Vacation to remember May 3rd, 2002Dear Sir,We would like to express our sincerest gratitude at the generosity and compassion many Bermudians expressed during our trip to your Island last November. This was our fourth trip to Bermuda (and to the Mermaid Beach Club) and if it wasn't for all the nice people we encountered during this trip, our image of Bermuda would have been spoiled forever.

As you may recall from your article on Page 4 of your November 14 issue, we were attacked at knife point in the middle of the night in our bedroom at the Mermaid Beach Club, on the first night of our holidays (Monday night, November 12, 2001) by two unidentified burglars.

I was awakened with a knife at my throat just before 4a.m.! My wife started yelling and confronting the two strangers who had made their way into our room through a defective patio door with a corroded lock.

After one of the burglars slashed his knife in the air in front of us — nearly missing us several times — we managed to chased them out of our room and called Police. We were so relieved to see that our four year old daughter who was with us the whole time was unharmed in this incident.

I lost my wallet, money, credit cards and several other cards, but thank God none of us was hurt. Almost six months later now, and I still feel the ripple effect of this incident and wake up with visons of armed burglars in my room and leave some lights on in my house overnight.

We would like to recognise the people who helped us through this ordeal and made sure that we maintained a positive memory of Bermuda. They are:

Elbow Beach Hotel, Emma Weatherhill among others;

Dolores G. Thomas, Elbow Beach Cycles Limited;

David Dodwell, MP for Southhampton, Reefs Hotel Restaurant;

Bermuda Tourist Association;

June and William (Porky) Soussa;

Lee Kerr;

Judy Baum, Spicelands Riding Centre;

and Chris and Chrissy Weatherhill;

You will notice that the Mermaid Beach Club is not on this list since they never acknowledged any concern over this incident and took more than three months and repeated requests to refund the unused second day of our two days deposit (We obviously moved to a safer location after this first night trauma).

Thank you once more to all the really nice people of Bermuda,

Beverley, Sara and Fran|0xe7|ois Mayer

Vancouver, Canada