Captain's Choice blog: The Berry Islands

The Berry Islands consist of 30 islands and 100 cays (pronounced keys) that stretch over 30 miles along the northeastern edge of the Great Bahama Bank. It is written that some of the most beautiful and secluded anchorages in the entire island nation are located here. The Berrys are not as frequented as some of the other islands as they don't offer organized activities or crowds of people. The weather has been good, highs in the mid 70's but with the sun it feels a lot warmer. There isn't much humidity which was surprising to us. Our only problem is the wind...it's always windy and we have to watch closely to plan our next move due to the islands being so spread out.

We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before moving into the marina on Tuesday morning. With decent clarity where we were anchored Mark decided to jump in the water and check the props, anodes and the bottom for sea growth. Everything looked good and we headed into the marina. After checking in our first order of business was getting a SIM card at the BTC (Bahama telephone company), it was just under a mile away so we walked. Next up, clean all the salt off of Captains Choice. This marina offers free water to wash down your boat (.50/gal for potable water) so we took advantage and Mark worked hard to clean her up! As he was cleaning he noticed a bull shark in the water. By the time I got to the bow I only got to see the tail, I'm sure there will be more.

Wednesday we headed over to the beach, which is on the other side of the island, about 1.5 miles away. There are several townhouse/condo properties and several larger homes with beachfront access but we only saw one other family while we took our walk. We stopped at The Beach Club Restaurant, an open air restaurant with an amazing view of the water for lunch. We were told they were out of conch and a few other items. The supply boat comes on Wednesday so Thursday they would be all stocked up again.

A dinghy exploration was decided on for Thursday. It was close to high tide when we left the marina and headed south to Shark Creek. We did not see any sharks but as we made our way through the mangroves Mark spotted a ray in the water. There were many different fish, loved the one that danced on its tail in front of us, also a turtle that moved so quickly I couldn't get a picture. The water is shallow, about 3' and we could see the bottom the whole way but we also knew we couldn't stay there too long because at low tide we would be aground. We then headed to the north side and found the sunken plane wreck and the blue hole. The story on the plane wreck is it was used by drug runners and to keep from being spotted by the Bahamians they flew low, I guess this time it was too low.
A blue hole is a large marine cavern or sinkhole, which is open to the surface and has developed in a bank or island composed of carbonate bedrock. This blue hole is said to be 120' deep and with the distinct water colors it was easy to find. The water was rather choppy from the wind and we did see one big turtle but if it had been calmer it is reported that rays and starfish are abundant.
Thursday is pizza night, which entails ordering your pizza in the morning for delivery that evening to your boat. Each 1/2 hour time slot starting at 5pm can have up to 4 pizza requests. The girls in the marina told me I would not be disappointed so we ordered one, arrived at 6:30 and we were not disappointed.

Mark received a text message that we had used up 75% of our data already which had us questioning how on earth you can do that when you purchased unlimited data...when I called customer service I was told "it's unlimited until you use it up"...ok well I told her very politely that that did not make sense. I was then informed there was a 2g cap, so I stated "well then it looks like I purchased 2g according to you", nope I purchased unlimited with a 2g cap. Well we aren't in Kansas anymore Toto...
I called again Friday morning received pretty much the same response so we headed back to the BTC office to rectify what unlimited means. She told us it's unlimited with a 15g cap, again not really unlimited but she made some phone calls and said we were all set, she added 15g to our plan. When we received the text Saturday morning that we were out of data it prompted another call (BTC ofc is closed Sat-Sun) in which they have no record of adding data but $15 credit to our account. With that we just purchased the 15g. Needless to say the Wi-Fi is pretty spotty so I'm not sure how often I will be able to post to the blog.

After our walk to the BTC office Friday we decided to dinghy to a snorkeling area north of the marina near Great Stirrup Cay. The east side of the island where we dinghy is protected from the easterly trade winds which is why we can take the dinghy out but why we are still at the marina - too windy to move Captains Choice and will remain windy until sometime next week. The dinghy ride took us through a wider channel where we saw several sharks and rays. The water was a little too rough to snorkel by Great Stirrup Cay as it is open to the winds so we tried a few other spots but didn't see much. There were 2 cruise ships docked at Great Stirrup and groups of people enjoying sea doos and a large group swimming in an enclosed area with we believe to be rays. We decided to go back to a beach we discovered Thursday, it was like our own private beach as no one was there except us, its only access is by dinghy.
Friday night is chill & grill night at the marina. For $10 you order a meat (steak, chicken, pork or ribs) and 2 sides, you meet up at the gazebo at 6pm, bring your own drink and socialize and eat dinner with the other boaters. It was fun and the food was good.