Boyles offers the 'true sense of Bermuda'

Honeymooners Kyle and Amanda Miller had a blast snorkelling, boating and exploring while in Bermuda, but a kind taxi driver ultimately made their vacation.

The couple did not pay much attention to Devarr Boyles at their first meeting.

They were exhausted on July 21, when they jumped into his taxi around midnight for a ride from LF Wade International Airport to their Warwick Air-bnb.

At Harbour Nights, however, he made an impression.

“I heard this man in a taxi calling my name,” said Mr Miller, who lives in Nappanee, in northern Indiana. “I didn’t recognise Mr Boyles.

“I thought maybe he was just trying to get my attention to give me a ride. I said, ‘This is weird’, but walked over to him.”

The 26-year-old was shocked to see the driver holding his passport, the pages open to his picture.

“It was very crazy,” Mr Miller said. “He said, ‘Kyle, I’m the taxi driver who picked you up from the airport on Sunday. You left your passport in my taxi’.”

He’d been trying to return the passport for three days, calling the Airbnb and knocking on the door twice, without success.

He next planned to take the document to the US Consulate, but then he spotted the couple.

“Kyle has a big red beard; you can’t miss him,” Mr Boyles said. “I called him over and he said, ‘You don’t know me’.

“I said, ‘Kyle, you will want to come over to me. It’s worth your while’. He said: ‘Who put you up to this? No one knows me here!’.”

After handing over the passport to the stunned tourist, he drove off. “I had a passenger,” he explained.

Mr Miller hadn’t even known his passport was gone. On the flight to Bermuda, he’d been “psycho” about checking to make sure his passport was in his backpack.

Once he passed through Customs, he shoved it in his back pocket and forgot about it. Now he thinks it probably dropped out on the ride from the airport.

Mr Boyles found the passport the next morning, while cleaning his taxi.

“I’m a teacher at Whitney Institute and only driving a taxi for the summer,” he said. “When passengers get out, I always check the taxi to make sure they haven’t left anything behind.

“I looked and he looked and we didn’t see anything, but it was very dark. When I got up the next morning and was cleaning the taxi, there it was on the seat.”

He was especially determined to return the passport because he knew what it was like to lose one.

“I have misplaced my passport and never found it,” he said. “That happened to me once in the United States. Luckily, at that time you could come back on a driver’s licence. You can’t do that now.”

The Millers told Lifestyle the driver’s act was one of the highlights of their vacation.

“I gave him $50 for giving me the passport,” Mr Miller said. “If he hadn’t done that, it could have been a bad deal for us. And that wasn’t the first act of kindness we experienced in Bermuda.

“One day I forgot my wallet at the Airbnb. We pulled into the gas station on our scooters and we were totally out of fuel. I couldn’t even get the scooter started again.

“Then someone came up to us and said, ‘Here’s $4 to fill up your scooter; don’t worry about it. Have fun’.”

They had a similar experience at a laundromat in Warwick when they found they needed a special card to operate the washing machines.

“Bermuda’s people are really one of Bermuda’s biggest selling points,” Mr Miller said. “It is such a touristy place that, before we went, we worried that people would be snobby.

“But every place we went, people were super helpful and friendly. I want to thank Mr Boyles for showing the true sense of Bermuda and being generous. He was very persistent and really tried to help.”

The Millers have known each other since childhood. They married the day before they came here.

They had considered the Caribbean, but chose Bermuda because it was a little cooler.

“The average summer temperature in Bermuda is about 85F,” Mr Miller said. “We didn’t want to go anywhere where it was 100F or above. I get hot easily. We considered going to Hawaii, but found a cheaper flight to Bermuda.”

He and his wife are now big fans of the island.

“It’s awesome,” the welding and fabrication company salesman said. “We spent a lot of time at the Dockyard. We rented a boat and cruised around the side of the island.

“We snorkelled out by the sunken ship. We went on a sunset tour around the cruise ships. We ate lots of food and had an awesome time.

“We went to the beach every day. Our favourite beach was Church Bay. The trip was way better than we were expecting — and we had high expectations.”

He said most of their friends visit Cancun, Mexico or the Dominican Republic.

“No one in our circle has been to Bermuda,” he said. “So we’ve just been bragging about it to everyone.”

They left the first day of Cup Match, vowing to return.

“It might be five years or it might be ten, but we’ll be back,” Mr Miller said. “People’s kindness in Bermuda was definitely a factor in that.”

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