Five Fathoms Hole

(East of St. George's Island)

Because it is five fathoms or thirty feet deep Five Fathom Hole is aptly named. Also called by a shortened nickname, The Hole, the anchorage is situated about three miles off St. David's Head and is the designated position where ships await their pilots before traversing The Narrows and entering local ports. That Five Fathom Hole makes a perfect 'welcome mat' for visitors arriving in Bermuda by sea is shown by an eerie song found in The Tempest, the Shakespearean drama which immortalized the island as the 'still-vexed Bermoothes':

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

The Tempest was inspired by the wreck of the Sea Venture and the ordeal of its survivors; oddly enough, a later British poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, had the strange song engraved on his tombstone. Five Fathom Hole is sometimes called Jervis Roadstead, a title which undoubtedly commemorates Admiral Sir John Jervis who coolly faced the French Mediterranean fleet off Cape St. Vincent in 1797. Jervis was created Earl of St. Vincent following the stunning victory in which his fifteen battleships bested an enemy twice their strength. When told by a flustered lookout that there were twenty-seven French ships, Jervis replied 'If there are fifty sail of the line I will go through them'! The Admiral's name was also copied by a courageous 20th-century warship, HMS Jervis Bay, which engaged a German pocket battleship at the outset of World War II. (See Albuoy's Point, Pembroke Parish) An historical milestone for the island was passed on March 1, 1842, when the first steamship to enter Bermudian waters anchored at Five Fathom Hole. She was the Royal Mail Steam Packet Thames, inaugurating what would become a regular call on her trips between the West Indies and England. Her route originated at Nassau in The Bahamas and the stop at Bermuda afforded an opportunity to both pick up and deliver mail in transit to and from the great English port of Southampton. More excitement ensued at The Hole in 1864 when a US-flag steamer Roanoke was scuttled there by Confederate raiders who had pirated the vessel off Cuba and hastened to Bermuda with a hoard of stolen gold worth $20,000. After riding at anchor for several days while attempting to supply the ship with coal, the group's commander, John C. Braine, abandoned the ship and set her ablaze; Bermudian authorities, urged by US Consul Charles Allen to arrest Braine for piracy, excused the affair as legitimate under a Letter of Marque but chastised the Confederate for landing fine Havana cigars without paying the customs duty!