Photos: Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Flotilla Sets Sail
[Updated] Bermuda’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations kicked off this afternoon [June 2] with dozens of boats — many decorated with flags — making their way from Hamilton to the West End.
Governor George Fergusson and other dignitaries boarded the JL Cecil Smith [the same ferry on which Her Majesty travelled in 2009], while a small crowd gathered at Albouys Point to watch the flotilla set sail.
The Jubilee celebrations continue this afternoon with a Street Festival sponsored by WEDCo in Dockyard, while this evening will see the Lighting of Beacons at Commissioner’s House, Fort Hamilton and the recently renovated Fort St. Catherine.
Governor George Fergusson will participate in lighting the beacon at Fort St. Catherine in St George’s, which will be one of a network of over 4000 Beacons being lit by communities throughout the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, along with the Commonwealth and UK Overseas Territories.
Tomorrow there will be a Service of Thanksgiving at St. Peter’s Church in St. George’s, followed by the Jubilee Garden Party in the churchyard which will feature the debut performance of the Jubilee Fanfare. In addition, Project Action are holding a Bermuda Reception “High Tea” at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess at 4pm.
A special design of the traditional Bermuda Palmetto Palm Doll was created by local artisan Ronnie Chameau as a special gift to the Queen on behalf of the people of Bermuda, while the Bermuda Sea Cadets were selected to participate in the historic Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant in London.
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II is a multinational celebration marking the 60th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II to the throne after the death of her father, King George VI, on 6 February 1952. The Queen’s coronation took place on 2 June 1953. She celebrated her Silver Jubilee [25 years] in 1977 and her Golden Jubilee [50 years] in 2002. View a video of today’s Flotilla here.
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- Beacons Lit For Queen’s Diamond Jubilee | Bernews.com | June 3, 2012
Long Live The Queen.
I say old boy,jolly good…what oh!
cucumber sandwiches anyone?
I don’t see the Paula Cox…
Well, you’d never get any of the PLP attending…they simply retain too much bitterness and anger.
Oh, and the assclown of a ferry driver who rattled through Two Rock at 20+ knots close to many small boats deserves to be severely c*ckpunched.
Yes, I was one of three spectators (well, maybe six) and was appalled at the speed of the ferry. Did no one tell him? Thank you to those boats who first did circle the Harbour.
Our poor showing makes me even prouder – LONG MAY SHE REIGN OVER US!!
HOME SWEET HOME ! SURLY MISS BERMUDA !
What a missed opportunity. Cayman are celebrating hard, Gibraltar have gone to town, and what do we do – a paltry boat parade. Why is that? Maybe the chip on the PLP shoulder. Suits them to attend the Royal Wedding or accept the honours, but will they ever acknowledge we are proud to Bermudian and British?
hypocrites.
Am I the only one thinking there are political motivations at work here? We do absolutely nothing as a nation when we should be celebrating a major occasion. Depressing to be in Bermuda this weekend, everyone else is partying.
A major tourism promotional opportunity missed.
we take the Knighthoods, MBE, OBE, CBE’s b ut so do we despise being under British “rule”….what a country of misguided marionette dolls we can be. what a missed opportunity as a TOURIST destination……………..
What a waste of time and money this. I really don’t understand the celebrations around this jubilee, Mrs. Windsor was born and by sheer accident she happened to be born to the family she was and, voila, she’s head of state! And we celebrate the fact that she hasn’t died yet…
I mean, it’s great when anyone is born and lives a long life, but this ‘feat’ of hers is no more remarkable than many others. The whole institution of the monarchy belittles us all, and yet there are those who go around slapping each other on the back for being the ‘subject’ of some accident of history.
It’s time we moved on and get rid of this whole ridiculous institution.
It cost us a LOT less than your little Marxist friends cost us yesterday with their chanting and ranting through Hamilton. In fact with a little marketing the People Lacking Principles could have turned this whole celebration into a money maker for Bermuda.
I bet you didnt complain when your PLP government anounced a PUBLIC HOLIDAY because they were elected 13 years ago!!! If I remember correctly that cost us 11 million I believe in govenrnment wages alone? And we’ve been paying ever since.Some please shut up when it comes to wasting money!
Changing goal posts or throwing oranges into a debate about apples. Nice tactic…
So, by your logic, next time someone makes a complaint (and they’re increasingly valid) about the government’s wasteful expenditure of resources, I, or someone else, should just wade in and tell them to ‘shut up’ because they didn’t complain about the waste of money on things like the monarchy? Bravo…
For the record though, no, I didn’t support the idea of a public holiday for the PLP’s 1998 election. I thought it was unnecessary, although I understood the sentiment attached to it, one that makes more sense (at least then…) than glorifying parasitical institutions like the monarchy.
parasitical institutions..that’s pretty bitter.
And wrong, everyone knows they give countries that retain and embrace them massive financial benefits. Anyway, its hardly the silver spoon of old, thrust into the limelight, goldfish bowl existence – would you really choose that?
It’s true that a hereditary head of state who is also head of the church doesn’t stand up to any rational examination. A church, that Hitchens described as “being based on the family values of Henry VIII”. And it today’s world, it’s archaic.
That said, oddly enough it seems to work. It keeps respectful the standard of public debate and discourse (something our pseudo socialist halfwits here would do well to imitate). Constitutionally, no real power but the reality is that it tempers extremism and creates a constant “normality” or standard that is impossible to achieve with elected heads of state.
So, celebrate the Jubilee, enjoy it for what it is and it is a very real shame our disgraceful mouth breathing politicions couldn’t celebrate with us or seize a great opportunity (at the very least) to promote Bermuda. Shame on them.
Of course, I know why. It would destroy their narrative of race and plantation when the election comes. Scum.
Call the BIU and be sure to order some KFC and let’s have a party… Who knows, maybe the queen will show….
Yawn, stretch at the same time I might add.
To J Starling…..
Bermuda and the rest of the World are NOT celebrating the fact that she has lived a “long life” MORE that she has served her country for over 60 years with dignity and poise. FOR THAT GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
@ Royalist – Has she served her country? Or has her country served her? J Starling hit the nail right on the head. A ridiculous antiquated institution.
Yet we use their laws, their customs, their language, measuremets etc….
And one that brings in BILLIONS of pounds to the UK. Look at The Royal Wedding last year, the entire US network devoted days to it – what unbelievable tourist marketing that is. And we could have done the same kind of thing, instead we do a christian events, a golf tournament and valentines weekends, that NOONE shows up for. And what’s more half the island are British ex-pats, have British family or support a Premier League Team, it would have been a lot of fun.
This is completely debatable, that they bring in ‘billions’ to the UK. I’m sure the tourists would still come (and we’d probably make more of them) if we opened up Buckingham Palace, and all the hundreds of thousands of pieces of art, as well as their additional palaces/castles, to the public as various museums. And there is no reason the various pomp associated with the monarchy, which I reckon you may be referring to as a tourist attraction (changing of the guard, the beefeaters, etc.), could not continue in association with an elected head of state instead of some accident of history.
In addition, the Monarchy owns various productive estates, from which they are not taxed, have no inheritance tax on their immense wealth, AND receive an annual ‘salary’ of millions from the State. I’m always amused at British conservatives who rant on and on about welfare queens in the council estates, and yet fall over each other to blub about the biggest welfare ‘Queen’ in the UK.
That the US and other people (including sectors of the UK) gush all over the monarchy should be seen, I think, as a result of the ‘celebrity’ culture that the media helps foster (which itself works hand in hand with the capitalist state to both sell ‘fashion’ and various worthless trinkets, and to misdirect people from a more radical critique of their existence), I mean, who’s more an empty celebrity than the monarchy and it’s family? They have everything on a silver plate, and yet they are remarkably unremarkable in their achievement, their biggest one being simply being born by accident in some accident of history. And we gush all over these empty celebrities.
The estates are taxed these days (perhaps not as much as they should be) and the Monarchy by all reasonable measures is a net contributor to the exchequer.
The pomp and circumstance is generally military in origin and would vanish without and monarchy.
So, keep your faux socialism to yourself (we all know it doesn’t work in any form) and stop being so bloody miserable.
Spot on, it just would have been nice to have a party. What’s wrong with that? You PLP lot are no fun anymore.
LOL, what I find miserable is the spending of millions of pounds (both private and public) on these events while, at the same time, millions of pounds are being cut to social welfare services, to education, healthcare and so forth. That conservatives attack mythical welfare queens while fawning over the epitome of a welfare Queen. That this process is used to indoctrinate a whole new generation into the stupidity of forfeiting their democratic right to an elected head of state and that this ‘patriotism’ is used similarly to glorify imperialist adventures and state terrorism throughout the world in the name of ‘Queen and country’. Yes, I find that pretty darn miserable.
As for faux socialism, what of you’re faux democratic credentials? Surely your forfeit any claim to democracy by embracing the idiocy of a hereditary head of state and privilege?
As for the royal finances, I’ll direct you to this link: http://www.republic.org.uk/valueformoneymyth.pdf
It’s from a pro-republican organisation true, but as the myth of the monarchy being cost-effective for us is perpetuated by the monarchy itself, I think it’s good to hear the other side. Happy reading comrade!
That’s intellectually dishonest and you know it. State sponsored terrorism. Really?
Perhaps we’d have less “welfare queens” if we hadn’t had 12 years of New Labour incompetence!
As per ‘state sponsored terrorism’ I see no other way to describe the terrorist use of drone and missile attacks throughout Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and, most likely, elsewhere, or the direct and indirect aid (including transfer of military technology) to despotic regimes (such as Bahrain) and those engaged in continuing apartheid (Israel). Or, for that matter, the illegal war in Iraq…
Ah..ok.
Where would you like to begin The use of drones in a country that takes aid with one hand and with the other, harbors people who want to install a theocratic dictatorship on us all, and will use suicide bombers to prove the point?
Or in the case of Iraq..a regime that used chemical weapons within its own borders on the Kurds, that invaded neighboring sovereign states (in the case of Kuwait) annexing it, harboured international terrorists (the guy that pushed the disabled Jew off the cruise ship operated from an Iraqi government office and prior to OBL was the World’s most wanted man) and his continued pursuit of wmds (although it looks like we got there in time). The West had a moral obligation to intervene.
And that’s without going into too much detail. The left wing is always inconsistent, and dare I say it, dishonest. You are too hung up Dubya and his perceived rush to link Al Queda with Iraq.
Theocratic bullies need to be destroyed.
Further, NATO did the same thing in Bosnia to prevent further genocidewithout UN sanction and hasn’t yet received a word of thanks.
Go back to Scotland Jonathan and rant there. You like to stir up trouble and we have enough troublemakers here already
Nice, so, if one criticises one of your sacred cows your response is to simply tell them to leave. No engagement with thought for you; someone disagrees with you and your response is, rather than to engage your intellect you just try to push away the issue altogether. How very democratic of you…
Another tourism promotion oportunity missed for sure. Like it or not, Americans love the British & anything to do with Royalty. Bermuda blew it last year by ignoring the wedding. Blown it again this year with their stupid attitude towards Britain.
We did have the Spring Break Reunion though. No-one came to it, of course.
Have to agree with Triangle Drifter. For a destination that is having problems trying to attract tourist why didn’t the department of tourism use the occasion to our advantage. Same goes with the upcoming Highland Games. With many Canadians and Americans having Scottish ancestry how much promotion has that been given in those nations.
People who celebrate this occasion are fools and puppets of the elite. Yes, this is being broadcasted (in most places) and the American media and Canadian media are jumping on the story because 95% of all major media is controlled by the same people that control major world governments, create wars, create distractions from God and are so good at making you worship or adore people who have done absolutely no good to human progress. Time to shift our focus to those who are dying of hunger, war, injustice under our watch. I don’t wish the queen any ill will, but deep under that innocent face she is part of an agenda that you will never understand or accept. Good luck people…Long live the people who are fighting to change the world for a better place and die fighting for that cause. AS for the queen, long live her for the people who she really cares about….and it’s not you!
Utter rubbish. These sentiments have nothing to do with the monarchy. I’d try the other side of bed tomorrow.
Yes most find the monarchy old hat but promotion of this would have provided tourism dollars which ends up in all our pockets! The same can be said of international business .
Simple as that .bermuda has done well with a little Britian role for years but oh I forget we all wanna be ! American now ,and listen to island reggae and smoke weed to block out the depression of knowing the heydays of Bermuda is over the reality is anyone over 30 with never see it again in their lifetime so work hard and save your pennies( or cents lol ) folks !