Our first Bahama anchorage!

 We  anchored  Monday, March 6, at Grand Harbor in the Berry Islands.  We were on the eastern side of the island and we were rewarded with a white sand bottom, and water that was out of the world blue.

This is the water in a 9 ft. deep anchorage.

  

David and I had a great night sleep at anchorage, but our buddy boat dragged anchor twice, which means their boat was drifting around and so at about 6 am, they called over the VHF to say they wanted to move to the lee side of the Berry Islands so we had more protection from the wind.  We motored around the top of the Berry's past Little and Big Stirrup Cay.

Our third buddy boat was waiting for us on the east side of the Berry Islands at Bullocks Bay.  He had made the crossing a couple of days before us.  He has 8 seasons of experience in the Bahamas and is much more sure of himself.  His name is Art.  He is married to Linda and they have Sophie the wonder dog that travels all over with them.  Their boat is Saltshaker. This is Art and Sophie coming to visit us with a piece of tubing that David hoped would fix a leak.

We were so grateful for his wisdom, experience and advice.  Our other buddy boat was Dream Again.  She is captained by Tim and Sandy.  They have been sailing for several years but only this year they committed to living aboard.  It was their first season in the Bahamas too, so sometimes it was the blind leading the blind, when Art would go ahead to a new destination.  One night we all went on to the island and had dinner at a local restaurant called Hammerhead.  I had some of the best bbq wings I've ever eaten.

Tim and Sandy have a youtube channel if you want to check out what they are up to. https://www.youtube.com/@dreamagainsailing  

One of the days we were anchored off of Bullocks Bay we used our dingy to go onto the island and shop for some food.  We were lucky to find an avocado, some eggs, a head of cabbage and a green pepper. We passed on buying a box of cookies because they cost $10.  Most of the islands completely depend on supplies delivered by boat.  It made us more grateful for the huge selection of food available at home.

Our neighbors at anchorage.
 

The islands don't support much fresh fruit or vegetable growth, but we have found chickens on every island we have been on. We've also seen peacocks on the islands, although I'm not sure why. The peacocks crow along with the roosters, even in the middle of the night.  More unanswered questions.

We were at anchorage from Monday, March 6 until Thursday, March 9th.  You may wonder what we do at anchorage.

We clean off in the salty water.

We try to fix things like our macerator.

We bake cookies because our solar panels are making lots of electricity and we don't need much to run the boat.

We do laundry and hang from the underside of our bimini to dry out.
David went out one day to see a wrecked DC3 airplane.  There is an old airstrip on the island and the story is the plane kept circling to wait permission to land until it ran out of fuel and crashed beside the island. 

Most of our days at anchorage were good weather although the winds were usually between 10 and 20 mph.  Occasionally, we had a little rain.

 There was a bigger storm predicted so we next headed south to Chub Cay which is the southernmost tip of the Berry Islands.  We had a slip reserved at the marina there to ride out the storm.