he trip to Bermuda was the ship's "Twilight Cruise," the last cruise before it entered the mothball fleet. At this point, leasing to the Indonesian Navy had not entered the picture.

It was a strange trip. For the first time, while I was aboard, there was no work to be done. The machine shops, which seemed to generate the most visible activity were quiet and empty, except for the occasional card game or some of the crew listening to records (remember those?)

When word came to us that the Tidewater would be decommissioned and placed into the mothball fleet, we were given the option of steaming to St. Thomas or Bermuda for our last cruise.

The ship's commander reminded us that we had been to St. Thomas on the return trip from San Juan. That information was possibly his way of nudging us to Bermuda. There are golf courses there.

We prepared the ship to get underway and headed for Bermuda. I didn't have a clue where Bermuda was located, other than knowing that it was off the eastern shore somewhere.

A good number of the crew had already been transferred to new duty stations or given early discharges. With no repair work to prepare for, and a large number of the crew gone, the ship was quiet and seemed empty.

When we arrived, we were able to use shore power and fresh water. This allowed the crew to stand normal duty watches and spend more time ashore. There were a fair number of golfers aboard, so we non-golfers were enlisted as caddies or "bag haulers."

Transportation on the island was primarily by bus. Taxi service was very limited. Hamilton is the capital city - very British, you know. The main business is touristism. We arrived in December, which is not the busy tourist season, so we pretty much had the island to ourselves. The restaurants were expensive, but the food was good and the service "very proper."

The island relies on rain water for fresh water. They were going through a bit of a drought at that time. The greenery was a bit brown, but the golf courses seemed to be in pretty good shape. As you can see from the pictures I took, the downtown area is very provincial - you'll catch motorists driving on the "wrong side of the road." Bobbies patrolled the streets, or for the most part, gave us tourists directions to restaurants and stores. If memory serves me, we were there for 3 or 4 days.

Timing is everything - a cruise ship arrived just as we were preparing the ship to head back to D & S Piers at Norfolk.