Bermuda

Bermuda is a long narrow island with many tiny adjacent islands.

We arrived at Kings Wharf with its old fort and associated buildings before setting out on a short minibus tour.

Maybe it was because this was the last port of call or the the fact we could not understand the drivers Bermudan accent but there didn't seem an awful to to see here. It certainly had a lot of very expensive houses, golf courses and small inlets and beaches.

We first went to see one of the islands oldest building and certainly its smallest chapel. This little chapel like all the other properties on the island had a white stepped roof the reason for which was not that obvious. However the North Atlantic island of Bermuda has no fresh-water springs, rivers or lakes. So how did humans ever settle there? The secret is in the design of their houses, and particularly that white stepped roof which is still in use 400 years after it was first introduced.It turns out they are designed this way to harvest rain. The steps slow down heavy rainfall helping the gutters to collect the water and store it in a tank under the house.

Thanks partly to an annual rainfall that far exceeds that of England and Wales, and is spread fairly evenly throughout the year, the tanks are regularly topped up. Each home is self-sufficient. There is no mains water - and no water rates.

This system was forced on the early settlers, because of the lack of easily available fresh water - there are no permanent streams and the lakes are brackish. Later it became enforced in house-building regulations - for each square foot of roof space, all houses must have eight gallons of tank space.

The design of the roof has other benefits. Made of limestone it is heavy and not easily shifted by hurricanes and in the past it was covered in a lime mortar, which had anti-bacterial properties. Now the mortar has been replaced by paint. It's still white, because this reflects ultra-violet light from the sun, which also helps to purify the water.

The only other notable building we went to see was the Gibbs Lighthouse. Built in 1844 by the Royal Engineers it was the one of the first lighthouses in the world to be built of cast iron.

Here a few of the other pictures I took on the island tour.