You all know what Dejas vu is.
Vujas De is the opposite: the feeling that none of this has
ever happened before, but probably should have.
And that pretty much describes my visit to the oldest
operating pub on the island of Bermuda. But I digress.
It was a dark and stormy night.
No.
Really.
And by Dark and Stormy, I don’t mean the national drink of
Bermuda. It rained like hell for hours and said rain was accompanied by gale
force winds of at least 48 knots, according to one mariner I met. We left Hamilton
in a nonstop torrential downpour, hoping that the weather would change by the
time we got up to The Swizzle Inn at Bailey’s Bay.
It did.
It got worse. Sheets of water flew high up over our bus,
driven by a guy with ice water in his veins, considering the curves of
Bermudian roads even when dry. There was so much water that it was pooling
deeply even on downhill inclines. Now that may be great for Bermudians, whose
house roofs are white to collect rain water in cisterns, but for pedestrians—and
especially for those poor souls on scooters—it was nothing less than Noah’s
weather, with no ark in sight.
So much so, that upon letting us out at the Swizzle Inn, our
bus driver advised, “There’s no better place to be on a night like this.”
Man, was he right.
As we walked into the warmly-lit pub, built into a building
that was erected in 1650, the usual sounds of laughter and clinking glasses
combined with the smells and hubbub of a busy kitchen to make a soggy traveler
feel most welcome. One glance around the place—with its million or so business
cards taped to the walls and low ceilings and other walls covered with
signatures made me ask myself why I had never stopped in here before. Under Vujas De, I felt as though I should have.
 |
| Upstairs |
There are
plenty of rooms upstairs (for bigger parties) and down (for the hoi polloi like
us) to attract the peripatetic pubber, who might spend a decade trying to read
the business cards and writing on just the walls of a single room.
 |
| Carolyn Hart Mungal |
Manager Carol Hart Mungal met us at the door and immediately
made us feel welcome, introducing us to her two affable friends, pub regulars Debbie
and Kevin Hogan, who invited us to join them—even though we looked like drowned
rats. Hey, they were from Jersey, so they had to be cool. The memory of Noah’s
Deluge was now just that—a memory, but the
downpour would impact the night’s festivities—a week-long Oktoberfest celebration—by delaying the bearer of the keg-tapper and his critical tapping tool in a small flood.
downpour would impact the night’s festivities—a week-long Oktoberfest celebration—by delaying the bearer of the keg-tapper and his critical tapping tool in a small flood.
 |
| Debbie Hogan, Jay Correia and Kevin Hogan |
No matter, though. With The Swizzle Inn’s ambience and
Carolyn, the Hogans and the lively, energetic owner Jay Correia to keep us
engaged, we didn’t mind the wait. Especially because the wait included samples
of the pub’s namesake drink: The Swizzle.
But this was, after all, a night of Oktoberfesting, the
third such yearly event Carolyn has managed, and she manages another Swizzle
Inn at the opposite end of the island. With the keg tapper and his tool finally
in the house, the specially imported Paulaner Oktoberfest would erupt from the
keg to find a very temporary home in the mug, and the party was on. Amid
choruses of “Ein Prosit!” and a few “ziggy-zoggy hoy-hoy-hoys,” the attendees
who braved the weather wore porkpie hats and dirndl bibs under the tent
accurately decorated in the Bavarian style.
The pub’s motto is “Swizzle Inn; Swagger Out” and
considering the ingredients, “swagger” might easily become “stagger,” but that
didn’t happen as long as we were there, which was at least four hours. The old
house rang with cheers and laughter, while glasses were raised in celebration,
with old friendships cemented and new ones formed. Little did we know that our
fun adventure was not over—nor would it be “fun,” except in retrospect.
After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to the ship by bus
to Hamilton, where our plan was to board the ferry for the cross-bay trip back
to the dock. But to our dismay, we learned the ferry was canceled due to
dangerous winds. So we got blown around the nearly deserted streets of
Hamilton, eventually arriving at the bus terminal.
Thinking our night was concluded, we rested comfortably in
the hands of another ice-water-veined bus driver. He dropped us off at the dock
for a three-minute walk to the ship.
That walk, however, took nearly fifteen minutes, as we
fought those headlong, 48 knot winds step by step as if in a nightmare where
you think you’re running but you’re hardly moving. The powerful wind had blown
down a line of scooters near the dock, and nearly took the missus herself into
the drink. After reaching and boarding the ship at last, we learned that some
hours earlier, the Captain had given a directive that no one should get off the
ship due to the 55 mph winds—just 9 mph shy of hurricane force.
But we didn’t know. Nor, in retrospect, would we have cared.
And though we “Swizzled Inn” and “Swaggered Out,”we did not stagger.
Unless you count the walk from the bus stop to the ship. But the
Oktoberfest at the Swizzle Inn and the
people we met were worth every step.
Cheers!
The PubScout
