Berry Islands
The Island of Living Dreams
The Berry Islands are a crescent shaped gathering of 30 cays just north west of Nassau, most of them without a single human inhabitant. When you visit, you can either come by boat or charter a flight to Great Harbour Cay in the north or Chub Cay in the south. Once you’re here time will take on a new dimension as you explore the cays and immerse yourself in the ethereal waters of the Berrys’ wondrous sea garden.
Here in the “Fish Bowl of the Bahamas”, there is often more happening in the sea than on the land. This is the place for both the professional sports-fisherman and the aspiring novice. There are more yellowtail snapper, wahoo, king mackerel, grouper, tuna and billfish in these waters per square mile than anywhere else in the Bahamas; that’s because the Berry Island chain borders the Tongue of the Ocean, where deep sea currents caress the shallow Bahama Bank creating a dynamic edge that explodes with life.
If you venture below the sea’s surface, you’ll find out why Walt Whitman says the sea is a continual miracle; reefs teeming with pink and white corals, waving yellow and cobalt blue sea fans, schools of shad fanning out in all directions –as if of one elegant mind– spiny lobsters peeking out of cubby holes in the rock. The Berry’s have so much to offer that you can’t possibly tire of it in a day, a week, or even a lifetime.
If you’d rather not fish, snorkel, kayak, or speed around in a skiff and you’d prefer to just take time out to go offline and catch yourself, as we Bahamians like to say, and simply feel the water against your skin as you soak in the sun and slip into a state of meditative bliss, the Berry Islands is the place.
Coco Cay, formerly Little Stirrup Cay, was privately developed by Royal Caribbean Cruise Line for just that purpose. Visitors to the cay can snuggle under a coconut tree in a hammock, lounge on one of the many beach chairs scattered across the island, or engage in competitive play in volleyball, basketball or beach soccer.
What you’ll find in the Berry Islands is what we have come to understand every morning as the orange sun emerges over the horizon; it’s what we feel in our bones when we’re hauling up gleaming pink conchs from the seabed; it’s what we never forget when the reddish sun slips out of sight below the water’s greenish edge: the sea is King. It’s what inspires us...to live and to dream.
There are few places in the world where you can gaze into a liquid reflection and dream in tones of cyan, aqua and royal blue. In the Berry Islands you will dream a dream so colorful, invigorating and so true that when you wake you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Best for Whom and for What?
