The Berry Islands
The Berry Islands are now the most logical Port of Entry to the Bahamas for Let's Dance and crew. With the Love Me Tender incapacitated, we must dock at a marina to get ashore to clear Customs and Immigration. The Berry Islands lie 55 miles north and east of Andros... our first choice for entry. Thirty-odd cays make up the small, crescent-shaped island chain. On the lee side, the water is skinny, with exposed sand bores at low tide and not at all a place we want to be. The eastern side of the chain boasts ocean depths of up to a mile within just yards of the coastline. Our chosen route takes us in a wide arc around the western bight, to the northern edge of the Berrys. After about ten hours of travel at our typical 6 knot pace, The Stirrup Cays come into our sights. Much more obvious than the low, sandy slope of Little Stirrup's shoreline is the distinctive tail of a Carnival Cruise ship! Then the tail of a Norwegian Cruise liner comes into view! As we sail closer we can see a long, blond stretch of sand, beach umbrellas, colorful, thatched tiki huts and tourists! Again, not at all a place we want to be.
Bill checks our AIS (electronic identification system of boats with all kinds of useful information, including destination) and discovers that the next stop for the Carnival "Fantasy" in our sights is Charleston! I could jump ship here and be home in a flash.....but I think not. Let's Dance has infinitely more appeal, and besides, I have an in with the captain! We continue the voyage together.
There are two marinas in the Berrys, but only the one at Great Harbor Cay can service all our needs.....a Customs official, a marine mechanic and a BaTelCo office. This marina is accessed through a long, narrow cut that was blasted through solid rock and is very sheltered from the wind and waves of the Atlantic. A hearty young Bahamian named "Trumeeko" greets us at the dock and takes the lines I feed him as we snuggle into slip #9. It is mid-day Friday -- plenty of time to take care of business before the islanders take off for the weekend. As soon as we are settled into our slip and the electronics are turned off, the shore power connected and fenders in place, Bill hops onto the dock with our packet of immigration necessities and disappears. He is back quickly with the report that the Customs official is on his way and the advice that we best hoist something yellow -- anything yellow -- in lieu of our missing yellow quarantine flag. Oh, no! The only thing yellow that I can think of is a kitchen dish towel. Hmmm. That will have to do.
Luckily, the official called to the marina to deal with us is young, smart and not the least bit interested in our dish towel. We are soon in possession of a 120-day permit to float through Bahamian seas legally and at our leisure. Down with the dish towel and up with the colorful courtesy flag. We are IN!
The next priority is repair of the 25 hp Yamaha engine on the Love Me Tender whose shameful failure at Andros led us here in the first place. Kimberley, at the marina office, gives Bill the name and number of the best mechanic on the island for small engine repairs. (He is also the only mechanic on the island.) She even writes down his name. Old Turb. Seriously, Old Turb!
It gets better! We have stumbled into this off-beat little marina on Wedding Day. It seems that there was a contest called “Sixteen Islands, Sixteen Couples, Sixteen Weddings.” Very catchy name! Once a year, on this particular Friday in January, sixteen contest-winning couples are wed simultaneously on sixteen of the inhabited Bahamas islands. Note the word “inhabited.” That leaves approximately 684 islands with no contest-sanctioned weddings today. In case you were interested!
So, the entertainment while we await the arrival of Old Turb becomes anticipating the local wedding. I position myself on the flybridge with camera, binoculars and a cold drink to wait for the show. The marina manager has raked the sand adjacent to the dock and wrapped plastic flower garlands around the fish weigh-in station. It is very festive. I see the groom arrive and his friends give him high-fives and whistles. Then a car pulls up and the preacher alights and pulls on his vestments. We must be getting close!
It is then that I notice a white SUV that has been in the parking lot for quite a while. A telltale glimpse of white tulle hints of a potential bride-to-be in the back seat. Meanwhile, Old Turb arrives and he and Bill survey the finicky motor on the aft upper deck of our little trawler. I am strategically situated between the mechanics on deck and the bridal party on shore – ready for action on any front! Bill watches with growing concern as Old Turb dismantles the Yamaha engine and lays the parts neatly on the deck. I provide color commentary to the on-board mechanics as it becomes apparent that the bride in the white SUV is not coming out! Various people go to the car door and talk to her, but she is apparently having none of it. This is great theater....at least for one who has been boat-bound for a few weeks.
Old Turb finishes his task before the bride alights and goes on his way. With no tools or parts, save what Bill could scrounge up from his own tool chest, Old Turb repaired a corroded ground wire to the ignition switch. The little engine now purrs reassuringly and it looks like the Love Me Tender will regain her place in our good graces. After a few test drives, of course. Meanwhile, the bride is finally coaxed from the SUV and poses on the arm of her father under the yardarm. The entire wedding party then boards a parasail boat and heads gamely out towards the ocean. A wedding at sea!
Suddenly, I realize that it is after 3 and I still need to get to the telephone company office to buy data time for the internet so we can stay in touch with home. The office closes at 4. The marina manager points out a shortcut through a weed-choked parking lot and I am off for the 15 minute walk. The road is nicely paved and there is welcome shade along the way. I soon arrive at the Bahamas Telephone Company's yellow office building, strategically located directly underneath their giant cell tower. It is about 3:25. There is a neatly printed sign on the door that reads “Closed”. Well then. Guess the weekend started early and we will get to spend some quality time together on Great Harbor Cay in the Berry Islands.
And so we do, and it turns out that the Berry Islands, often overlooked by boaters (and everyone else, apparently), have an interesting history. Sponging and boat building were the major industries up through the 1920s when a sponge blight ruined the crop and most of the islands' inhabitants moved away to find work. Meanwhile, an ocean away, a wealthy young American woman was making a name for herself in power boat and motorcycle racing. Her name was Marion Carstairs, but she preferred to be called “Joe.” She gained notoriety through her wild parties and Hollywood lovers. In search of privacy for her increasingly risque lifestyle, she decided to buy an island. Whale Cay in the Berry Islands seemed just the ticket. The catch was that she had to buy all of the Berry Islands just to get Whale Cay. She did. She bought the entire island chain. Joe sold off the cays she didn't want and built an elaborate infrastructure on Whale Cay...houses, motorcycle race courses, a landing strip. Tycoons, movie stars and royalty visited in equal number. A 1949 hurricane devastated the private retreat, and a disillusioned Joe finally sold Whale Cay in 1975 for $1 million. An interesting character......
Anyway, by Monday morning, Bill and I are more than ready to complete our errands and resume the voyage. We still need internet time, of course, and decide to add a quick diesel top-off stop, too. Coincidentally the phone company and the fuel dock are located right next door to each other. What luck! The phone company office opens at 9 (or 9:30, depending on your source) so we leave the marina about 8:30.
At first glance the fuel dock does not look very accommodating. A sagging, center wooden pier, about 20 feet long, with two sets of pilings on either side. We drift off the dock for a few minutes deciding if the pilings are set widely enough apart for our 17 foot beam. We give it a go and Captain Bill backs Let's Dance handily into the rough slip. Big Hector is there to take our lines and, with my usual agility, I lob the stern line directly into the water. Embarrassed, I pull the salty line back in and hand it gingerly to a grinning Hector.
While Bill and Hector begin the fueling process, I set off on foot for the phone company, again. This time, the path is through a weedy field at the rear of the island's power plant. It is muddy and full of sticker burrs, but direct.
Naturally, the phone company opens at 9:30, so I wander back to the dock to watch the fuel pump gauge click and click and click some more. 350 gallons fill the port side tank making our little ship list slightly towards the dock. Bill switches the hose to the starboard tank and adds another 350 gallons. Now we are back on our usual even keel. This seems like more than a top-off to me, but Hector is a very happy man. I do believe we have made his day!
Back to the phone company office for the third and possibly final time. Bill goes with me for tech support; the office is finally open for business and the woman in charge is delighted to sell us as many gigabytes as we can afford. We return to Let's Dance, via the power plant side yard, now gorged on bytes. We have a nifty little gadget in the pilot house that allows us to capture internet signals from cell towers as far as 15 miles away. It is called a GlobeSurfer III. We can reach even further when its mini antenna is placed on a thick metal surface. (This seems like high-tech voodoo to me, but....) Surprise! There are no built-in thick metal surfaces in our bridge. Necessity being the mother of invention and all, we bought a 12-inch square, cast iron griddle at a kitchen store which now resides just to the right of the magnetic compass on the dash. We use the flat side, rather than the ribbed, as an antenna base. Naturally.
And so, only six days after leaving Florida, we are finally outfitted with our Bahamian courtesy flag, an internet card and a finely tuned little Yamaha engine. The Berry Islands exceeded our expectations and we are ready to move south and enjoy more of the wonderful mysteries that make life aboard Let's Dance a never-ending voyage of discovery.
Let's Dance.......Carol & Bill
