January 10-11, 2010... Berry Islands Explorations

We survived the cold front -- the Rocna held. We had tides and 20-30 knot winds to contend with, but we shouldn't have doubted our anchor. Yesterday we dinghyed to Devils Cay and Big Gaulding Cay. Climbed the rocks, looked at the life clinging to the craggy limestone, and enjoyed being off the boat. It still wasn't warm, and we were dressed in full battle gear, but at least it wasn't raining. On Big Gaulding Cay, some enterprising souls had built a fire pit, cobbled together some benches and a table, and hung a hammock made of a nylon fishing net in the mangroves. Looked like they had grilled some conch, leaving behind the beautiful shells to decorate the palm tree. A terrific place to spend some time.
Today the winds were finally starting to abate and we dinghyed over to Hoffman's Cay. We walked the eastern beach looking for a path into the center of the island in search of the Blue Hole and the ruins. No luck. So we dinghyed around to the west side and found another sand beach. Stopped there and hiked through the vegetation where we saw the ruins (stone walls). We turned back because we weren't getting anywhere. Walking up the beach to the north we found a real honest-to-goodness path and -- eureka -- we found the Blue Hole. It is almost perfectly round and looked to be quite deep. A couple of surprisingly big fish came to see us and we fed them clementines. One was a yellowtail snapper; the other we think was a grey (or mangrove) snapper. An osprey flew over and hovered, then moved on, guess he didn't see anything in the Hole he wanted to eat. John and Patti were ready to head back to the boat, but Jay saw the path going the other way and convinced the team to explore. So off we went and found an absolutely gorgeous wind-free pink sand beach; now dubbed Jay's Beach in honor of the founder. We stripped down to almost normal beach attire and spent a couple of hours soaking up the rays, convinced finally that we were in the Bahamas!!! Tomorrow, first light, anchor up, and we're headed for Eleuthera.