Berry Islands

YAY!! We finally have Internet again!

We left Little Harbour at 7:00am just as the sun was coming up and headed for the Berry Islands.  The forecast was for 15-20 knot winds from the ENE.  We ended up with 0-4 knot winds.  This led us to motor all day.  We put the sails up a few times but the wind was not strong enough to fill them.  We had the fishing lines out all day and around 2:00 we had a BIG one!  We saw it jump out of the water 3 times and it was really fighting Preston until it snapped the line and we lost it and our $10 squid.  The rest of the day was just motoring with nothing in sight until around 7:00 just as the sun was setting we could see land.  The plan was to pull in between 2 islands and nestle our boat up behind the point of one of them.  In the guidebook this is supposed to be the best holding most protected anchorage.  Around 8:00 when we were coming up on the islands even with the full moon we were not comfortable navigating the thin channel between 2 rocky islands.  We opted to head north around 2 islands to the wide open back side where we could anchor in the Grand Bahama Bank.  This took another hour and by 9:00 we were coming around the point and getting ready to set anchor.  We dropped the anchor in what looked like sand, but soon found out it was solid rock.  It wouldn't grab anything and so we pulled it up moved the boat a little further and dropped it again.  It immediately grabbed something and we were kind of in the middle of the traffic channel and wanted to move further away.  Now the anchor is so stuck we can’t get it off whatever it has grabbed.  We tried for an hour with no luck and decided we would call it a night and wake up early dive in and unhook the anchor.  We were caught in a strong current all night which went perpendicular to the wind.  This made for a very rolly night as the current was stronger and kept our boat sideways in the waves. 

Got up early, dove in the water that was warmer than the air and unhooked the anchor then we were off to town to stock up on groceries.  Once at Great Harbour we tied up and had 3 staff waiting to tell us what to buy and ready with their personal vehicle to take us to the store.  We jumped in Herbie’s Jeep and off to the “store” we went.  We pretty much cleared the shelves with our 2 grocery bags full of: 1 dozen eggs, 1 onion, 6 packs ramen noodles, 2 bags of chips, 1 six pack of coke (thanks Aaron), and 3 bananas.  We will be running low on supplies until we reach Chub Cay at the bottom of the Berry Islands.  I hope we can catch some fish!  As we left town we commented on how the employees were more than helpful and decided they were just excited to have something to do.  So far every person we have met in the Bahamas has gone out of their way to help us. 

We anchored the boat just around the corner of the marina and jumped in the dingy to do a little exploring.  On the GPS it shows a shipwreck just off where we anchored so we went and checked that out.  We also noticed what we thought was a rock and after a closer look in the dinghy found out it was a crashed plane.  We snorkeled the plane wreck and went back to the boat to try and catch dinner. 

DOLPHIN!!! DOLPHIN!!! Dan was yelling and I ran outside to find 3 dolphins swimming around our fishing lines trying to figure out how to eat the squid we had out chumming some fish.  They swam around a while and then took off into the sunset.  This whole trip every time we are out sailing I always say, “Where are all the dolphins?”  Now we see them anchored in some tiny bay in 8 feet of water.  Go figure.