Great Harbor Cay

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After a week at Market Fish Cay we were running low on fresh vegis and decided to go to Great Harbor Cay, the only island in the Berries that has a grocery store. We mainly needed green peppers and tomatoes, the key ingredients for conch salad (which is similar to ceviche- very tasty!) So we sailed the two hours and anchored off a beautiful bay in Great Harbor. This half moon bay is a couple miles long with soft white sand and small bohemian cottages that were just adorable. In the middle of the bay is the beach club, a great restaurant that serves breakfast and lunch. We went there one day for lunch and had a wonderful time; it has an impressive view of the bay and is nestled in some palm trees.

Great Harbor proved to be an excellent place to explore on kayak. On the day we arrived we found out that the mail boat (which also provides the produce for the island) wasn’t scheduled until the next day. Therefore the grocery store wouldn’t have any of the fresh vegis we wanted until the next day. This gave us some time to explore the island. We quickly discovered that there were some salt water rivers that cut thru the mangroves on the south side of the bay, definitely worth checking out in our kayaks. The locals call it shark creek, and we can see why because as soon as we started paddling up the river we ran into several small nurse sharks. It was beautiful and peaceful going thru the shallow rivers. Every so often a crane would fly out of the mangroves and go right over our head. And the river was full of fish and conch, which we collected for dinner (although we had to have cracked conch instead of conch salad). All in all I think we found at least 19 or 20 conch in the rivers. We really enjoyed our time there and would love to go back and kayak the rivers again.

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Photos

Kayak
Jay in the Kayak, getting ready to go off and explore shark creek.

Great Harbor Bay
The long, beautiful, halfmoon bay at Great Herbor Cay.

The Beach Club
The Beach Club, a great beach bar and restaurant on Great Harbor.

Comments

[Jessica]

I have spent a lot of time on Great Harbour as a child and now. My grandparents own a cottage on the island. I noticed that you said you wanted to go back because you really enjoyed the island. I just wanted to give you a few good ideas on what to do. Extremely close to shark creek is a beach that the locals call sand dollar beach. If you go at the perfect time (low tide) you will see more sand dollars and star fish than you have ever seen in your whole entire life. Our families have contests on who can find the largest, smallest, and most sand dollars. All dead of course. Also a great fishing place to go is the pillings. If you are docked in the marina it is extremely easy place to get to, and the only place my grandparents let me and my cousins take the boat alone. If you are going out of the cut and turn your boat to the right, it will be right there. The last place you must go is the blue hole. It is a bit further than the rest of the places and I do not exactly remember how to get there, but any local will know. It is about a 20 minute boat ride from the island and it is a must see. Hope you go back. Enjoy!