family and I were planning a stay in Bermuda. Which is why I have been studying your superb Bermuda Online and daily Royal Gazette newspaper. But we are no longer considering it. Why? Because of your newspaper's and your online reports of mass public protests by locals against giving Bermuda citizenship not to newcomers but to others who have lawfully and legitimately lived in Bermuda for decades, with some of their children having been born there. I am also appalled that our US Consulate in Bermuda has not said anything. Our President and State Department have long complained to China and other countries about their human rights wrongs. They should be equally critical of Bermuda residents who don't believe in fundamental human rights of citizenship based on country of residence. in my view  In my view, the US State Department should stop US tourists going to Bermuda until the dissidents see sense. The UK Government should also act. Your present Bermuda Government is finally trying to do the right thing. Your citizens should do likewise in this matter. No country in the world, except Bermuda, has such vicious feelings against long-term residents who in any other country would have qualified for citizenship in five years at the most since first arriving. Only in Bermuda has it become a racial issue. That has to be publicized internationally. Hope you publish this. Brian A Adamson, Beacon Street, Boston MA 02116 USA, March 1, 2016.

On January 13, 2016 in your History and Newspaper Headlines file on Bermuda Online you ran a most interesting piece on how certain Bermuda hoteliers are calling for cheaper flights to the Island and strong international branding as the keys to rebuilding Bermuda’s hotel industry.  In my view, to create a successful ‘Brand Bermuda’ based on all Bermuda's strengths Bermuda should call on and get some professional marketing advice from the one organization that has hugely successfully created and refined its own unique branding, not only in Jamaica but throughout the rest of the Caribbean. The Sandals brand and the all-inclusive packages offered by the many Sandals resorts in Jamaica, three in St. Lucia, also in Grenada, Barbados and elsewhere are the principal reasons why so many tourists now go there en masse, from the USA, Canada, UK and beyond.  Yes, there has always been a belief that Bermuda’s hotels are too expensive. But it is not the answer merely to say that because Bermuda has such a variety of guesthouses, small properties and big hotels, there is a wide range of rates that can appeal to those with lower budgets.  Instead, the emphasis has to be on value for money. Yes, Bermuda needs something that is going to change the game but it will not be simply because there is a chronic need to offer guests going to Bermuda an affordable flight from the eastern corridor. Bermuda, now the most expensive place by far in the whole Western Hemisphere, needs to drastically chop its now totally unrealistic tourism taxes on arrivals, departures, stays at resorts and other hotels and other places. Bermuda's entire hotel industry must persuade the Bermuda Tourism Authority and the tax-hungry moguls in the Bermuda Government to get together, figure it out and make it happen. Only when it does so will it increase business, increase arrivals, increase Bermuda's international popularity to the benefit of everyone. Who better to create a whole new value-for-money Bermuda Brand than the Sandals teams who have revolutionized and re-ignited tourism in all the islands offering Sandals resorts and are wonderful places for my entire family and circle of friends to go. Anybody who is anxious for value for money and has any common sense will now compare total prices of Bermuda guesthouses hotels and resorts with Sandals resorts. In Bermuda, you then have to add on resort levy and other taxes. At Sandals, all those and airfares are included so you know upfront exactly how much you will pay. Bermuda should do the same. When that happens, my family and I, all of us wanting value for money for our $100,000 + per year in income, will be glad to return to Bermuda. Our earlier visit was just far too expensive for what we got in value for money. David W Grant, Oberlin, OH 44074, USA, January 19, 2016.

Hi Bermuda Online, I write as someone from the USA who owns considerable stock in several prominent US-based but Bermuda-incorporated corporations and as a stockholder has recently visited Bermuda once both as a tourist and conventioneer. With Bermuda so close commercially, economically and spiritually to the USA, with over 75% of all your business, commerce and tourism coming from the USA, I write to ask if you can answer this business-like enquiry relative to the election in November this year of a new US president. Is it true, as I have been told, that most Bermuda nationals want the Democrats to win? But if so is it not also true it is the Democrats, not Republicans, who have been trying consistently but not yet successfully to hinder if not cease completely the efforts of Bermuda-incorporated insurance companies to insure business interests in the USA? I understand President Obama himself, then as a senator, was once personally involved in one of those campaigns. Given this scenario, if indeed the majority of decent folks from Bermuda nevertheless want the Democrats to win again, is this is in total contrast to the likely political views of the owners of most present and future Bermuda-incorporated entities, nowadays the main bread, butter and jam of Bermuda's economy, who may for their own corporate reasons want the Republicans to win? Which of the US Presidential candidates from both mainstream US political parties offers the best likelihood of Bermuda remaining such a prominent tax haven when compared to the corporate tax policies of the USA? If the Democrats win the election for a third time I have been reliably informed they will succeed in their efforts to close down or at least severely hamper the efforts of all tax havens beyond the USA and its dependencies. Can you comment? John D Martin, America Street, Providence RI 02903, USA, January 15, 2016.

Interesting email, perhaps it will help generate more comments on this topic. They will be welcomed if factual. It is certainly the case that Bermudians and residents depend far more on the USA for their business, commerce and tourism than on any other country. But beyond that not much more can be said at present by this author about Bermuda's stand.

Dear Bermuda Online. I am writing an article about Coopers Island for The Bermudian magazine. Could you tell me whether it is still being used as a temporary tracking station for NASA. I would be most grateful. Kind regards, Liz Jones, Freelance Writer and English Tutor. Hamilton, Bermuda, November 18, 2015. 

See our references to Coopers Island and photographs in our St. David's Island file, under "Coopers Island"

I was particularly interested when told by my UK travel club colleagues about the email sent to you by fellow-member John Foster of Palmers Green, London. I will not be surprised, frankly, if  you at Bermuda Online do not wish to publish this because it more than confirms what Mr Foster has said. Just for comparison purposes, because my wife and I also have a family member working in Bermuda for a multi-national insurance company whom we would like to visit, but who lives in a smallish one-bedroom apartment in your City of Hamilton, I asked by email for an in-season (June 2016) quotation for a hopefully nice but not Atlantic sea view hotel room at Bermuda's elite Elbow Beach Hotel. I requested breakfast, lunch and dinner but got a quote for only breakfast and dinner.  No airfare or drinks are included. I also asked Sandals Barbados for an in-season November 2016 quote because we have friends living in Christ Church, Barbados, only a few miles away. At Elbow Beach, Bermuda, the quote, which does not include any airfare or a portion thereof or drinks or lunch, the room sub-total quote including an astonishing Resort Fee of $700 was $12,822.99, with daily breakfast and four-course dinner an extra $3000 plus, making a total of over $16,000, with Bermuda Government and hotel taxes not included. At Sandals Barbados, with a substantial portion of airfare in premium economy or economy included from London Gatwick and breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and unlimited alcoholic drinks, cocktails and liqueurs and all Barbados Government and hotel taxes also included, the quoted cost was £8709, or about US$13,000. What a difference, publish this if you dare, feel free to check for yourselves! Michael Harrison, Southgate, London, N14, England, November 11, 2015.

We are glad to publish all such comments when factually correct. We first checked the quotes to ensure they are substantially correct. We have asked the Bermuda Tourism Authority to comment on the two emails below. Bermuda's hotel prices are clearly higher. 

I write from the UK as a potential visitor to Bermuda primarily because of a brother working there as an executive of a Bermuda-incorporated British insurance company. With many friends and business colleagues I belong to a UK-wide travel club in which members give their candid views on where they have been and what they particularly like or dislike about places they visit. I'm told that while virtually all visitors from the UK enjoy their Bermuda holiday, they have two areas in particular of major grumbles that prevent them being firm repeat visitors. One is their shock over how much in the variety of hotel and Bermuda Government taxes all Bermuda visitors now have to pay, with some complaining they had to spend over US$50 a day just in room taxes. The other is their disappointment there is only one all-inclusive resort in Bermuda, with a very limited number of restaurants and only average overall quality of meals, mostly buffet. My colleagues compare this with their stays in Barbados, in particular at Sandals there, with I believe eleven restaurants, a huge choice of international cuisine including Japanese, Italian, French, all included and a la carte, not buffet, plus all alcoholic drinks also included, all types of cocktails, mixed or blended drinks and premium liqueurs from around the world. We all wish there was a Sandals in Bermuda. We hope this will be possible, especially with your Tucker's Point Hotel up for sale. We also hope Bermuda will change and reduce its visitor-tax system to make it much reasonable like Barbados, not extortionate as it is now. It must be reported and recorded that Bermuda prices for premium (like Sandals) and other Bermuda properties has been noticed and is now written extensively in the UK. A fortnight in Bermuda including premium economy airfare at a premium Bermuda hotel with only lunch and dinner and no lunch or alcoholic drinks included is about 45% more expensive than a similar premium-economy flight fortnight at a particularly luxurious swim-up poolside room at four-star all-inclusive beachside Sandals Barbados. John Foster, Palmers Green, London, N13, England, 9 November, 2015.

I write in hope you at Bermuda Online and your Bermuda Tourism Authority can reassure me and similar older folk that Bermuda, its hospital and Bermuda Medical Association all now have the highest possible medical ethics in the event of an unexpected death while in Bermuda on vacation or business of an airline or cruise ship visitor. Can you say categorically that a situation that happened in Bermuda in April 2008, when an Englishman then in Bermuda died and had his kidney, spleen, brain, throat, thyroid, prostate, bladder, small and large intestine removed before his body was sent to his home in Yeovil, England, was an unfortunate one-off and will never happen again? Or does it now happen routinely whenever a local or visitor dies in Bermuda, as several have done in 2015 to date, even when a visitor has not signed up to any local or international agreement as an organ donor and tourists and visitors presumably do not receive any prior notification of this from your Tourism people? When I let it be known I was considering a 2016 post-retirement cruise vacation to Bermuda I was reminded about this by friends and relatives from Yeovil in England, who sent me the above link. As an elderly New Englander I will gladly consider a visit to Bermuda on its merits. But I would never, ever, go there if it means that if I die there and without any consent from my family my remains will be mutilated with my kidney, spleen, brain, throat, thyroid, prostate, bladder, small and large intestine removed before my body is sent to home to Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Kevin K. Malloy, America Street, Providence, Rhode Island 02903, September 25, 2015.

We are unable to state that the captioned incident was a one-off. Visitors concerned about this and needing to know what happens to their body parts in Bermuda when visitors die in Bermuda and whose remains are sent to their home countries  should contact the Bermuda Tourist Authority, also the Bermuda Health Council and Bermuda Hospitals Board.  

My colleagues and I in the the USA's hotels and tourism industry in both individual states and nationwide read with great concern in your Bermuda Online how, on September 8, 2015, during Bermuda's Labor Day commemorations, there was unrelenting condemnation of the policies of your Bermuda Government. Bermuda Industrial Union president Chris Furbert stated publicly your government is going to get bashed by Union members. Unfortunately for once-beautiful Bermuda, it now has a notorious reputation among serious professional American tourists not only as a place where Bermuda's public transport cannot be relied on any longer because of all-too-frequent and sudden wildcat stoppages particularly affecting and inconveniencing airline tourists and cruise ship visitors, but also where your Bermuda Industrial Union, its officials and their petty antics were the single biggest reason by a very wide margin why all American, British and European hotels have left Bermuda, to avoid constant union bickering, walk-outs, strikes and never-ending hostility, often blatantly racially anti-white and anti-foreigner. To this day, Holiday Inn, Marriott's, Sonesta, Wyndham and more, all still operating by the way in the the far less union-belligerent  islands of Caribbean, UK, Europe and elsewhere, privately and publicly cite the BIU as the principal reason by far they left Bermuda, never to return. It is our considered opinion this has also been the main reason why Bermuda's tourism has slumped so hugely in recent years. Until this is recognized and dealt with, Bermuda is not going to progress in tourism. The group from Venezuela contemplating a new Bermuda hotel had not previously known this but know it now and are apprehensive. They should have been told by both your present and previous government. Of course there is a need for unionism, but it should be responsible and accountable and work with government, to serve the community, not disrupt and harass the latter. I hope you will publish this frank opinion. John P. Daley, Washington DC 20007, USA, September 13, 2015.

I have personally attended Cup Match on multiple occasions, and I have a group wishing to experience Cup Match in 2016. Your site indicates that The Bermuda Cup Match will be played August 4 & 5, while "Thinking Of Bermuda" states that, "Cup Match will take place on July 28 & 29 2016".I respectfully ask you to kindly confirm the date of Bermuda Cup Match 2016 if possible. Thank you, Joseph Calvacca, Cruise Planners American Express Travel Services, NY. September 7, 2015. 

Hello Bermuda Online (BOL)!  By way of introduction, my name is Brady Whittingham, Founder of the Bermuda Golf Classic, a Spring event on the island featuring NFL players. I’ve also recently joined the 2015 Bermuda Goodwill Golf Tournament committee to help with the event, now in its 63^rd year. I often come across BOL in various searches related to Bermuda and I wanted to reach out to find out if we might be able to raise the awareness of our events with listings in your events calendar. From my own google experience, my guess is your Website is one of the most visited of the Bermuda sites, which could of course really help draw attention to the golf product on the island. Aside from the events I mentioned above, I believe that there isn’t a better golf destination in the world. I strongly believe that tourism during the slow months from September to April could really get a boost from people experiencing what I have during those months. I love Bermuda, and if there is a way I can impact the health of the tourism-dependent businesses on the island, I sure would like to do my part. If you think there might be a fit, please email me back. Warm regards, Brady Whittingham, Event Director, Bermuda Golf Classic,  East 1000 South Pleasant Grove, UT  84062, USA, September 1, 2015.

Replied, stating BOL will gladly work with him and help promote Bermuda's golf especially the events mentioned above, assuming he is willing to agree to reciprocal linkage shown BOL's Linkage and Mentions. 

My name is Yuxi and now I am helping my client perform an analysis related to its Bermuda business and we are wondering if you could kindly provide me the labor cost data of Bermuda. General hourly labor cost in local currency would be good enough, appreciate your help! Thank you so much and have a nice day! Yuxi Meng,  PwC | Transfer Pricing,  PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, High St, Boston, MA 02110. July 1, 2015. 

Replied, referring the writer to the applicable one of many Price Waterhouse offices incorporated and  domiciled in Bermuda.

I am one - of the many I know - who have much appreciated your very informative file on Artists from Overseas, including from here in the UK, who have gone to Bermuda and been very productive. You have done a nice job portraying them and their works, some of which have achieved world acclaim. I also know that from time to time some of us in the commercial or private art collecting business have contacted you at your excellent Bermuda Online (BOL) in hope of getting some kind of a valuation on some works by Bermudian or Bermuda-based artists. I understand from others in my circle that BOL has always been willing to create a free courtesy electronic link to organizations such as the Bermuda Society of Arts, Masterworks and others and various other galleries in Bermuda, but with the very natural and normal proviso that those entities should reciprocate the courtesy with a return link. On several occasion, you have referred us to the Bermuda Society of Arts (BSoA) when further information about a particular artist is needed.  But, to our dismay, the website for the BSoA does not seem to have an index containing any facts about any specific Bermuda or Bermuda-based artist. If indeed the Society's mission has always been, as it claims, to further the cause of art and artists in Bermuda, could it please start to have a publicly accessible file on each one of them, past or present? Surely this is both feasible and practical to expect in the annual membership fees levied by BSoA? If present members of the presumed 400 or so Bermudian and Bermuda-based artists don't already have their own websites, could  BSoA provide one so that their works can be glimpsed internationally? And surely, given the exceptionally detailed information about Bermuda that BOL has exclusively in many areas, the BSoA and other artistic entities would want to link to you? Is it their lack of knowledge about how the World Wide Web works that prevents them from doing so, for the overall benefit of Bermuda? George Robertson, Lancaster, LAI 3PE, England, 20 June 2015.

I am hoping you at  Bermuda Online might be able to assist me with questions regarding a Bermuda mailing address from the 1930s. As this year's guest curator for the Tasha Tudor Museum, I am currently preparing to do a presentation during a centenary-celebration weekend in late August at TTM (in Brattleboro, Vermont). Recent research has revealed that in 1932, Rosamond Tudor (Tasha's late mother) offered to teach two months of painting classes to prospective art students while she--and teenager Tasha--visited Bermuda during the winter. Her announcement included a contact address of "The Gooseneck, Somerset Bridge, Bermuda." My understanding is that Tasha and her mother were, at that time, guests of other Tudor relatives but I am not sure of their names nor if they were seasonal or year-round residents. I have read a little about Tudor Hill but have not ascertained if the area's name is directly related to any of the Tudor family members from New England, primarily Massachusetts. Today I read an online announcement about the Somerset Bridge sub post office's closing which occurred last November. Would I be correct in thinking that it is the same "Somerset Bridge" office which is part of the 1932 address? Any information you may have or any direction you can provide, especially regarding The Gooseneck, will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for taking the time to consider my inquiry. Sincerely, Jeanette Chandler Knazek,  Alpharetta, Georgia 30004 USA, June 16, 2015. 

Answered stating Tudor Hill was named after a 17th century British Bermudian family, not known from here if they had any US relatives. Also that Somerset Bridge is a well-known scenic and residential area of Sandys Parish and, in a follow-up, stated we knew of a 2015 application to Planning re Gooseneck Cottage, understood some time ago to have been rented to artists both before and after the visit mentioned by Ms Knazek of Rosamond Tudor, her husband and daughter.

Thank you for your time and effort. I noticed that you don’t seem to have any information about Bermudians who served in the Canadian Army during WW2. Here is the short version of one story. My Father, Timothy Joseph Card, was among the very first to go off to Canada at the outbreak of the war. I do not have a detailed time-line but anecdotally I believe he went to Canada with a group some of whom ended up in the Canadian Air Force. I believe this may include Eldon Williams and Chummy Zuill with whom he was good friends but I am not sure. He ended up in the Windsor Regiment (The Essex Scottish) as a Sergeant in the Intelligence Section. They trained near Barrie Ontario and were then stationed near Aldershot in England until they went ashore at Dieppe. I do recall he had an enduring friendship with an Officer named Worthington ( I don’t recall the first name). He was wounded on the beach and captured and after convalescence in a POW hospital in France was interned at a Stallag near Dresden. At the end of the war, after several ‘escapes’, he ended up in the then Czechoslovakia (just across the border from Dresden) where he became part of a group running an ‘underground railroad’ assisting escaped and released Allied POW’s who were fleeing toward the west to escape the oncoming Russian forces. The Russians at that time were convinced that once the Nazis were defeated the Allies would turn on them. As a result they had a reputation for executing the internees of POW camps which they over ran - Particularly Officers. Many German camp commanders therefore released their internees and told them to make their way to the west. The Czech group was supplying maps, directions, clothing and food to these freed allied troops. My mother, Vera Pokorna-Card, and her family were part of the group. Once the Russians took Czechoslovakia my father made his way to London and worked there to get a war-bride visa for my mother. He was demobilized in Halifax and came back to Bermuda. My mother joined him soon after and they were married at St. Theresa’s. Jan Card, Harrington Sound Rd, Smith's Parish, FL 07, Bermuda, May 24, 2015.

All of us in my financial advisors group appreciate the uniquely-in-Bermuda impartial facts and figures contained in your advertising-free Bermuda Online which have helped us to realize at least some of the potential significance and future financial implications involved in any possible Bermuda hotel or other guest property acquisition. There are others too, beyond your scope but which we have to consider, such as whether your government offers any incentive-financing as do all the Departments of Economic Development of all 50 US States and/or other tax incentives and what our US tax position might be. I should perhaps have stated at the very beginning I write as a financial advisor and broker for a hotel group that could express an interest in the Rosewood Tuckers Town Hotel if the buying conditions and profit potentials are right. By that I mean an overriding condition would be an outright freehold sale, not a long lease, at a realistic price. My associates and I have learnt from former American operators of Bermuda hotels, namely Holiday Inn, Loews Inn, Marriott and Wyndham, all of whom still operate profitably in the Caribbean and once but no more operated prominent hotels in Bermuda, that only with outright undisputed ownership, not long leasing, sensible non-union interference, not having to pay huge import duties on imports or unrealistic energy costs and other concessions, might it then be feasible because of significant other overheads particularly in Bermuda but not present here in the USA, to buy, operate and hope to profit from a Bermuda hotel. Any potential new non-local owner will also need to know in advance whether they can bring and accommodate in their own management and other key staff without going through Work Permit hoops that don't apply elsewhere and can reasonably hope to avoid any local union problems. John  D. Williams, Wisconsin Avenue NW, Georgetown, Washington DC 20007, May 22, 2015.

The information you show in your excellent Bermuda Online News files re Bermuda's Public Assess to Information (PATI) developments is interesting. From personal experience here in the UK I must mention that if your PATI is at all modeled on our UK's Freedom of Information Act, it will not always give you the information you seek. I tried recently to find out via the Edinburgh city council if Scotland's First Minister paid Council Tax for his (now her) official residence at Bute House, Edinburgh, as we all do for our homes here in the UK. But I was refused that information. If there are similar refusal provisos in Bermuda, it may mean that your PATI is also somewhat lacking in real potence. Arthur Rose, Inverness, Scotland, UK, April 6, 2015.

My compliments to those who contribute and take the time to update Bermuda Online website. You have a wealth of information here for potential travelers to Bermuda. It is refreshing to explore a good non-commercial site free of advertising and pop-ups and actually learn reliable information from real residents. Kudos! My question is about sea glass. I read from your beaches description pages that it is illegal to collect sea glass from beaches in Bermuda. Are there specific shops or stores or vendors where I could possibly legally purchase wares such as jewelry, decorative arts and more handcrafted from seaglass? If so, would you recommend one particular shop I should visit? Thanks in advance for your time. Looking forward to my upcoming visit in August. Best, Christopher Simone, Pickerington, Ohio 43147, USA, March 25, 2015.

Here in central Scotland, UK, a lady friend of mine, a fellow travel writer and editor on jurisdictional economic comparisons including departure taxes, joined me in comparing the value-for-money cost, not an actual value cost, of a possible Bermuda holiday. As we both have relatives qualified in various professions working in Bermuda under contract to leading offshore insurance firms and have been thinking of going to Bermuda for a fortnight or so to visit them, we have perused with great interest your particularly informative Bermuda Online pages, indeed a unique virtual encyclopedia on Bermuda. We have looked for information and statistics that paint an overall picture of the taxes payable at established and up-and-coming tourism resorts and why and how they compare with competing places. In Bermuda's case, we were dismayed to discover a range of disturbing statistics that should be of acute concern to your tourism officials. We recommend they be addressed as quickly as possible with the aim of creating a scenario in which Bermuda can be seen to be competitive in every way with other jurisdictions instead of being so far in front of them in over-the-top tourism expenses. What we have found out in merely some basic facts and figures is not complimentary to Bermuda. As just a few examples, we have discovered how Bermuda has not only 36 members of parliament all earning far more than our own members of parliament here but also more than 4,800  full time government  employees, 600 police, tourism accommodation taxes of very nearly 20%  plus from 1 April 2015 a departure tax of US$50 per person, the highest on the world by a huge margin for such a small island of only 21 square miles. Something has to give, heads galore have to roll, if you want to see Bermuda holding its own in providing value-for-money tourism. John Mackay, Glasgow G1 IPP, Scotland. UK, 13 March, 2015.

Interesting to note how the news of your new Bermuda Departure Tax of US$50 from 1 April 2015 is spreading around like wildfire and causing so much dismay among would-be travelers. Here in Barbados, our departure tax now and also applicable from 1 April is Barbados $55 or US$27.50. We don't believe in overcharging our tourist guests. Thelma Brathwaite, Maxwell Coast Road, Christchurch, Barbados, March 3, 2014.

I write to say I was shocked to hear your Bermuda Departure Tax will be increased from $35 to $50 from April 1. I want to express my extreme displeasure, to the point I am no longer considering a 2015 25th anniversary visit with my wife, whom I met in Bermuda. At $50 for each of your island's 21 square miles, this works out at $2.28 dollars per square mile, absolutely outrageous. No other country in the world, not even far larger countries, applies such a departure tax rip-off. If your tourism authority hopes to revive your tourism, it had better roll back this outrage. Instead of over-charging tourists, you should instead be halving your number of legislators. Having 36 in only 21 square miles means tourists don't get value for money, all we do is let your legislators get rich at our expense. Puerto Rico here we come, instead. Rick C. Brown, Jersey City, 07302, USA, February 22, 2015.

My wife and I met at the Coral Beach Club 50 years ago. I was the night auditor coming from the Hotel school of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Rosemary had been hired by Mr Wardman to work at the front desk and came from Belfast. We fell in love and got married in Geneva in 1964. We would like to celebrate this 50th wedding anniversary, in coming by boat from New York to Hamilton harbour and either return by boat a week / 10 days later to New York or fly home directly from Bermuda to London - Geneva. From Geneva, I have trouble organizing this boat trip. I do not want a large cruise ship docking far away from town and I was wondering if you could help me with the name (and website) of a shipping company sailing regularly from New York to Hamilton ? I thank you very much in advance for your help and look forward to hearing from you. Jan & Rosemary LEPPIN Bois-de-Seyme, Vandoeuvres SWITZERLAND, January 23, 2015. 

Replied with info requested. 

I'm quite impressed with your Bermuda Online website. I am writing about Bermuda's tourism industry and what the country is doing to improve travel and tourism. You have a lot of very good information on your site. Are you available by phone to talk about Bermuda tourism for my story? Many thanks, Johanna Jainchill, Destinations Editor, Travel Weekly, New Jersey, USA, January 14, 2015.

As a possible newcomer to Bermuda from the UK, with my own exportable business I might well wish to operate from Bermuda with my wife and adult children, I'd like to express my sincere appreciation for how much your Bermuda Online has helped me do some very extensive personal research on Bermuda. But what concerns me are the the bureaucracies of establishing an international company there compared to other jurisdictions; the expenses of doing so compared to other jurisdictions; and the overall cost-of-living compared to elsewhere. I gather there have been recent commendable initiatives to transform your tourism industry, to get back the leading position Bermuda once had. Are similar moves being contemplated to help turn Bermuda into a more internationally business-friendly place? Its reputation as a reputable business domicile has suffered severely of late owing to political put-downs galore on the expat community, regulations that don't occur elsewhere and, significantly, that your government has not and will not offer local citizenship even to blemish-free expats or their children who have lived there for generations. Now, with a recent change of government, will it soon be possible, as has been the case for years in the UK, USA, Canada and beyond, to incorporate a Bermuda-registered company or partnership without first having to use a lawyer? To have more than one car per family? To pay none or reasonable (not grossly expensive) annual car registration for those with low vehicle emissions, as happens now in the UK? To freely use, without the need for special permission, a purchased or rented home or flat (apartment) for purely office-like business purposes? And to pay annual property taxes at say City of Westminster London rates instead of as much as say $90,000 a year? I'm a potentially serious corporate newcomer once I can be convinced that Bermuda is a truly competitive international business jurisdiction in overall jurisdictional transfer costs. John Williams, Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 3DE, January 5, 2015.

I'm hoping you guys at Bermuda Online or any of your readers might know or know of or be able to locate any of those involved with Clarion Enterprises of Box1707, Hamilton 5, Bermuda, going back to 1982 and beyond. It produced the Bermuda Islands Guide, printed in Canada by Dollco Printing of Ottawa. That entity's art director was a Karen Azulay Dolan. I am trying to locate a principal, to congratulate him or her and to ask if by chance an update is available. I appreciate it was a long time ago but any information you have or can get will be much appreciated.  John F. Buchan, Providence, Rhode Island 02903, USA, January 4, 2015.

I write as a possible future first-time visitor to Bermuda, although not one at all interested in the America's Cup, about which I gather there has been so much excitement in Bermuda. It may indeed prove to be hugely beneficial to your island's economy which has clearly been struggling in recent years. But in the meantime, as Bermuda can so easily sign up to the enormous number of concessions required the America's Cup organizers in terms of satisfying their needs, can Bermuda please also begin to cater to the needs of non-sailing tourists who need to be able to get around and about via rented automobiles instead of having to be reliant on public transport or taxis. It's my belief this has been a principal reason why your tourism has declined to markedly in recent years. There is no valid reason why tourists should not be allowed to drive themselves around. When you can do so everywhere in Europe despite often horrific traffic congestion in cities like Paris, Milan, Berlin, and routinely in USA, Canada, even the least economically developed countries of Africa and the Caribbean, you surely ought to be allowed to do so in Bermuda. Saying no to this is like saying no to generations of lost tourists. If you come to an expensive and affluent place like Bermuda, you should be able to expect far more options than often-crowded mostly daytime public transportation too often not available because of some wildcat strike, or over-priced taxis. Marvin B. Peterson, Rye, NY 10580, USA, January 3, 2015.

Coming as I do from a largely rural state of the USA, it's natural that I and most of my fellow farmers or similar use pickup trucks both for home use and business. But when my wife and I visited Bermuda recently on a cruise ship, after seeing your great Bermuda Online, we were amazed to note there are very few pickup trucks in Bermuda.

I think your post about Hurricane Fay is incorrect in the "Hurricane History 1963-present" in your Climate file. It states that Fay strengthened suddenly and passed directly over Bermuda. Residents experienced 80-120 mph gusting winds later reported to have peaked at 155 mph.

It is accurate, confirmed and reported in-depth by our Royal Gazette daily national newspaper. 

I write from Barbados to say how intrigued I am with your user-friendly Bermuda Online and from the information you provide, that the entire area of Bermuda is the size of the Barbados parish, Christchurch,  in which I live.

I've just been told that a Briton who was employed in Bermuda from about 1972 until 1991, in other words for 19 years, now nearly 70, does not get a Bermuda Department of Social Insurance pension, only got a one-time amount of what he put in, with no interest.

At what I understand is an uncertain time in Bermuda in your economy, politics and tourism, key things about your Bermuda Online stand out.  They are your  accuracy, consistency in updating, honesty, integrity and reliability.

I was referencing the Bermuda Online site for the umpteenth time and then it hit me how I simply take it for granted. For many years I have gone to the site as a starting point to answer questions I might have about the history of Bermuda, its government, immigration policy and on and on. This site is of a very high, uniform quality and I just wanted to say how much I (and I am sure many others) appreciate this most valuable resource. Great stuff! David Bedard, Smith's Parish, Bermuda, August 5, 2014.

A serious question for you good guys at Bermuda Online. Who owns Bernews.com? If you know, can you say?

I write you in Bermuda Online (BOL) as a news editor to express my disgust over how some politically motivated people in your country are demonstrating publicly to prevent foreigners who are long-term law-abiding residents of Bermuda from ever gaining the citizenship they have richly deserved for many years.

Thanks, Bermuda Online (BOL)! For a wealth of information about your island on all types of topics constantly updated and presented in an easy-to-see manner.

Thanks so much, Bermuda Online for your sensible advice to all from USA or Canada or wherever who seek to rent a vacation home in Bermuda mentioned in your Bermuda Homes.

My wife and I agree completely with John Anderson of RI in his July 6 email. We too were Breakaway passengers and had paid for ferry passes but could not use them because of a sudden walkout by Bermuda's unionized public transportation employees.

I write as a New England newspaper journalist then on vacation as one of the passengers on the Norwegian Breakaway berthed at Dockyard Bermuda on June 20.

Mr. Forbes, thank you for creating the Bermuda Online (BOL) website. As a mother of two primary age children, your site has helped us create many informative projects and to discover numerous facts about our island home that would otherwise take a lot of time.  I appreciate your dedication to Bermuda by documenting and containing such an enormous amount of up-to-date information about Bermuda, her history and her people in one location. Appreciative Mom (Mrs. Angela Symonds), Hamilton, Bermuda, July 3, 2014.

 

Compliment much appreciated. 

As frequent cruisers and travel writers for seniors, my wife and I just returned home after a cruise first to Caribbean island ports then to Bermuda via the USA where my wife and I were visiting our son, daughter-in-law and their children.

I write as an amateur historian visiting and researching an historic American place, to thank you at Bermuda Online (BOL) most sincerely for your incredible files.

I'm hugely impressed by how your Bermuda Online has nearly tripled in size since 2012 and more recently appears to have doubled its hits-count.  These figures speak volumes and show how much your website is a hugely significant credit to Bermuda.

I'm a Scotsman with an ongoing Bermuda interest and, like most Americans, Scots, other Brits, Canadians, etc, always interested in getting fair value for money. At my suggestion, some friends of mine from elsewhere in the UK joined the Bermuda National Trust (BNT) in March 2014, a few weeks ago. The latter's website said their membership was for a year. But it now turns out that their membership, instead of being for a year, doesn't end  a calendar year later, or even on 31st December 2014 but on 30th September 2014.  Whereas here in Scotland, other parts of the UK, Europe and further still their National Trust or equivalent memberships do last a full calendar year. In my view as a social commentator and consumer advocate, the BNT, if its wants to have and maintain good international reputation, should offer fair value for money, not short-change its members, or at least update its website so as to be more explicit re membership so people can know in advance. It does not reflect well on Bermuda as a favoured tourism destination when its National Trust charges for a full year of membership but offers only half a year's worth at this time of year. Alisdair McKay, Thurso, Scotland, KW14 UK, April 2, 2014.

On your great Bermuda Online website you've always stated, correctly in my view, that of the former principal US Military bases in Bermuda, one was in St David's in St. George's Parish but the other one was in Southampton Parish. It was certainly that way in the late 1980s when my family used to visit friends on that base. But on the Bermuda map published by your Bermuda Tourism Authority, Morgan's Point, where the US base used to be, is now shown in Sandys Parish. If Morgan's Point has now indeed been moved by your government or tourism authority it seems to have escaped public notice, in which case might it be to quietly compensate for the fact that Sandys Parish, with Cambridge Beaches as the only luxurious place and the continued closure of 9 Beaches, needs to be beefed up substantially in the on-the-map by parish hotels rooms count?  David C. Cooper, Houston, Texas 77095, USA, March 21, 2014. 

Thank you for all the work you do to provide so much valuable information on your Bermuda Online website, pages and pages of it on so many good topics. Upon looking at the Seniors section, I did not see any information about the Seniors Learning Centre which has been running out of the Bermuda College for many years now.  They offer an extensive variety of daily classes for seniors, well-attended. Seniors can even audit classes at the College for $50 a semester. The SLC can be contacted at 239-4029 Mondays through Fridays between 9.30 a.m. and 2.00 p.m., or at 236-9000.  The Co-ordinator is Dr. Janet Ferguson. You might wish to look up its Spring 2014 course schedule. which gives full details Also, Seniors pay only $10 for classes offered by the Adult Community Centres. Keep up the good work,  Lucille T. Lambert (Mrs.). Bermuda College, Paget, Bermuda, March 13, 2014.

I was most interested to see how your superb Bermuda Online website deals with links, administrators and webmasters. It's great you advocate that website producers write, update, administer and webmaster their sites instead of passing the latter two areas to third parties who therefore effectively control the websites. I hope you use your expertise to good advantage both locally and internationally. I've been looking for a a website specially for administrators and webmasters of your caliber to show me how to eventually become as competent as you are, and much appreciate the sage advice you give in your Links and Mentions. George R Roberts, Dover, Delaware 19901, USA, February 24, 2014.

I've much appreciated and agree entirely with the comments of  George Smythe and Kevin Anderson. I'm not a travel writer but a frequent business traveler. I'd like to say, first, how much I like the fact that on your superb Bermuda Online you have this speakeasy option, obviously much appreciated by your contributors, in which you welcome candid, complimentary and other thoughts and impressions of Bermuda. I've noted that on the website of the Bermuda Tourism Authority (BTA) there are no similar options.  I recommend they do so, with a methodology similar to yours. Two-way, not just one-way, website communications, with regular feedback from readers, should be yet another early initiative of the BTA, as well as those of your earlier succinct contributors. And I particularly recommend that the BTA make a special point of electronically linking to your website and other good ones who, like you, have freely offered courtesy reciprocal linkage. The more Bermuda websites link to each other the more Bermuda will benefit. The Bermuda Tourism website and before that in the old Bermuda Tourism website seemed to totally ignore yours instead of recognizing you carry much unique material about Bermuda that other websites do not.  Please Bermuda, listen to these and travel writers' recommendations in your own best interests. Peter Goodwin, Wilmington, Delaware 19808, USA, February 16, 2014.

It was great to see Kevin Anderson's comments. I agree 100%, as a travel writer myself. What also concerns me, and I suspect many others too, is that hotels in Bermuda are apparently not allowed to have their own airport shuttle buses, or to share one. Personally, I will not stay at any hotel anywhere in the world that does not have or use such a service, especially when they also refer to themselves as international business and convention centers. If Bermuda wants to create more tourism it has to loosen up on its many restrictions that don't apply anywhere else. It has to allow visitors to go by rented automobiles or shuttle buses to and from the airport. The BTA also should seriously consider creating a new and better way of reaching properties such as Grotto Bay, the Princesses, Cambridge Beaches and Tucker's Point by ferry or hydrofoil from the airport, instead of merely by taxi or private minibus. In many other jurisdictions they are standard ways of attracting visitors and getting much repeat business, with taxis used now only or merely in cities and towns. George B. Smythe, Georgetown, Washington DC 20007, USA. February 15, 2014.

I was intrigued to note via your excellent Bermuda Online how there is now a Bermuda Tourism Authority (BTA) with new members, hopefully with new ideas and new initiatives to once again recoup the once-unique role Bermuda once had (until the 1970s) in international tourism circles. As a long-term travel writer, I believe it is essential for Bermuda to at last compete in meaningful ways with other jurisdictions, instead of having significant tourism controls they do not. This means, in order of tourism importance, first reducing by at least 50% the number and cost of your legislators. Nowhere else in the world has 36 well-paid legislators in only 21 square miles. This, in my view, is the single-biggest reason by a huge margin why Bermuda is so expensive a place to get to, stay in and enjoy, compared to the Caribbean islands and many other places. The ripple-effect from this luxury must be enormous to Bermuda taxpayers with high consumer prices to tourists especially an inevitable outcome. Has this cost and its impact been factored into your new tourism development initiatives? It seems not. Then there are other significant factors, such as finally allowing tourists to rent automobiles, as they have long been allowed to do in virtually all other countries, even those with horrendous traffic conditions in their capital cities. And, as tourists now routinely use them to get to and from the airport in all the other developed tourism markets, providing visitor-friendly, luggage-racks-equipped, regularly-scheduled public transport, not just private transportation such as taxis or min-buses as Bermuda presently does, to many accommodation and visitor-friendly places is an absolute must. If you can heed and tackle all the above, I bet you'll soon increase Bermuda's tourism attraction to my fellow-Americans, Canadians, Britons, Europeans and more by 50%.  Kevin J. Anderson, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 15218. February 14, 2014.

I write to express my sincere thanks, and those of my friends too, all fellow-passengers on the P&O cruise ship "Azura" from 10th to 24th January 2014, for how you kindly published Azura's outrageous WIFI charges and how you compared them to the free WIFI now being offered by various ports in the Caribbean. The fact that the Azura is a Bermuda-registered ship was not received kindly by those of us who had to pay those outrageous WIFI  charges. We know many were adamant in refusing to pay them at all and made this clear to other passengers. It became a leading matter of discussion at mealtimes, especially among the hundreds who brought iPads, iPods, laptops, notebooks and more, expecting to be able to use them. We hope those in cruise ship management will note your comments and ours and that your Bermuda Government's Department of E-Commerce will soon act to require all Bermuda-registered cruise ships to offer free ship-wide WIFI to all paying passengers and their crews. In complete contrast to Bermuda, Curacao was a fabulous port, for its free WIFI service applicable to all cruise passengers, accessible from Azura's portside balcony cabins and throughout the port for the rest of us. We will now be writing to all the UK's national newspapers and travel companies. John Watson, Harbour Parade, Southampton SO15 1ST, England, 25th January, 2014.

I write from Scotland as a son of Bermudians on this four-day-long Scottish celebration of Hogmanay that begins tonight at 8 pm with a huge Edinburgh Hogmanay celebration followed by fireworks beamed around the world. It has been long been claimed by both modern-day descendants of early to mid 17th century colonists in Bermuda, some of whom came from Scotland, that the distinctive and unique money with which they were paid from 1615 in Bermuda, Hogge Money, was the original source of the Scottish tradition of Hogmanay, the name given in in Scotland to New Year's Eve celebrations. It is pronounced only very slightly differently. Most non-Scots believe the term to have been of French origin, from about 1604. But Bermuda's Hogge Money must surely have an equal claim, being both of similar vintage and pronunciation undisturbed by the French variations shown in the Hogmanay Wikipedia reference, plus having once been real money by that name.  I thought you at Bermuda Online might be particularly interested. If so, can you please show a Hogge Money coin? H. Bertram C. Forbes, Rattray, Blairgowrie, Perthshire, Scotland, UK, 31st December 2013. 

Bermuda Hogge Money 1616, possibly the real reason behind Scotland's Hogmanay? Bermuda was then called the Somer's Islands or Sommer Islands.  For further details see Bermuda's History for 1615 and Bermuda's Money. 

Just a quickie to let you know I really appreciate how you've updated your Bermuda Online  and Cruises to Bermuda files. You've got some really good and useful information there, as I found when I was there this summer. Personally, I did not enjoy the huge size of the Breakaway. Next time, I'll take a smaller ship. I particularly noted and admired how you mention Internet and WIFI services on cruise ships and their costs. It would have been great if Bermuda's Internet and WIFI services had been free instead of available at a cost, but at least they were far less expensive than the ship's costs. I'm one of those who believe cruise ships, which have to use satellite services anyway for navigation purposes, should treat Internet and WIFI as a standard offering, not as a costly optional extra. I know from my own recent experiences it's now regarded as such on most European and other trains and buses for all like myself who use laptops, notebooks or tablets. Keep up the great work!  Robert G. Munson, Allentown, Pennsylvania 18103, December 1, 2013.

First let me congratulate you on the work you have done on Bermuda Online. If I might be permitted one suggestion; it might be useful if one could click on Find to get to a particular subject matter. In any case I was wondering if you had any information on the Lyceum in Bailey’s Bay? Again great stuff. Best Regards, Arthur Hodgson, Attorney APEX LAW GROUP LTD. Barristers, Attorneys & Notaries Public Veritas Place, 6th Floor, 65 Court Street, Hamilton HM 12. P.O. Box 1913, Hamilton HM HX, Bermuda, November 22, 2013.

I am currently writing a book about one of my wife’s uncles who was killed during WW2 when his ship, the ‘Narragansett’ was torpedoed near Bermuda.  The ship was found on fire by a US Navy plane flying from Bermuda, and the report reads: SS ‘Narragansett’ torpedoed 0410Z/25 34-46 N., 67-40 W. COMINCH C 250531.  VP took off at dawn March 25^th. To search vicinity SSS from ‘Narragensett’.  Found ship 34-30 N., 67-36 W., bottom upat 1200Z.  Ship sank at 1350Z.  VP continued to search during day with no sign of survivors.  NOB BERMUDA C 252351. I’d be grateful if you could tell me what COMINCH C 250531, VP, and NOB are abbreviations for, if possible. My thanks for any assistance you may be able to offer. Harry Scott, Galashiels, Scottish Borders, TD1 2BW, Scotland, UK, 22 October 2013.

Recently, I was quite seriously considering buying a nice vacation home in Bermuda, one near the ocean. But it really turned me off when I learnt from the realtor concerned that the annual real estate tax on the property, increased in April this year by about 25%, is now $90,000. C'mon Bermuda, get realistic, the news has really gotten around that your real estate taxes are way out of line when compared to virtually everywhere else in the world. In the Bahamas, the maximum annual real estate tax payable by a non-national is $50,000. Most properties are far less. In London, England, even 775 room $950 million Buckingham Palace, and all other multi-million dollar properties in the best parts of London, cost less than $2,000 a year in annual real estate taxes. We who are wealthy enough to own nice places like to travel but we also insist on getting fair value for money in the taxes we pay. There are lots of places one can call paradise, not just Bermuda. Your realtors need to get to work en masse to persuade your government not to rip non-local folks off in real estate taxes and to make sure those taxes are posted, as they are in the Bahamas and London, not concealed. George M. Smith, Georgetown, Washington DC 20007, USA, September 25, 2013.

I too write from Pittsburgh, PA. I have good friends in Bermuda working with international insurance companies. Almost every week they email to tell my family and others how hugely expensive healthcare premiums are in Bermuda compared to USA.  This is an area of particular interest to me and many of my friends who are working in healthcare and/or senior citizens. It may be of similar interest to you to know that in the USA, effective October 1, 2013, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) commences with Open Enrollment in Healthcare, with all its implications for all US citizens and residents of all ages and means in all States, whether high-income or low or none. Presently, according to my Bermuda-based friends, there is nothing similar in Bermuda. Hopefully, Bermuda will want to initiate and enact something similar, given the much higher cost of healthcare now than in USA, especially after October 1. Ray Noble, Locust Street, Pittsburgh PA 15218, September 12, 2013. 

I read with incredulity recently how unfairly your government levies annual real estate tax even on someone as important as your former Premier Dame Pamela Gordon Banks and her husband. I understand they had to wage a costly four-and-a-half year legal battle against them, instigated by a senior civil servant who overvalued their Paget Parish house. I read that Chris Farrow, the Director of Land Valuation, proposed an outlandish amount for land tax purposes, an annual rental value (ARV) of $852,000 despite the fact that the highest market rent ever achieved on the Island was $35,000 a month or $420,000 a year. So why does Golden Eye in Tucker's Town have Bermuda's highest ARV of $1,182,000 and a correspondingly obscenely high land or real estate tax? It's not fair on non-local homeowners of Bermuda's most expensive homes. In annual real estate taxes they are being royally ripped off, especially when compared to places like London and Miami and the Bahamas. It ought to be publicized multi-nationally. Edward J. Tucker, Clearwater, Florida 33756, August 6, 2013. 

As someone with a severe physical from a long-term medical condition and with national disability connections who one day hopes to visit Bermuda via cruise ship, I note in your  informative, accurate and candid website how disabled Bermudians (yeah, thanks, not Bermudans), residents and visitors have some special challenges and how you who are disabled in Bermuda must write independently on disability matters in Bermuda without any government encouragement or support and in the absence of any website offered by the Bermuda Government's Ministry of Health specifically for its National Office for Seniors and Physically Challenged. It seems disability-related issues are not yet deemed important in Bermuda, which is why you don't yet have and regrettably are not likely to get any Bermuda laws similar to those in the USA specifically for the disabled and handicapped. But there is something the cruise ship lines can do, especially Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), owner of the Breakaway. I understand Its corporations are Bermuda-registered, so it has a greater reason and far more international clout than we as disabled individuals do to press the Bermuda Government to pass meaningful laws to bring services for the disabled up to international par. I recommend that before family members who include a disabled traveler go ahead and pay a high cruise price for a Norwegian Breakaway cruise to Bermuda, they should contact NCL directly instead of dealing with a travel agent. They should tell NCL they know its home port, New York, and all other US ports are required to have full compliance with American disability laws.  They should expect NCL to confirm that when it accepts passengers with disabilities on its cruises, it requires governments of all places where it sails including Bermuda to enact similar disabled-friendly laws, so that its disabled passengers get equal value for money instead of being disadvantaged in public transport and other ways. John T Matthews, Wilkinsburg, Pittsburgh, PA 15221, USA July 24, 2013. 

I enjoy a good game of golf and used to rely on the UK's Daily Telegraph (DT) newspaper for top-of-the-line accurate and responsible journalism. With friends working in Bermuda in the international reinsurance industry, I always read your constantly-changing Bermuda Online for accurate information about Bermuda. I also read with initial great interest but later with some disgust the DT's July 13, 2013 page T16 "Golfing breaks" report on Enviable Greens in Bermuda. I asked my Bermuda-based friends about the article and was told it was a piece of drivel from top to bottom because of its constant chronic inaccuracies. For example, it stated Bermuda's population is 50,000. It isn't. It got the photos of the various Bermuda golf courses mixed up. It referred to the "Bermudan Tourist Board" which I gather would have been corrected immediately if the chap concerned had really played there. There were more mistakes. It made me seriously question whether its author Philip Johnston ever went to Bermuda. I always used to think the DT could be relied on, but no more. So much for the calibre of its travel writing. If the Bermuda Tourism people paid any money or travel expenses for that article they should demand a refund from the DT. Bermuda does not deserve to have its reputation sullied by wildly inaccurate golf stories such as this one. James Morrison, Windsor, Berkshire, UK, 14 July 2013.

I write from Jersey, Channel Islands. I have close relatives participating in the Island Games 2013 in Bermuda. I must compliment you for showing such thorough information about Bermuda in your superb Bermuda Online and about the Games and also accurate and updated information about your Bermuda Government In contrast, I note with dismay that in your Island's official website about the Games still shows information that has not been updated. Surely, the Hon. Craig Cannonier JP, MP is now the Premier, not the Hon Paula Cox?. I believe your Governor and governing political party have also changed. Could you please forward this comment to the powers-that-be in the Bermuda Government to have this and related information updated? In other ways, Bermuda is certainly very nice according to my niece. Gloria Talbot, St. Helier, Jersey JE1, Channel Islands, July 12, 2013

I write to say how much I've appreciated your Bermuda Online comments that rebut succinctly the silly moves by Britain to get Bermuda for the UK's benefit for the G8 in Northern Ireland to follow the twisted UK methodology re tax evasion, tax avoidance and fair taxation. It is hypercritical for the UK government to criticize legitimate tax avoidance and tax evasion when it blatantly encourages it in certain quarters and in fact encourages them with its monstrously unfair tax practices. The House of Parliaments in London and Edinburgh have legislated that Britons and others resident in the UK who own in homes market valued at £180,000,or less, often small three bedroom properties, pay as much or more than £750 million Buckingham Palace does. Also, Parliaments have legislated that Councils can decide their own levels of the UK's Council Taxes. Which means that for my house I pay more for Band E than Buckingham Palace does for Band H. Which, incidentally, also means that although Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory the Bermuda Government follows the odious British Government tax, tax, tax ad nauseam practice of charging significantly more in annual real estate taxes on Bermuda-based properties than the British Government in London does for Buckingham Palace. It is an outrageously, unfair plutocratic tax exemption, tax evasion and tax avoidance for a privileged few, including some of the richest people in the world, at the expense of the vast majority of British UK taxpayers who this pay much more in their taxes. It seems the British Governments of London and Edinburgh have not yet suffered the effects of their loss of the USA following the 1776 American Revolution for monstrously unfair British tax systems. British tax authorities in both the UK and Bermuda, Gibraltar, Turks and Caicos, etc.  should be applying a single uniform Council tax system throughout the UK, using Buckingham Palace as a yardstick, instead of the dreadful inequity used now. H. Bertram C. Forbes, Blairgowrie, Scotland, UK. 18 June 2013.

Editor's note: These figures confirm the stark comparison in British UK and Bermudian annual real estate taxes, excluding water and waste water charges. For £950 million 830,000 square feet Buckingham Palace, London, Band H,.£1,639.04 (about $2504). For a £170K 1,750 square feet 3 bedroom house in Scotland, Band F, £1,672.67 (about $2592). For a Bermuda $20 million 11,500 square feet house with ARV of $564,000 plus staff apartment with ARV of $48,000. Amount for main house will rise by about 26% from July 1, 2013 to $93,666).

I've been reading with great interest your Royal Gazette newspaper's articles on your Bermuda Government's robust defense of its tax policies in the face of criticism from the UK especially and details of your 2013 Captive Insurers conference. It's great your superb Bermuda Online (BOL) has stated so succinctly "that of all the countries in the world that deserves to have its own unique offshore international companies tax structure publicly praised and recognized by the UK's PM, the USA's President, the EU, etc., Bermuda is the most deserving. It's the smallest by far of all the British international business centers and has no natural resources of its own. Despite that it has long been the only British Overseas Territory that has (a) not been a burden on the UK's economy and (b) where the Governor is paid by Bermuda, not the UK. In international business it punches far beyond its weight and height. These are the qualities that made Bermuda so uniquely useful to both the British and Americans that during and after WW2 they were visited by British Prime Ministers and American presidents.  They admired Bermuda then but seem to want to change it now, purely to suit their own ends, not Bermuda. But do they similarly seek to change Jersey or Guernsey or Puerto Rico or the USVI? No. Instead of changing Bermuda they should instead change their own appalling tax systems, to make them more acceptable to the international business world." To me and I know many others as well it is a massive hypocrisy for Britain's Prime Minister to call for major tax  changes in Bermuda but not Britain. The world does not yet know but should that the British Government via its legislators at Westminster and Holyrood has decreed that a very large number of British taxpayers, for properties worth less than $225,000 have pay more in annual real estate tax than your British Queen does for Buckingham Palace worth a conservative $1 billion. Here in the USA, states and cities change their real estate taxes frequently to adjust to changing times. I've read from your excellent BOL material that Bermuda does too, every five years or so. But the massive inequities in UK local authorities' real estate (council) taxes have remained unchanged since 1991 despite many properties having suffered substantial declines in market value in recent years. The UK is clearly not now and never has been a democracy, it's still a blatant autocracy despite having lost the US War of Independence. As for the USA, it too has one of the most unfair tax systems in the world with its insistence that US citizens, residents and even non-residents but with US interests must pay tax on their world-wide income and file complex annual tax returns or be penalized, even when they no longer live or work in the USA. This is so unfair to so many who live elsewhere because it is where their non-American spouses live, and who are not employed and have not been for generations. No wonder there are protests galore by so many international activists before and during G8 meetings.  Until they change their outrageous and undemocratic tax laws for the better the UK and USA should be banned from attending G8 Meetings despite being two of the world's most influential countries economically because they in particular make the G8 an event to be publicly protested about instead of being approved for being in the public interest. However, the UK and USA, etc. must be commended not faulted for their citizenship-from-birth policies which Bermuda does not have but should have. It's not right but a massive wrong surely of concern to both the UK and the USA that Bermuda will not on principle (primarily because Bermuda's Progressive Labour Party now in opposition after 14 years in power and possibly others too would object), give citizenship to law-abiding non-nationals who have resided there for more than five years or their children even when born there. Serious self-inflicted errors like this and the fact that Bermuda has had for years one form of direct tax in its payroll tax but states publicly it has no direct tax help lead people to conclude, wrongly, that Bermuda is a tax haven. Other factors that also make people believe Bermuda is a tax haven are due to Bermuda's active Aircraft and Shipping Registries similar to those the Bahamas, Liberia, Panama, etc. have. It is well-known in the industry that many leading cruise ship corporations such as Cunard have their cruise ships registered in Bermuda and Russian aircraft do so for your Aircraft Register primarily to escape the taxes or conditions or regulations applicable in the UK or USA. John D. Johnson, Washington DC 20523, June 11, 2013.

I read your page on Bermuda’s Environment … very thorough.  I am doing some research on Bermudian waste management. I thought you might know some information I am seeking or at least a good place to start. My specific questions relate to characterization of the quantity of tires at the Airport Facility. Are the tires organized or mixed with the other items at the dump? How many tires are dumped annually? Any guidance would be appreciated. Tyrone Thomas, President, BreakThrough MediaLabs, Washington St, Jersey City, NJ 07302, May 31, 2013. 

My name is Ian Robinson and I am currently the Leading Physical Trainer onboard HMS Lancaster, a type 23 British Royal Navy Frigate. We are due to visit Bermuda on Fri 7 Jun until Mon 10 Jun 2013, and am enquiring into what sports Bermuda can offer us as a ship's company. We have 180 personnel onboard and I am sure there will be a lot of interest in all sports and water activities. I already have a rugby game arranged with the Police, however I am very keen to arrange Cricket and Rugby and any adventure/watersports activity. Could you put me in contact with the relevant people? I look forward to your reply. Many thanks. LPT IAN ROBINSON, HMS LANCASTER, Royal Navy, 30 May 2013.

I have just found the most interesting segment in your Bermuda Online web-site on Banana Manor (originally called Lough House). Dr. George Forbes of Bermuda was born in 1705 in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK and baptized 24 August 1705. I am also related to the Lough family (my Grandmother was a Lough) and to William Bennett Perot who was my GG Grandfather. I am interested to know which Lough first owned Banana House. Was it Rev John Lough (1790 to 1839)? I suspect it was, as he had married Mary Forbes Hinson a descendant of Dr George Forbes. When did the property cease to be owned by the Lough family (and who sold it)? If you know any more about the family or Banana House I should be most interested to know. I also wonder if you can tell me anything about "Loughlands" in Bermuda which was a substantial house built by William Perot Lough (1867-1959) for his mother Susan Downing Perot (a daughter of William Bennett Perot)?  Is the house still standing? Nick Thomson, Remuera, Auckland 1541, New Zealand, May 29, 2013. 

I have a painting of my two brothers and myself on the beach in front the house where we lived in Somerset when I was a child. It is signed by F. Kenwood Giles and dated 1956. I think this artist deserves mention in your list of Bermuda's Foreign Artists of Yesteryear. The internet only tells of commercial art and war and tropical disease posters he did (for which he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society). When I visited two years ago, I found a short reference in a book on Bermuda artists in the Bermuda archives which says that he exhibited with the Society of Artists in 1952 – 1956 and was on their exhibition selection committee in 1954. It also says he did Howdy Doody cartoons for the Royal Gazette in the 1950’s, advertising for the Bank of Bermuda, as well as maps of Hamilton and St. George’s, brochure and magazine covers, depictions of scenes from Bermuda history, etc. I recently found several of his paintings listed at $1500 despite the fact that the gallery owners in the USA profess ignorance of the artist. Susan M. Thomas, Charlottesville VA 22903 USA, April 26, 2013.

It seems obvious from the quality of your website that you guys at Bermuda Online  keep your finger on the Bermuda pulse. You seem to have a keen interest in Bermuda Industrial and other Bermuda union news. So it may be of considerable local interest to know how one British UK public service union, UNISON, makes a point of publicly advertising in certain national newspapers its charges for union membership. Monthly cost starts at £1.30 sterling for lowest paid public service employees and rises in stages to the top rate of 22.50 sterling for employees and management staff. Do any of the Bermuda unions similarly publicly announce their membership dues? If not, shouldn't they? I recommend it as a valuable exercise in continuing public relations and union transparency.  H. Bertram C. Forbes, Blairgowrie, Scotland PH10 7AW, UK. 15 April 2013.

I email as a resident of Saxony, Germany, formerly in East Germany. How very nice it was on 7 April 2013 to meet your Bermuda Online's Editor, Herr Keith Forbes, and his charming wife who were writing a travel feature about a Viking River Cruises visit from Prague in the Czech Republic via Dresden, Saxony, to Berlin. They told me and many fascinated others wonderful things about your islands that we did not know. We were amazed to hear about Bermuda's part in the Bermuda Triangle; how Bermuda is not in the Caribbean as we had all thought but 900 miles north of it; and how in the early 1900s or thereabouts a certain Herr Weiss originally from Saxony but living in Bermuda as a photographer was getting his postcards of Bermuda printed in Saxony and having them sold in Bermuda. Mr. Forbes's comments and comprehensive photographs and writings about Bermuda that he showed us on his laptop on board the Viking Schumann made us all want to visit the beautiful islands of Bermuda as soon as possible. Vaclav Schmitt, Dresden, Germany, April 12, 2013.

I write from Richmond, near London, England. I've not yet been to Bermuda but friends from the USA who own a home in your Tucker's Town have suggested I join them for a relaxing early summer holiday. It's a tempting prospect but I was greatly dismayed when my wife and I read the travel section, page T4, Holiday Offers, of today's Daily Telegraph newspaper.  There, we discovered that return flights from Gatwick to Bermuda between April and July 2013 cost from £648 per person via British Airways, but in the same section we noted that return flights from Gatwick to Barbados, much further away from London than Bermuda, cost from £495 per person.. Why is it so much more expensive to fly to Bermuda from the UK than from London to Barbados? Is it because the cost of living in Bermuda is higher than in Barbados or Bermuda Government fees are, or could it be that British Airways flights cost more to Bermuda than to Barbados because there is no airline competition, unlike to Barbados where it is not only British Airways but also Virgin, Thomas Cook and Thompson. so flight costs are cheaper?  John Wilkinson, Richmond, Surrey, England, 16th March 2013. 

I write as a British resident of the Isle of Wight. I'm one of those with relatives taking part in the Natwest Island Games to be held in Bermuda in late July. I really like how in your superb Bermuda Online you have highlighted the Games in both your Calendar and Sports sections and have provided such detailed information about Bermuda in your many other files that other web files about Bermuda don't show at all, or to the same extent, yet are not linked to in the Bermuda Island Games Association (BIGA) website. I hope they will soon do what the official Island Games website does, namely link both to you and to your Royal Gazette newspaper in its "Useful Links" area for the information you not only show now but have shown - and in your case still show - about Bermuda's past Island Games performances. I'm sure your daily newspaper will be carrying daily results of the Bermuda Games, to contribute meaningfully to publicity of deserved winners of events in ways other websites won't. It just seems wrong that neither your website nor that of the Royal Gazette, the two most deserving, are yet linked to in the BIGA website. By the way, I note your website even shows how much your hotels and schools will charge for accommodation. I see you show that at one hotel, the Southampton Princess, the price is for two beds, two to a bed, ahem, unusual without further explanation. Anyway, thanks again. John Williams, Newport, Isle of White, England, United Kingdom, 26th February 2013.

I have been looking through your Bermuda Online website and have found some facts there that worry me at present, and I was hoping that you could clarify them for me. I am due to take part in the Island Games in July this year in Bermuda, but I saw on both your site and another site, the matter of customs and import duty/tax. From what I can gather, it appears that all visitors to the country are required to pay an import tax on any items being brought into the country valued at over $100? I will be bringing with me equipment and sporting equipment to the value of around $12,000 (Bermuda Dollars). Would I have to pay any form of tax on these items? Don Cowan, Avalon Web Enterprises, United Kingdom. Dom Cowen, Coventry, West Midlands, CV1 2FL, England, United Kingdom, 25 February, 2013.

Any visitor who brings in expensive equipment worth far more than most visitors bring to photograph and record their visit, which may make their goods dutiable or subject to certain conditions re their use in Bermuda should, to avoid any problems that might arise on arrival, make a point of contacting Bermuda Customs with questions. Also, note limits on what visitors and residents can import duty-free, etc and be informed about import duties on other items imported. It is recommended they do so well in advance of their arrival, supply appropriate full information re purpose of the equipment they bring, provide their full contact details and give any sports or other relevant credentials requested. For more information on the Island Games including schools' dormitory pricing and hotels pricing, see our Calendar for July 2013.

As a possible first-time visitor to Bermuda and follower of your excellent Bermuda Online, I was dismayed to read of the triple-whammy tourist transportation disadvantages when arriving at your Bermuda airport. Not being able to rent a car is one serious disadvantage.  Not being able to use public transportation either is a killer, especially when in all other major tourism resorts in the world you can easily do this via tourist-friendly luggage-rack equipped buses, hotel airport limousines and/or trains. And compared to such places abroad, in Bermuda you can't even yet get a water taxi when your airport is next to the ocean and likely your hotel is too. All this means you have a very serious problem that must be addressed if you hope to attract the many times more tourists mentioned in your new tourism authority plans. You guys in Bermuda need to get major improvements in buses, courtesy hotel limousines and water taxis in real soon if you want to be seen as both tourist-friendly and tourism-capable to pump up your tourist numbers from the stagnant or falling visitors by air you've been experiencing in past years, especially but not exclusively if you want to see world-wide-media-exposure events like PGA golf tournaments continue in your jurisdiction. Mike Carter, Florida 33410, USA, February 7, 2013

You folks at Bermuda Online seem to be well attuned to goings-on in Bermuda, an island group I'd like to visit one day, especially with the incentive of my comments being appropriately addressed. As a regular reader of the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper and with friends living in both Bermuda and the Caribbean, particularly in the case of the latter Barbados and St. Lucia, can I please ask you to publish my request that Bermuda's Ministry of Tourism go to the same time, expense and trouble of promoting Bermuda in the principal UK print media as Barbados and St. Lucia do? In last Saturday's (19th January 2013) Daily Telegraph there was a superb fact-packed 20-page feature on Barbados as a must-see island and the merits of St. Lucia are also featured regularly. But nothing of equivalent noteworthy, quote-worthy and newsworthy travel status ever seems to appear about Bermuda. I understand it's from January each year that most tourists plan their holidays abroad. Please, Bermuda, don't be left out by default. John Williams, Cardiff, Wales, 25 January 2013. 

Greetings from New Zealand! I am writing to you at Bermuda Online to enquire if you know what work my great-grandfather John Joseph Crellin (1850-1937) could possibly have been engaged in from circa May 1902 to May/ Jun 1904 at Hamilton, Bermuda. He was a deep-sea diver from the Isle of Man in the UK and had previously worked on Northwest breakwater jetties etc in Colombo, Ceylon in 1890s. A fellow passenger John Rice on board the ship with my grandfather was a diver, presumably engaged on the same project as J J Crellin. I have searched your historical timeline webfiles but was unable to find anything that I thought looked relevant during that period. I look forward to your reply and any info you can send will be most appreciated. Marsha Donaldson, Waikanae 5036, New Zealand, 24 January 2013.

There are no online or offline civilian employment records available for public inspection in Bermuda. It's (perhaps remotely) possible your g-grandfather might have been employed at that time in Bermuda by Britain's Royal Navy (RN), as it is believed to have been managing or undertaking dredging or surveying of local ships' channels or working on breakwater jetties then. The Royal Navy left Bermuda decades ago and took all its records back to the UK. There might be a reference there. Hope this helps.

I read with astonishment the Royal Gazette of Bermuda news item "Why strip our seniors of their dignity" in which your new Government's commitment to reinstating the medical clinic for vulnerable patients is a step backwards, according to former Health Minister Zane DeSilva. Its closure was cited as a mistake by your new government — and new Health Minister Patricia Gordon Pamplin wasted little time pledging to make good on frequent vows to open the facility again. Indeed, it covered all the bases that it should, and served people who needed its services in an excellent way. It was well placed. Transport was provided for seniors and the physically challenged, through the Red Cross and other charities, so they had ways of getting there. Once there, they could be seen by any of the specialists if they were needed. They had all the testing right there at the hospital, and a pharmacy there for them. It was comfortable, and going there was an enjoyable event for many of them. And, of course, you had to be assessed before you were admitted. It provided free medical attention, free consultations, free testing and free medication. Because of the clinic’s location at King Edward VII Memorial, it had everything under the same roof, with quick and easy access. Transport was right outside the door with the bus stops 100 yards away for people who didn’t have their own cars. It's just a universally-unjust shame that for a country as wealthy as Bermuda, with the World Bank accreditation Bermuda has as the world's most affluent nation, Bermuda Governments past and present have not yet considered doing what less affluent nations including the so-called tax havens of Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, etc. have long done and the British Government here in the UK certainly does, namely give free hospitalization and free medical prescriptions to all seniors and medically vulnerable. Why doesn't the British Government here in London insist that its British Overseas Territories do the same! It's monstrous that it doesn't. Margaret Moore, Fulham Broadway, London SW6 1BG, England, 16 January 2013. 

As a citizen of Great Britain and with a relative working in Bermuda I write to ask if the National Westminster Bank (NatWest)-sponsored Island Games are still planned for Bermuda in 2013? And if so, are they still going to be funded by that bank, which I gather is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)? If so, while I had no problem with that bank hosting the Island Games when that bank was privately owned, I just don't think it is right or fair for a bank which is now majority British Government taxpayer-owned to be still forking out huge sums for offshore Island Games. Instead, it should be using those funds to pay off its debt to British taxpayers. David Graham, Westminster, London SW1, England, January 15, 2013. 

Checked, the RBS is 65% UK Government-owned.

I've been reading bermuda-online.org recently because you have some really useful information on Bermuda that could be valuable for the vacationers who use FlipKey.com, TripAdvisor's vacation rental website.

Replied saying that Bermuda is often confused with the Caribbean but in fact is over 900 miles north of it, with no airlines or ships providing regular services between Bermuda and the Caribbean.  

I'm a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I'm trying to get more information about a 1758 land granting episode sponsored by Governor William Popple that effectively turned St. David's public land into privately held shares.

Referred Ms Gaieski to St. David's Historical Society as they may be able to help with this enquiry.

I’m a reporter for the Wall Street Journal at WSJ.com. I’m looking at the five best/easiest places to benefit from low taxes and to get citizenship.

Please note you can't buy or otherwise quickly obtain citizenship in Bermuda as Monsieur Depardieu did in Russia, you need (a) to have been a law-abiding resident for a minimum period of 10 years and (b) to be married to and living with a Bermudian. Other factors apply uniquely in Bermuda, as the captioned website mentions.

I write to say I liked how Bermuda's Royal Gazette daily newspaper commented about Bermuda's depressed economy.

Congratulations, Bermuda Online, on your both constant and constantly updated, comprehensive files on a vast array of matters relating to Bermuda.

I wonder if you know of any records that might provide further details of my family.

Reply. When the British Army and Royal Navy at the Bermuda Dockyard left Bermuda in the 1950s (except for a token presence until later in the case of the RN) they took most if not all their civilian and military personnel records re their once-active and subsequently de-activated Bermuda military bases with them back to the UK. Only (a) Bermudian and (b) locally-employed apprentices with got some personnel records. British Army and RN military and civilian personnel units then stationed in Bermuda were at designated sovereign military bases areas outside of local government and reported directly via their COs to the UK and were not in any way (except for contravention of local laws for speeding and other minor legal infringements) recorded by Bermuda's local civilian government. This may explain why certain sought-after information never appeared in local (i.e. civilian) records. In the UK, It may necessitate a search of British Army or RN records at Kew in London. It is not known if there is a particular place or office in the MOD or Kew that handles any records from the British Army units once stationed in Bermuda or the Bermuda Dockyard.

I was wondering if you could direct me to a person or organization that might have records for the Royal Naval Cemetery in Sandys Parish. My great-great-grandparents James Bone and Ellen (Miller) Lutman (military records consistently referred to them as 'Luffman') were based on Boaz Island in November 1871, with the 69th Regiment of Foot and according to a record they kept in their family register their second child was born on Boaz and died aged ¾ of an hour. I presume they would have buried their child at the Royal Naval Cemetery. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Greg Stott, PhD, Faculty of Arts and Science, University College of the North,Thompson, Manitoba R8N 0A5, Canada, 11th October 2012. 

It would have been unusual for a Royal Navy Bermuda grave to have been used for a British Army dependant, referred the writer to the Bermuda National Trust as it looks after British Army in Bermuda graves. 

By way of introduction, my name is John Cook. I served in the U.S. Air Force Force for 22 years, including four years at Kindley Field (1956 – 1960). My wife of 54 years (who passed away late last year) was the daughter of E.T. Sayer, long time editor of the RG and General Manager of the Bermuda Press. Though I haven’t been to Bermuda since before 9/11, I still am interested in the Islands, especially historical artifacts, photos and collectables. Of late, I have been assembling a collection of airline badges, buttons and wing of the airlines that once served, or are still serving Bermuda. Did United serve Bermuda before it’s merger with Continental in 2010? Any help would be appreciated. John W. Cook, PO Box 288, Rose Kill, KS 67133-0288. September 27, 2012.

I was totally shocked to hear on the British television stations that an Italian gossip magazine owned by former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi (who I understand from a reliable source owns a luxurious home in Bermuda) published a 26-page spread of topless photos of Prince William's wife Kate today despite legal action in France against the French magazine that published them first.

I write to express my sincere thanks to you at Bermuda Online for the forthright, honest and comprehensive summary of Bermuda's Disability and Physically Handicapped conditions. They told me what I needed to know when, as a severely handicapped wheelchair bound cruise ship visitor, I went to Bermuda recently via the USA. Thanks to your good advice I avoided having to take a super-expensive private taxi van as my only option and was able, using the wheelchair accessible ferryboats to and from Hamilton, Dockyard and St. George's, to see a fair bit of your island. Much appreciated! David M. Black, Toronto, Canada, September 12, 2012. 

I was shocked and appalled to read in the Canadian press of how a Canadian family who had spent over eighteen continuous years as unblemished Bermuda residents and whose daughter was born in Bermuda were unable to obtain Bermuda citizenship. In Canada, well within five years of obtaining permanent residence, which you need to live and work in Canada, you can apply for and get citizenship. I firmly believe that those of us who are Canadians or Canadiennes or Canadians-in-waiting should by all means spend our hard-earned dollars in foreign places where we are welcomed as tourists or visitors and newcomers then citizens within say five years. But we should not go at all as tourists or visitors or as professionally or casually employed persons to those places such as Bermuda that refuse to let us become citizens and vote, even with 18 years of law-abiding residence. Emily Etienne, Montreal, Canada, September 12, 2012. 

A relative worked in Dockyard in the late 20's I believe in the victualling yard. He was there with his wife and four children. Following the death of his wife Daisy Fitzgerald on 4th December 1929 he returned with his children to England/Gibraltar and remained in the Admiralty until the late 50's. I have found online an image of Daisy's headstone in the Royal Dockyard Cemetery. I would like to obtain a copy of her death certificate. Could you offer any guidance on from where to request this? I have been unsuccessful using the usual search engines. I am visiting Bermuda in early October and would wish to pay my respects and visit any other relevant locations while I am there. Thank you for any assistance you are able to offer. Peter Kent, Kent, south east England, UK, September 6th, 2012.

Suggested to Mr Kent that before his Bermuda visit he locate the Bermuda Government's Registrar General. Email to ask if it can issue him with a death certificate and if so how much will it cost and can he go there to collect it? This should be obtainable if (a) his relative's wife died in Bermuda and (b) his relative and his wife were civilians, not serving members or a dependent spouse of a Royal Navy member. If the latter, he may have to go via the Royal Navy, MOD, UK, which left Bermuda decades ago with all its records. 

My name is Priscilla and I work for Global LT, a language training company. Our company provides expatriates and their families with foreign language and English as a second language instruction around the world. I found your Bermuda Online information on Google and I hope you do not mind that I'm contacting you. We are currently looking for an English Second Language tutor in Paget, Bermuda and I was wondering if you would know a professional that would be interested. Our client and her daughter would like lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10-11am and 7-8pm, respectively. So if you know anyone who might be, I would greatly appreciate the referral. We often employ graduate assistants, teaching assistants and instructors seeking to supplement their current income. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Thank you so much for your time and consideration! Priscilla Gambino, Woodslee Drive Troy, MI, USA, August 28, 2012. 

Referred Ms Gambino to Ministry of Education and Bermuda College in hope they might help. 

How nice it is, via a relative working there on contract, to read via your oh-so-informative and proactive Bermuda Online that your government has not allowed your monopoly Bermuda electricity supplier to raise prices arbitrarily and unfairly.

Your Bermuda Online prompted me to write this about my memories of Bermuda.

I found your name while researching Bermuda stamp issues on your Bermuda Online website.

I write to express a particular hope for the new Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) website.

I write as the mother of a daughter who had been planning to get married in Bermuda, so nicely covered by your comprehensive Bermuda Online website.

Greetings, Bermuda Online (BOL)! I am the author of more than 30 books on ghosts and haunted places in the NE United States,

First of all, please know what an incredible resource your Bermuda Online (BOL)  website is - I refer to it frequently. What an amazing amount of work you've put into it. We are in the process of trying to make sure that information regarding St Peter's on various websites is correct and up-to-date. I wonder if you would be able to add an update to your article on St Peter's? 1. Correct Heading: "St Peter's, Their Majesties Chappell. " 2. In 2012, its 400th anniversary year, Queen Elizabeth II honoured St Peter's with the title: 'Their Majesties Chappell', a term first used in the late 1600's during the reign of King William and Queen Mary. 3. If possible, could you replace the existing photo of the church interior with the attached? Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you. Linell Greet, Parish Administrator, St Peter's, Their Majesties Chappell, St George's, Bermuda, July 13, 2012.

Sincerest thanks and congratulations to you folks at Bermuda Online (BOL) for your clear, concise, detailed, logical and well-presented piece on Links and Mentions and how they fit into your methodology. 

I am writing a book about the 1944 captivity of the U-505 crew, from their capture off West Africa, their internment in Bermuda as prisoners-of-war, then their relocation to the USA and post-war return to Germany.

Regret don't know if any photographs exist of the NOB's dispensary or stockade. If any exist they would not be in civilian Bermuda but might be in the archives of the US Navy in USA. When it left Bermuda in 1995 it took all its military Bermuda-related records with it. Those facilities were available only to qualified US staff who most likely all returned to the USA after their Bermuda visit or posting.

To supplement those of the Scottish lady from Fife I'd like to add my own comments about Her Majesty the Queen to your always-informative and proactive Bermuda Online website.

I write as a Scot with a nephew working in Bermuda, hence my interest in your Island and your website as the most informative by far on Bermuda according to my nephew. I

The Queen is not involved in setting real estate tax rates, her government is. But in other ways this writer is correct. According to its last (1991) tax valuation, Buckingham Palace is in Band H, which covers all properties valued at £320,000 or more, in Westminster City Council in London, where Buckingham Place is located. Thus the Queen's annual real estate tax for the palace with all its opulence is less than for a small Band E 3-bedoom house in Cupar. Council Taxes in the UK vary so hugely by local authority jurisdiction that many affluent homeowners such as the Queen actually pay less than or the same in land/property taxes as homeowners whose properties are valued at far less. 

I really like how you guys at Bermuda Online have such a comprehensive website on each one of Bermuda's parishes. 

In your excellent Bermuda Online you noted that "since September 2011 Publicasity UK vowed to come up with innovative ways to encourage Brits to fall in love with Bermuda.

I am UK pensioner who has been hoping to go to Bermuda soon to see English expatriate relatives living and working there. I'm intrigued and concerned by your reports in your Senior Citizens of Bermuda sub-sites and those in recent articles of your Royal Gazette newspaper on the plight of the elderly generally in Bermuda.

In your excellent Bermuda Online  and particularly in your Royal Gazette daily newspaper, there has been a fascinating focus on Bermuda hotels and alarm as to why Bermuda's hotel bed count has fallen so significantly compared to two decades ago.

Your Bermuda Online website clearly has quite a following here in Edinburgh!

As a retired newspaper executive and with a relative working in Bermuda, I've been fascinated by apparent differences in press standards and behaviour in the UK including Scotland and Bermuda, with particular regard to the Leveson Inquiry still going on in London.

What a treasure-trove of 50 year-old information is your Bermuda Online website!  Who would have thought such a specific and narrow data base would be captured on the internet? - US military personnel based in Bermuda from the 1940s to the 1990s! My father, also Joseph J. Narciso, served there in the 55th Air Rescue Squadron from April 1960 to June 1962. We lived on St. George, across the harbor from Kindley, where for years there was a large rusty old shipwreck right off the dock behind our home on Cut Road. I am the oldest of his six children and was aged 10-12 while there, yet my memories are still quite vivid - a visit by President Kennedy; walking to Stella Maris Catholic Church to serve early Mass under Fr. Vallimont; receiving the New York Daily News every day - but always a day late - to follow baseball and the Roger Maris & Mickey Mantle pursuits of Babe Ruth's home run record in 1961; seeing the Ocean Monarch and Queen of Bermuda spill tourists onto St. George; watching construction of the uniquely-shaped and -positioned Sonesta Beach Hotel on Southampton's South Shore; taking visiting relatives from the US on a one-day taxi tour of the islands (Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, Somerset Bridge, Devil's Hole, Fort St. Catherine, etc.). Thank you. Joseph J. Narciso, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, January 21, 2012.

A bunch of us from various parts of the USA are friends and committed NBC-watchers and sports fans. We are planning a trip to Bermuda to coincide with the 2012 Summer Olympics from London, staying in various places you link to and recommend.

Referred this enquiry to VSB Radio/TV. Mike Bishop, Station Manager, replied promptly, saying VSB will be announcing what will be happening this summer in due course. If Mr. Jones or anyone else wishes to call VSB re this topic, the phone number is (441) 292-0050. Suggest all from USA interested in following the NBC-broadcast Olympics while in Bermuda first contact NBC to determine for sure who will be broadcasting from Bermuda.

You chaps at Bermuda Online are on the ball with your astute observations in your Bermuda Government file.

Authored, researched, compiled and website-managed by Keith A. Forbes.
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