The Berry Islands

Grab a beverage and find a comfy seat; this is a long one.

The Berry Islands are a small chain of islands about 57 nm (nautical miles) SE of Freeport on Grand Bahama and about 72 nm east of Bimini (or about 115 nm east of Miami). The island chain is bordered by the Northwest Providence Channel, the Northeast Providence Channel, and the vast, shallow Grand Bahama Bank. The northernmost islands are Little and Great Stirrup Cays, owned by Royal Carribbean and Norwegian cruise lines, respectively. Royal has dubbed Little Stirrup as “Perfect Day at Coco Cay.” Cocoa Cay is full of beaches, beach bars, water slides, and even a hot air balloon. Great Stirrup is set up as more of an adventure island with ziplines and such. This is from what we’ve read and seen as we’ve cruised by them (7 times thus far). The only town in the chain is on Great Harbor Cay, just south of the Stirrups, population around 400. The Stirrup Cays provide employment for a very large portion of the town. One local we spoke with estimated about 75-80% of adults are employed by those cruise lines in some way. Currently, the cruise lines do not offer excursions to Great Harbor Cay. In town there are two small grocery stores, several restaurants, a marina (one of the best hurricane holes in the Bahamas), several rental properties/inns, an air strip, a bunch of privately owned houses outside of town (owned by foreigners), and lots of friendly people. At the southernmost end of the island chain is Chub Cay, which is a big sport fishing spot that gets a lot of traffic from high speed powerboats from Florida, plus they also provide sport fishing charters for those who fly in. The inbetween islands are either uninhabited or privately owned. I’ll let you look at a map and try to count the number of islands that make up the Berries; I stopped counting at 45. The Berries are not a tourist hot spot, except for Chub Cay, but they do have their regular visitors by land and sea who appreciate them for their quiet, remote anchorages and friendly town. 

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may recall that Dave and I were here with my folks, on Indigo Lady, back near the start of the pandemic in late March/early April of 2020. There are worse places to be stuck for two weeks during uncertain times, but I’m glad we’ve had the opportunity to return and enjoy them differently this year. Yes, the pandemic still rages on, but the Bahamas figured out a way to reopen their borders to the much-needed tourists. Just like at home in the U.S., we follow whatever mandates each island group has in place at the time. 

You don’t come here for the abundant daytime activities and the night life. This is a place where you meet and talk with the locals and get to understand their way of life. When we were here in late May this year, we biked the southern half of the island, walked about town, and met Ronny and Gaynell who own and run Brown’s Garden restaurant. We returned here from the Abacos in mid July and spent a few days anchored off town again. We returned to Ronny’s & Gaynell’s restaurant. The day we lunched there, Ronny invited us to come back for a cookout that evening that was a sendoff for his wife. She was promoted and would be spending a couple of years mainly living and working in Nassau, visiting with Ronny on weekends as one or the other of them would fly over to the other island. What a sacrifice! But they have plans and are working towards them. It was very sweet of Ronny to invite us and Gaynell introduced us to his family. This is the kind of experience one has on an island like this. Had we been here earlier in the cruising season, we would have availed ourselves of the socializing that goes on in Great Harbor Cay Marina. We heard that they do a group cookout on Fridays and pizza takeout on Saturdays. Alas, the marina was mostly empty when we returned in July; only a few boats stopping for a night or two. 

We left Bullocks Harbor the morning of July 21^st and started our trek down the eastern side of the island chain to spend some time at those quiet, secluded anchorages. We weren’t in a rush, so we took three days to get to Little Harbor Cay, the furthest south we planned to go. My post from July 24^th takes you from Bullocks Harbor through our running aground and to the anchorage behind Little Gaulding. We spent two nights at that anchorage, which we did not enjoy because of the current and opposing swell. The morning of the third day we caught the rising tide down to the northwest end of Little Harbor Cay where we anchored on the west side of the island just below the NW point. It was another sandy-bottom, clear water anchorage and well protected, so it was blissfully calm. There was only one (very large) boat moored bow and stern. We stopped by briefly to say hello as they were heading off in their tender one morning. Turns out the owner of the boat also owns Big Gaulding Cay and they were heading over for a cookout. He graciously invited us to come over, but we weren’t in the mood for a hot day ashore so we declined. We spent three nights anchored here. 

While at this anchorage, we found the little trail across to the Atlantic side and walked the beach. We dinghied over to the west side of nearby Comfort Cay to explore the underwater blue holes someone had told us about. Dave explored the blue holes snorkeling. We weren’t sure about the holding for dinghy’s anchor, so I stayed aboard just in case. I wasn’t terribly interested in this blue hole anyway. When Dave finished, he said he was glad he checked them out, but wasn’t interested in trying to move Lady over there to dive them with the hookah. He’s done his share of deepwater diving and is more interested in the reefs these days. After the blue holes, we decided to act upon the real reason we chose to go to Little Harbor Cay- the opportunity to eat at Flo’s Conch Bar. The restaurant was established in 1993 by Chester Darville, who returned to the island of his upbringing after almost 20 years. His mother, Flo, was the head chef until her passing in 2011. The family and workers are the only inhabitants on this island and they occupy a couple of buildings next to the restaurant. Other than a “camp” on the north end of the island, there are no other signs of civilization. Flo’s is not always open, so one has to make a reservation in advance. Unable to reach the restaurant by email, phone, or VHF, we stopped by after our blue hole excursion to arrange to have lunch there the following day. The restaurant is renowned for its Bahamian dishes and they did not disappoint! We did in fact have lunch there the following day, having arranged to have “a little of everything.” We enjoyed conch fritters, lightly battered and fried fish fingers, coleslaw, and Bahamian peas and rice, accompanied by a rum punch. Delicious! We also got to enjoy conversation with a lovely family who was also lunching there. The son/grandson (about 9-10 years old) regaled us with his knowledge of all things science. He was a joy! Lunch was so huge that we ended up bringing leftovers back to Lady that served as lunch the next day. “Dinner” later that night was cheese, crackers and pepperoni, quite late because we were still full from lunch Flo’s was certainly worth the trip!

The following day we caught the afternoon rising tide back to Hoffmans Cay where we anchored and stayed for 10 days. Hoffmans is uninhabited and the epitome of a quiet, remote anchorage. The only other boats we saw were a half mile or more away and anchored either off Little Gaulding or White Cay. A bit different than last year when we shared the anchorage with several boats also waiting to see what the pandemic would bring for cruisers. It is also much hotter here in July and August than it was in late March/early April. The temperature might get as low as 84-85^oF overnight and as high as 89^oF during the day (only saw 90^oF once). There was a period of several days with very little breeze, making it feel even hotter. The days kind of run together at this point. Most days we did at least one thing off boat, but we spent a couple of really hot, nearly windless days onboard in the shade of our solar panel roof, in the hammocks, dipping into the water to cool off as necessary. Most afternoons were spent in the hammocks, followed by dinner and then either games, a movie, or the Red Sox. We also tended to basic chores and some projects. 

Over the course of our stay at Hoffmans we walked to and took a dip in the blue hole on the south end of the island. This blue hole is on land and is fed by the ocean from an opening on its bottom. Someone we met said it’s around 55’ deep. We walked the Atlantic side beach twice, the second time visiting the stranded power boat we saw last year. It has moved! We dinghied into a little bay full of sea turtles and up into the mangrove river on the rising tide. Last year we saw a bunch of fish among the mangrove roots, but this time we saw only a small school of needlefish and a couple of other small fish. Last year we’d seen a school of bonefish in the bay, so this time Dave set up to cast for them but, alas, there weren’t any. We snorkeled the ledges around two small beaches in sight of our anchorage. We didn’t see as much big life this time, although we did see a couple of trigger fish and a 5-6’ shark, which we thankfully only caught a glimpse of before it swam off. It wasn’t close enough long enough for us to identify it properly, but it was probably a reef shark. We walked the long, northernmost beach (also anchorage side) a couple of times. It’s only a “long,” one-mile beach at low tide. You can wade out into the water quite a way in a couple of spots and be standing on exposed sand. At the far end there is a remnant spit of coral that sort of forms a little bay where we saw a baby shark, very whitish and only about 2’ long, likely a juvenile and no idea what species. These walks also revealed one good sized ray, one barracuda, and several trigger fish, all right up in the shallows, plus a bunch of yellowfin mojarras (had to look those up) and little crabs that would scurry away from our feet and burrow into the sand. Along the shore there were many curly-tailed lizards, laughing gulls, plus we saw some sort of heron and an osprey. Our last day at Hoffmans we decided to snorkel off the long beach to see the sealife from in the water. Of course none of the big stuff graced us with their presence that day, but it was a fun and cooling way to spend a hot couple of hours. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Great Harbor Cay. As I write, we are two thirds of the way back. We spent Thursday night anchored off Soldier Cay again. This time we snorkeled to the beach and around the southern point and took a brief walk ashore. Last night and tonight we are anchored in Great Harbor behind the Stirrup Cays. Tomorrow we return to Bullocks Harbor. Monday we will go to Immigration to renew our expiring visas; we’ve spoken to the immigration officer, who is expecting us. Then we start the process of closing up and securing Indigo Lady for the next 5 months or so. We’ll do some of the closeup prep at anchor in Bullocks Harbor where we can benefit from the breeze, but the final couple of days we’ll need to be on a slip in the marina. We booked a room at the nearby inn for those final two nights.

I’m not sure if I’ll have the time or energy to post next weekend. Maybe I’ll knock off something when we’re back in the U.S. and at the hotel next Saturday night. Dave is having an interesting day today, with a couple of troubleshooting/repair jobs, one of which I wouldn’t wish on anybody. You’ll have to wait until next post to find out what that is. 

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!