Exploring the Berrys and Nassau

On our final day at Great Harbour Cay we decided to go for a dinghy ride and explore some of the island. There is a creek not too far from the marina that goes right across the island, and the brochure from the marina said to go at high tide. So with Fred in the lead again, off we went, but before high tide, thinking that we would get there as the tide would be going up and we would be fine. We found the bay where the Shark Creek started, and headed in, only to find that is was really shallow, and we were stuck! The water was only inches deep so Hugh quickly lifted the engine up before it got too stuck in the mud. Hugh got out of the boat to push us out of the shallow, and immediately sunk up to his thigh in muck. So back in the boat, the oars came out and he slowly rowed us back into deeper water. I guess they really meant it when they said high tide.  Another “Misadventure with Fred”.

With the weather calming down, we decided to leave Great Harbour Cay Marina and take a couple of days to explore the Southern Berry Islands. They are mostly deserted and have a few protected anchorages that you can tuck into for a night, as long as the weather is right. A few other boats had the same idea, so we all left Sunday morning heading up over the top of Great Harbour Cay and past Great and Little Stirrup Cays. These two islands are owned by Norwegian and Royal Caribbean cruises respectively and have little villages for the passengers to spend a day at. There were two huge cruise ships anchored there that day, which we sailed past.

The first night we decided to go to Soldier Cay, which is a little island at the top of the southern chain. We anchored off a little sandy beach with no one in sight, and went for our first chunky dunk in the Bahamas! The wind direction was not as we had hoped, so it was a little bumpy, but all in all pretty awesome!

Imagine the dock is our swim platform ... 

Soldier Cay

The next morning we decided we would move further south down the chain so that the passage to Nassau would be a little shorter. We had originally decided that the next stop would be White Cay, but we noticed that a few of the boats from the marina had gone there. So as we sailed by, we counted five masts, and kept going further to Alders Cay. Again we found a lovely little bay, with no one around. There was a house on the island around the point, but it looked like no one was there. We were very excited and pleased with ourselves that we were alone again, until we looked behind, and there was another boat coming in. Darn!  We toured around the bay in the dinghy, and since it was a privately owned island, did not go to shore. We had a lovely quiet night, and the stars were unbelievable.

Trekker anchored off Alders Cay

Nassau was our destination for the next day, so we set off fairly early and had a wonderful sail over. We came across Nassau Harbour with little trouble, including going under the two 69 foot bridges (lots of room!). 

Atlantis viewed from Nassau Harbour

We are docked in Nassau Harbour Club Marina and have been here a few days now. We have had a slight delay here because while we were getting ready to anchor the first day in the Berrys, our remote control for the anchor windlass (the thing that brings it up and down) broke. So we ordered one from Florida and had it shipped “overnight” by UPS.  However, just because it got to Nassau overnight doesn’t mean we get it overnight. Two days later, it is still sitting in customs, with a possible date of arrival of next Tuesday (its Friday today). Sigh…..

However, one of the good things was meeting up again with Blue Train, who are also in the marina, so yesterday we had an adventure day, and took a local bus into downtown, then onto another bus to Compass Point, which is quite a ways across the island. We had a wonderful lunch right beside the water, and as we were walking around the resort before leaving we realized we had been at the same restaurant with the CCDC group in 2010. Great Memories of a fun trip!

Lunch with Julie and Mike at Compass Cay

So today Hugh found a marine electronic repair shop where they fixed the old remote. So now we can leave tomorrow and have our friends, who are stopping in Nassau on their way to visit us, pick up the new one and bring it with them.

And so the adventure continues ... one day at a time.