Read Bermuda – Day 4.

So far all of the sights we had visited during the first four days of our trip to Bermuda were familiar ones we had been to countless times before (both with and without kids). For day five, however, the owner of our vacation rental invited us along with her to Clearwater Beach on St. David’s island, a place we had never been before.

St. David’s is the parish where the airport is location, and that’s typically extent of most tourists’ visit to the area. However, some of the prettiest and nicest beaches on Bermuda are located on St. David’s, including Cooper’s Island Nature Reserve. Cooper’s Island did not open up to the general public until 1995 when the U.S. military left the area of the island they had utilized since World War II. As such, more of the area is untouched and natural.

The ride to Clearwater Beach from our rental in Southampton was nearly an hour. Once there it was packed with mainly locals enjoying their Sunday afternoon. Our host’s family was set up next to Gomey’s Bar at at Clearwater Beach. Gomey’s serves food and drinks and has bathrooms. Gomey’s is located within Clearwater Beach Park. The park has bathroom facilities and outdoor showers. Before we could hit the beach, however, our kids wanted to play on the playground since they’d be going through playground withdrawal.

After sufficiently getting the playground out of their system we were finally able to check our Clearwater Beach and the nearby Turtle Bay Beach. Both beaches were beautiful but we decided to “set up camp” at Turtle Bay Beach. These beaches are also directly located adjacent to the flight path of the airport, so you can an amazing vantage point of the planes approaching and flying low above the water. Fortunately flights are infrequent enough in Bermuda that the interval of incoming planes is as much as 15 minutes or longer so it’s more of a novelty than a nuisance.

While the kids continued to enjoy the beach and water at Turtle Bay, I decided to take a little hike around Cooper’s Island Nature Reserve to check out the sights. I ended up walking down to Cooper’s Island Wildlife Observation Tower which afforded amazing panoramic views of the southern tip of the reserve. There were many people ranging from families with small children to teenagers enjoying the beaches in this area.

After walking back to Turtle Bay we dried off and met back up with our host’s family. They grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and generously shared with us. Sadly our time at Clearwater Beach/Cooper’s Island had come to and end and we headed back to the vacation rental home.

Next up is Bermuda – Day 6.