Great Harbor Cay to Chub Cay

So we are currently skulking around the Berry Island of the Bahamas.  The Berries are composed of approximately 30 small islands with a population of about 800 people.  They are a district of the Bahamas.  They are beautiful; and seasonal residents enjoy coming for a quiet, secluded, vacation spot. Their lack of infrastructure and difficulty in getting to the islands, however, have kept them ultra low-key.

We left Great Harbor Cay Thursday, January 2nd and headed to an anchorage as the weather was forecast to be perfect for a night on the hook.  Leaving Great Harbor we passed the private islands used by Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Lines.  There were several cruise ships there.  These ships are just gigantic.

Cruise ship docked at its private island

Lighthouse along our route to anchorage

On the way to our anchorage, Keith and Russ decided to put out a few fishing lines.  They were very successful.  They had several Spanish mackerel and two barracuda, but the excitement happened when they hooked two grouper.

Keith with the grouper caught while trolling with Southern Style

Guess what's for dinner.

Time to do some fish cleaning

Southern Style pulled into the anchorage by around 1:00 PM.  We anchored just behind White Cay, however, there are several small islands (cays) all together in this area, so it was a nice spot to explore.  By way of explanation, in the Bahamas the term cay is used more frequently than island.  A cay is a small, low-elevation, sandy, island on the surface of a coral reef.  Cays occur naturally in the tropical environments of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.  Now you know.

This is a view of the area where we anchored.

The anchorage was very nice.  Here is Southern Style anchored up off White Cay.

We all went exploring on the dinghy.
Russ and Michele in the dinghy.

We landed the dinghy on Hoffman Cay and hiked to the Blue Hole.  There are several blue holes in the Bahamas.  Blue holes are sink holes or caves surrounded by either land or water.  The blue hole on Hoffman Cay is surrounded by land and is approximately 600 feet in diameter.  It contains both fresh water and salt water and is tidal as there is a connection to the ocean water.  It formed during the ice age when the ocean level was much higher.  The original inhabitants of the Bahamas, the Lucayans, regarded blue holes as sacred, spiritual places.  They often used them as burial grounds.  Over time these unusual formations became a place of mystery and fear.  Later Bahamians told stories of strange sea creatures that lived in the blue holes.  The most famous was the "Lusca", a mixture of an octopus and a shark.  Mermaids were also said to inhabit the blue holes.

Hoffman Cay Blue Hole

Russ and Keith

There were several beaches on the west side of the cays and we explored around one.

You can see how the vegetation grows on the coral forming the cay.

I found several treasures that I brought back to the boat.

After anchoring for one night we left White Cay and cruised to Chub Cay on Friday January, 3rd.  It was mildly windy which had the ocean kicked up a bit, but the ride was not too bad.

Ocean waves on our way to Chub Cay

We passed an old abandoned lighthouse on the way

We got into Chub around 1:00 PM and got settled in.

As you can see this looks like it will be quite a "relaxing" spot.  The wind is predicted to blow pretty good for the next few days, so we are likely to be here for a few nights.  Stay tuned to see what we can find to explore on Chub Cay for the next few days.