The case of the missing campsite

After that night when we were caught sleeping on the golf course, we had an interesting set of events that ultimately led to us not having a campsite. You might be thinking, "a golf course? what is wrong with them?" Sometimes, when I'm alone, I ask myself the same question out loud.

We were stranded in St. George's because, being Sunday, the buses stopped early, and, being tourists, we had no clue. Since our tent was so far away, we picked a nice looking tree on the 9th, and made due.

In the morning, we resumed our search for a new boat. St. George's Harbor is where all incoming and outgoing boats must pass through customs, so it's a good place for us to be. We have a few possibilities, but no definite plan. Grant is still in the area, and we avoid eye contact but sometimes we run into him on purpose. We found 'Sly Dog' to get the remaining food we'd left on the boat and Grant put up some resistance and banned us henceforth from ever returning to the boat. The thought that he needed to ban us from the boat is slightly amusing.
"I quit!" -- "You can't quit because you're fired!"

Moving on.

We eventually got back on a bus towards Horseshoe Bay, near our campsite, but not before buying some Gotslinger's rum and a packet of sausage to cook on the beach. Upon returning to the site we found that it was missing.

"Isn't this where our tent used to be?" Alex sputtered, mouth agape.
I nodded dumbly in agreement, but had not an answer.

We called the police and they were very friendly. It is a strange feeling being on the right end of a police investigation. We would later find out that the Bermuda Parks Department had confiscated all our stuff (including passports -- lesson learned). We were camping illegally, and, being tourists, had no clue.

Alex was pretty down, and understandably. We thought that all of our camping gear had been stolen, and since I'm using all his old gear, it hurt him doubly. We still had what we bought in St. George's and Alex still had his camera. Alex rolled up two cigarettes, normally I don't smoke, but I thought this was as good a time as any to start.

The hand rolled cigarettes look like joints so we pulled some looks from families walking back to the resort. Also, we were grumpy and we smelled bad because we slept on a golf course the night before. It could have been worse. After all, we still had the rum.

After a good smoke, Alex turned to me.

"Well, f*ck it. We've got some sausages."
"And rum" I agreed.

We made a fire in a cove on the beach and cooked some sausages. I dug up a huge stump for the fire, but Alex said we couldn't use it because it was too big. There is nothing that is too big to burn in my opinion.

Later we saw a man staring out to the ocean and we invited him over. His name was Orlondo and I have never met a nicer person in my life. We hung out for a while on the beach and then put the fire out. Orlondo gave us his phone number and Alex and I snuck over the dune to the fancy resort next door. We slept on the beach chairs and we didn't start smelling any better.

We spent the next day tracking down the parks department and having our things returned. The fine for illegal camping is $100. When we inquired about how to camp legally, we were told it would be another $100 deposit plus $12 bucks a night. No thanks, we just gave you $100. We called Orlondo and he said we could camp on his land for free. While we waited for him to pick us up we sat on the office porch and drank rum and pineapple juice. The juice came from a can that we got from grant and it had diesel all over it. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention there is a diesel leak in the boat. It made the rum taste better.

Bermuda is a strange place. After the departement finished slapping our wrists, they were very friendly and helpful. "Oh you're looking to crew on a boat? Let me call so-and-so, they might know somebody" In the United States the people who write your citations aren't so willing to smile. Anyway, we eventually met head ranger, who packed our stuff. He said that he was "Sorry for the inconvenience."

Not as sorry as I am guy, but it's hard to hate on such a friendly person.

We set up a new camp and walked to the store to buy dinner. I could see in the cashier's face that we hadn't showered in five days. That is okay because we still had some rum left.

I'm glad we didn't take any pictures because we had a very homeless look. Also we were drunk.

Mother be proud.

Rum Drink from Topher Wright on Vimeo.