3/30/15
Great Harbour Cay, Berry Islands, Bahamas
Posted by Bill

Saaturday, we ended up going to the festival in town. It was a fund raiser for the school here on Great Harbour Cay, and they do it once a year. There was a food booth, a tent for activities for the kids, and bingo. As we were standing in line for the food, we struck up a conversation with a man that happened to be a teacher. He was very articulate and had a zest for what they were doing at the school. He invited us to walk up the road and check it out. When we walked up to the school later that afternoon, Dirk (the teacher) was there with his son. He gave us a personal tour, and it was really interesting. They have around 170 students and are the only school in the Berry Islands. The total population in the Berrys is around 700, so that is a lot of kids. They are promoting healthy life styles and encouraging the kids to be producers and not just consumers. One of the ways they are doing this is by teaching them to grow their own food. They have a compost pile and a garden, and just recently added a green house. They encourage the kids to take seedlings home and maintain a garden there too. Their programs are designed to start at the school but permeate the town, hoping to shape the culture…way cool! We were very impressed. Here are some pictures courtesy of Sofia Jeanne:

For dinner, Tricia made 2 batches of pizza dough and all of the people we are cruising with brought toppings. We sat in our cockpit and made pizzas on the grill, ate and drank until late in the evening. It was really good pizza, and as always, we had a great time with our friends.

Yesterday, we took the dinghies up to Shark Creek again. It was chilly and windy, and we didn’t see as much sea life as we did the last time. We landed on a small cay and did some shelling, and Tricia found some cool conch shells.

Picture from the cay:

Negotiating Shark Creek in the narrow part:

Tricia caught a turtle surfacing:

and also a large stingray:

The wind picked up and we got completely soaked on the dinghy ride back. Everyone was cold and took hot showers.

Today we prep to leave for the Abacos, the northern chain of cays and islands in the Bahamas. We will anchor off of the southwest tip tomorrow night and then sail up to the Little Harbour entrance on Wednesday, where we will go inside the barrier cays and work our way through the chain.