Travel Plan: A Trip to Understand The Bermuda Triangle

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(Image source: grammidistoria.wordpress.com

Hi Traveler, 

You are a fan of mystery, the inexplicable, and you would love to go probing the geographies, home to such mysteries. For someone like you, the Bermuda Triangle is now not an intangible puzzle. You can visit this region of the sea by entering it from three land masses, which form the three endpoints to the triangle. 

The Bermuda Triangle: Basic History and Facts

An imaginary triangle drawn connecting Florida, the Bermuda Islands, and Puerto Rico in the North Atlantic Ocean will give you the Bermuda Triangle. The area of this sea stretch is around 1.3 to 3.9 million square kilometres. The exact boundaries of the triangle are not demarcated. Different people at different times set vague definitions of the area under the triangle.   

In December 1945, five Navy training aeroplanes navigating the sky above the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, with 14 men on board, disappeared. A rescue mission was launched, and one of the planes sent also vanished. This incident was at the core of the global mystery narrative surrounding the triangle. The missing flights collectively were named Flight 19. 

Centuries before this incident, Christopher Columbus is reported to have seen a strange light, like a candle lifting in the sky in this region. In his travel log of his first voyage to the American continent, Columbus wrote about it on 11th October 1492. 

The Navy cargo ship, USS Cyclops, also disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1918. All the 309 men onboard went missing. 

 The search operations for Flight 19 in the sea below did not yield even a piece of wreckage. The radio transmissions from the aeroplanes had indicated that their compass failed, and they were confused about which direction to fly. Confusing distress signals reached the shore from the other disappearing ships and flights. The crew of these aeroplanes were never seen again. More surprisingly, many other missing vessels and flights sent “all is well” messages before they vanished. 

The Bermuda Triangle’s 1600 Ghost Ships

More strangely, 1600 ghost ships- abandoned or damaged ships with no people on them- are floating in and around the sea of the Bermuda Triangle. The US Hydrographic Survey counted them floating there. The survey was undertaken from 1887 and continued for 7 years, ending in 1894. 

Before rushing to believe the weird speculations, we must investigate whether there is a scientific explanation. The science of oceanography says that the area where the Bermuda Triangle is situated is home to a phenomenon called doldrums. A lot of warm, moist air rises to the atmosphere at the tropical sea and travels towards the poles, descending back to the sea in the Bermuda Triangle area. This causes the area to have almost no winds. The stillness of the waters might have made the navigation of sailships impossible. 

Another problem the ships faced might have been the Sargassum weeds that grew in these parts of the sea, spreading over hundreds of kilometres. The boats and ships would get stuck in them and run out of food and other provisions. This explains, to some degree of plausibility, why there are so many ghost ships in this part of the sea.

However, one question remains. Where did all the people on board go? There is no fully candid explanation offered for that so far. One argument is that without fresh water, the sailors might have started to drink the salt water, and this could have led to hallucinations, leading them to abandon the ship and jump overboard. Yet, it is hard to believe that all the crew members of those 1600 ships repeated this behaviour. 

There are many sandbanks and sharp reefs beneath the water in the sea at the Bermuda Triangle. The sea in this area is also prone to hurricanes. All these could have caused shipwrecks. Diving expeditions have examined some of the shipwrecks in the Bermuda Sea. One ship was torn in half. There is a rogue wave theory to explain this. In 1995, such a wave twice the size of a normally big wave was detected off the coast of Norway. When lifted by a rogue wave to 80 metres or 100 metres height, a ship built in steel can snap into two, explain scientists. Rogue waves are rare and cannot fully explain the mystery of 1600 ghost ships. 

Travel to Bermuda Triangle

Let the strange theories rest. Let us plan a visit to understand this sea mystery in its multitudinous aspects.  

The first stop in exploring the Bermuda Triangle is the Bermuda Island. It is 630 miles to the shores of Bermuda Island from the Triangle’s centre. On the northeast coast of this island is the King’s Wharf, the Royal Naval Dockyard. King’s Wharf is located exactly at the northern tip of the Triangle. 



(Bermuda cruise ship Norwegian Spirit; image source: flickr.com)

The chapel here is 400 years old. You can hire boats from King’s Wharf to venture into the sea. The Bermuda Triangle Twilight Cruise will go straight into the triangle with the tourists. It is a night cruise in a glass-bottom boat. The boat's crew will tell you about the disappeared ships and all other mysteries while you get a glorious view of the sea bottom through the glass floor. 

Other tours circle the island and show you shipwrecks close to the shore. HMS Vixen is one such shipwreck that you can see. There are virtual reality tours, water sports, diving near the Triangle and shipwrecks, and private charters to explore deeper into the Triangle mystery. Tour operators reassure you in their publicity material and websites that you will not disappear if you take this trip. Insurance companies do not hesitate to insure these vessels. No other proof is needed to believe that this voyage is not dangerous. You are no longer venturing into the sea in a sailship but modern boats well equipped. 

Hamilton is the capital of Bermuda Island. Hamilton and its ‘Lost in the Triangle’ restaurant is worth visiting. St George’s Town is the former capital of Bermuda and has cobblestone avenues and colonial architecture. There are many beach resorts on Bermuda Island offering a comfortable stay.   

If you want to do further research, you can go to Florida. You can also try to meet Bruce Gernon, the lone survivor who experienced the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle and lived to tell the tale. He had flown over the triangle in 1970 and reportedly experienced a strange phenomenon. His plane was caught inside a black cloud emitting strong flares that looked like lightning. He had to navigate inside the cloud for a while, and then, when his plane finally got out of it, he felt weightless for another few minutes. He could safely land in Miami, but his flight time, compared to his regular flights in the past, was less than the normal time to fly the path. 

He lives in South Florida, and his website, electronicfog.com, is a huge database about the Bermuda Triangle and his odd experience. 

Nowadays, passenger aeroplanes regularly fly over the Bermuda Triangle daily. Between 1945 and 2017, only 20 planes went missing over the Bermuda Triangle, which need not be a matter of worry when we compare it to the number of plane crashes happening in other parts of the world. If you are fascinated by the idea, you can book a seat on a regular flight. Flights from the US East Coast to Puerto Rico, or a flight from anywhere in Europe to Jamaica, will fly over the Bermuda Triangle. 

If you want to visit the third entry point of the triangle, you can travel to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. There are spectacular beaches, and you can go swimming and surfing there. You can also visit the El Yunque Rainforest, El Morro Fort, San Cristobal Fort, San Juan Bautista Cathedral, sea caves, the bioluminescent bays, and sail to islands without human habitation.



(San Juan, Puerto Rico, image source: goodfreephotos.com)

The most recent ‘scientific’ revelation about the Triangle came from The Science Channel in 2016. The Channel, in a documentary, claimed that they had solved the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. The documentary explained that hexagonal cloud formations in the atmosphere of the Triangle cause rogue waves and storms, which are behind the disappearances of planes and vessels. The scientific community has not shown much enthusiasm for this claim. 

The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle does not have the previous numinous charm. Yet, for a traveller looking for fascinating destinations, the Triangle is a rare beacon of light, set in our history and cultural memories, showing direction. 

https://www.brokenbangles.com/2024/11/travel-plan-visit-himalayas-and.html 

References

The Curse of the Bermuda Triangle (Full Episode) Atlas of Cursed Places, National Geographic, April 23, 2022, Youtube. 

electronicfog.com


Risk It All on a Beach Vacation to the Bermuda Triangle, Katherine Daue, April 28, 2019, beach.com


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