Top of the Berrys...our last Bahamian hurrah! April 19-23

DISCLAIMER:  This is long because it's the last Bahamas Cay of our trip and I'm wistfully wandering down memory lane while writing it...hopefully you will please take a look at the photos because they tell the story of this amazing final stop on our journey!

We had a great trip to the Berry Islands and headed north toward Great Harbour Cay where we intended to anchor in a nice little harbor on east (ocean) side for a day or so then possibly move around to the 'inside' or the marina.  There were a handful of boats in the anchorage but we found a perfect spot tucked on the south side by the "seashell" beach and in a nook of sorts.  The first thing we had noticed was that the water was no longer blue but green...crystal clear emerald green. Whoa.  Look a cruise ship is anchored up at Stirrup Cay--those things are massive.  Hey is that smoke coming off the top of the Island?  What the?!

We anchored in that perfect crescent cove

Thanks Google--this image I found told us where Shark Creek was and the Beach Club! You can't see how little and narrow the cut is into Bulluck's Harbour but trust me.

Anchored in the emerald waters...so pretty

Oh but first let me tell you about our fishing adventure...Jon's fishing adventure, since he was the official fisherman of the trip.  They decided to put out a line even though we had pretty much crossed the majority of the deep Sound water.  Well, they got a bite!!  It was a relatively easy reel in compared to the mahi experience from months earlier.  Oops, that's no mahi...it was a barracuda and he was a bigun' but as Mark got the pliers to get our hook back, Jon got it without incident and saw that the line was just wrapped around its tooth.  So that was our exciting barracuda adventure in the Berrys. 

Fisherman Jon!

Freed from the line wrapped around his tooth

Ok, so back to the Berrys.  Mark called it on the smoke we saw from miles away--a fire, not burning trash (which of course was so unlikely because 1) it was Sunday and 2) one or two cruise ships were anchored north).  We found out the next day that it was a wild fire that had started deep in some brush and inaccessible.  On top of that, Great Harbour Cay does not have a fire truck...most of the Bahamas do not with the exception of New Providence, aka Nassau, and Eleuthera in the larger settlements and the hot spots like George Town.  So this means that the folks are fighting fires with small trucks and tanks and essentially garden hoses.  They try to do what they can because fire on an island is devastating.  On our bike ride along the Cay we saw first hand how wide spread and scary the fire really was.  It burned all day and into the night where we could see the glowing of the embers from the boat.  It had started up again at one point then the rain happened.  Just in time to help give the Cay inhabitants the upper hand.

The fire was a couple of miles and had jumped the road.

Still smoking at sunset...you could see the glow of the fire that evening.

After we settled in, and after some map checking and binocular scanning and web searching, we figured out exactly where the Beach Club was located...did we go that afternoon?  I think so but honestly don't remember.  Yeah, I think we did go. But I think we also jumped in the water and snorkeled around the boat.

The Beach Club!

Oh the view!

We are over there tucked in

The house I saw and must must have...don't care where it is, must have

So striking

That doesn't matter because the next day was a super important huge day for the Stray Cat--our very own Jon Graham had a birthday!!!  It's hard to be away from 99% of your friends and your family for so long and especially on your birthday so we wanted to make sure Jon knew how big our happy wishes were.  What better way to say that than with special birthday pancakes!  That was followed by a dinghy tour of Shark Creek and a special unexpected treat--walking in the shallows with little sharks.  Nice birthday suprise!  From there we had a walk on the beach and happy birthday celebration at the Beach Club. 

Birthday Pancakes for our Birthday Boy!

Going on our trip into Shark Creek

Deep in the creek, narrow and shallow, so many mangroves

Our first ray spotting on the way out

Sharks and Rays

Birthday sharks!

Awesome underwater shot of one of the sharklettes

Isn't he the coolest

Looking from the beach on Hawksnest Cay towards the anchorage

Our birthday boy!

Birthday Kalik and burgers comin' up!

We took a walk over to the Marina via an old abandoned Club House.  I cannot figure out for sure but I'm thinking this is the one that the Rat Pack had created (along with the Marina and channels, etc) for their personal enjoyment back in the day.  Supposedly they had alligators brought in for some excitement and they may or may not be there.  Now a local real estate lady we met at a bar by the marina says "that is absolutely not true".  Hmmmm...

That same bar by the marina had once been gorgeous and upscale but sadly that is no longer the case and the pool looked hazardous and the bar was not exactly inviting.  The British couple who owns it were nice enough and that was our first meeting with the now Facebook post famous "Angie".  No words for her and we figured out that the slurry mouthing of words and emphatic gesturing was to tell us not to leave the bar because the owners think she drives the customers away.  Uh, um, yeah well...  My response to her was to pick up my beer bottle and look at her and say something along the lines of "I have a full beer, I'm not leaving".  Bizarre experience.  We left that place none to quickly and went back to the Beach Bar--much nicer and more comfortable for us three US kids.  And low and behold, who gets let out of a car not 20 minutes after we got there?  Angie.  OMG, this is too crazy...you'll have to just read my Facebook post about it below and I say again, my mom would have been proud of me.

Hey, what is that thing?!

Oh that's pretty cool looking

So on the way back we HAD to scope it out

Getting a bit creeped out

Plants still in that planter box...so obviously haunted

Pretty intense looking storm clouds

Another attempt to have a consistently cold fridge and stop losing our half 'n half. Defrosted and sealed gaps!

The 'famous' Angie post

 Our next island adventure involved bikes and going over to find the BTC office and see what the actual settlement was like.  The town was a perfectly nice smallish Bahamian settlement town with people working and going about their lives and children going back to class from their lunch period.  It was busy on the dock because the delivery boat had arrived that day--this one included produce that the Cay hadn't received in two weeks.  Think about that for a second...they did not have produce delivered for two weeks and in the US our grocers throw away produce because it doesn't sell.  We are very lucky here and hardly know it. Being mindful and grateful for the bounty we take for granted here is another lesson of this trip.

After our little tour of the town and finding that the BTC office was past the marina down another road, Jon took care of that business while Mark and I went merry along taking side roads here and there and found a path overlooking the narrow cut from the west side into Bullocks Harbour.  That had to have been dug out, no way was that natural right?  Jon ended up catching up with us as we were making our way back to the main road and north to the top of the island.  My destination goal was Sugar Beach Caves which I had read about on Trip Advisor and in the Bahama Guide courtesy of Kelly Gallahan :-).  This was when we saw the extent and reach of the fire damage.  Charred trees all the way up to homes, I found out the next day that many of the homes did sustain damage but no one was injured and the rains that seemed to be hanging around really did turn the tide and help put the fire out once and for all.

We found the Caves and walked down to them--pretty darn cool--and Jon finally got his chance to climb for a coconut!  He'd been wanting to get one pretty much the entire trip!  We also saw how far we had biked that day so far.  Had to have been well over five miles...great way to work up and appetite for the nicer restaurant we planned to stop at on the way back, Carriearl's.  Oh, closed until dinner time.  Shit, now what?  The Beach Club saves the day...I took a couple of photo stops but Jon rode on and got there in time to put in burger and beer orders before it was too late.  Thanks Jon!!

Back on the boat, Jon got into his coconut and--EUREKA!  There was nice clear coconut water in it!  We all had some and it tasted like...water from inside some sort of plant.  It did not taste like coconut and the meat was not like what you buy in the store LOL.  We will admit that we had no idea if it was ripe or not but who cares?  Jon proved his man v. nature skills by getting us the 'water'.  He fishes, he finds liquids, he's an outdoor living make it happen guy, Jon Graham!!

I think that was the night that Mark and I got in the water back at the boat and I attempted to clean off the world of growth that had accumulated.  Let's just say it was that night.  Anyway at one point Jon gets Mark's attention because he has seen a large shadow in the water...yeah, we got out.  Mark moved pretty darn fast I have to say.  Jon thinks it was a shark because it was large and moved from one sandy area to another (so not like a cloud moving over the water).  It was getting to be evening aka shark feeding time but whatever it was seemed to move along.  Jon was awesome and took the dinghy out around the boat to see if anything was out there.  So our record stands at Mark:0/Iguana:1 Jon:2/Coconut:0, Mahi:0.

Stray Cat biker gang rides again

Saw the fire damage first hand

A lot farther north on the island than my legs would have liked

Cutsie couple shots

Jon, Coconut Hunter

That is Petit Cay in the distance

Australian Pines were everywhere as were their burrs and 'pine cones', much to the dismay of our bare feet

More fire damage, melted real estate sign

A unique driveway marker

Watch as the Coconut Hunter cleans his catch!

Something important that you simply must watch and track and always have in the back of your mind is weather.  Ever since getting more north, I noticed the clouds and rain showers picked up during the day...really reminded me of Florida weather.  It wasn't like that south of Eleuthera from what I had remembered.  A few things were happening that made me get up more often recently to listen to Chris Parker at 0630.  Yeah 0630...that is f'ing early!  Anyway, we knew a change in winds was coming and that would put us in a rockin' and rollin' position in that anchorage so moving needed to be considered.  Also, we needed to start looking ahead to crossing weather.  The winds we could actually suck it up and ride out and we probably would have been fine considering some of the rolly conditions we'd dealt with already.  The crossing weather was another matter entirely.  You need the right conditions to cross to the US just like you do to cross to the Bahamas...NO north in the wind direction but also you must look at the wave predictions...to high and/or too close together and you have a shit of a crossing.  No thanks.  So Mark and I were looking at Passage Weather and listening to Parker and even looking at US weather along Florida.  It was also this pesky realization that eventually we were going to have to come home.  It was now 'out there' and that was a drag, at least for me. More on this later...

We had toured Shark Creek, walked the sand dollar beach and sand flats, become temporary regulars at the Beach Club, seen the settlement, seen the caves, enjoyed swimming around the boat, even repaired the "stuck" thermostat on the new outboard...but we hadn't snorkeled any rocks or reefs though.  I had gotten a Bahamas Chatter update on a sunken barge near Petit Cay, basically next to us.  Now why that wasn't clearly noted on the Explorer Charts is beyond me but it was pretty neat and we knew we needed to go check it out when winds and waves allowed.  We also planned to snorkel around the little outer Cays if we could so we had all our snorkel goods with us.  It ended up being a great experience!  The sunken boat was cool but snorkeling between Little Petit and Petit Cays was a complete unexpected joy!  First there were cool shells and sea biscuits and the sort all over the beach where we landed.  I actually explored that while the guys snorkeled across the cut.  By the time I joined them (after a spook by a curious ramora) they were on the way back but took me to an amazing coral mound they found and it was stunning!  On the way back, Mark stalked these tiny tiny little gray angel fish...ranging in size from a quarter to a silver dollar.  I know because I was following them too.  He got some great shots as a reward for his patience.

Heading back towards Petit, we spotted some more coral and stuck heads in the water to see how they looked.  They looked like they may be pretty interesting so Mark and I decided, sure, we'll get in real quick and look around then we'll just go back... I think I mentioned before that when you have the chance to 'take one more quick look just in case' you need to do it.  I don't have worthy language skills to describe how amazing the reefs we saw truly were.  And the fish!  Literally hundreds of fish of so many different types...we couldn't take it all in fast enough.  Huge hogfish, huge gray angelfish, bone fish and fish I don't even know!  We finally moved on from that awesomeness and were making our way in super shallow water towards where Jon beached the dinghy...CONCH all over!  Big and beautiful conch.  We hadn't seen anything like it out side of deeper water and in the Park.  It was crazy and we were shocked that they were there.  We could have taken at least a half dozen if not more for eating but Mark and I couldn't bear it and when their cute little conch eyes looked at you, that was it for me.  No more conch, ever.  It was so amazing to see them that I got out of the water and asked "are we in a preserve?"  So so cool.  Oh! And on the way back to the boat, we saw a shark but he was too quick for us and we couldn't find him again.  Hmmmm, maybe that shadow was a shark...eek! What an awesome day and I give Mark 100% credit for always pushing for snorkeling and taking in one more reef.  Thank you!

Outboard thermostat victory!

The sunken boat-pretty big and eerie

Petit and Little Petit

Petit from Little Petit-tide falling

Tides out!

Sea biscuit Camouflage!

Jacques...I mean... Jon Graham

Another egg casing

A sea monster...oh no, that's me

You can't see me!

Mark's micro fishes-they were truly micro

The best way to share the "lets go in one more time" experience is through videos that Mark took under water.  Please take a few minutes to share this with us...nothing compares to how it really was. 

  

 

  

He was HUGE--HUGE but you can't tell from here.  Crazy thing was that he looked completely gray underwater and only in the video did we see the yellows as he said "see ya"

One of the many conch sitting in about 18 inches of water at low tide

If you feel guilt looking at puppy dog eyes, try looking into conch eyes

Please don't capture me and eat me alive

Calm clear water

It must have been that night or the next morning that we hemmed and hawed over the winds and this itty bitty 36 hour (max) crossing window.  I'm talking slim.  We were going to have to move as I said before (or deal with 12 hours of waves and wind but the possibility of crossing was also floating in the air for a day or so.  Frankly, if we didn't leave the next day, we were probably going to have to hang out around Lucaya and West End on Grand Bahama for two weeks...a crowded busy and expensive proposition.  Day trips down the Berry chain would be options but the winds made that a bit questionable from a sailing and anchoring comfort perspective.  We had also talked about the things we wanted to do coming back up north in the US, Fernandina Beach and Savannah for one and two.  It was weird that we all had to decide what to do pretty much right then...Mark had work as a distant question along with boat and crew safety, I had dread of returning on my mind but dread of bank account drain too, Jon had some amazing summer plans of his own before returning to work.  Ugh, how is this suddenly about to be over?!

I didn't realize how much I had fallen for Great Harbour Cay and the promise of all the little Cays south along the chain that we had yet to see.  Mark had called this one--he was right again about coming here and leaving this Cay, let alone the Bahamas, was hard to process.  Funny thing was that I was getting excited about the prospect of an overnight...can you imagine?! And Mark was getting excited about the prospect of getting to Sun 'n Fun on Sunday for the final day of the show.

The one thing we couldn't ignore was the weather...and this crazy early season low pressure that seemed to be hanging out east of Florida and north of the Bahamas.  We decided we would return to the US directly from the Berrys...that last snorkel outing ended up being a wonderful bon voyage gift from the Islands to us.

(And for those who missed it on the Facebook Page, here is a fun and very real glimpse into the glamor of boating...LOL:  Seven Things You Don't Want to Know...)