Sunday April 27 - In the Berrys

Water Spout heading away from us

Debris in air from nascent water spout

We are enjoying the Berry Islands.
We first anchored at Bird Cay, on the southern edge, and have been slowly working our way north. The islands tend to be very rocky, with scrub type growth on them;the kind you think a goat would love.There are almost always one or two white sand beaches on each, and on the Banks side of the Cays the waters are beautiful shades of turquoise and aquamarine. Some of the islands are inhabited (barely), some not, and a few are privately owned and out of bounds except by invitation. I have been trying some fishing, but have not been at all successful since losing my cedar plug. At one anchorage, while casting as far out as I could, Chris pointed out that we had a huge fish right under the boat! He looked to be some kind of grouper, and was at least 30 pounds and 2 1/2 feet long. He hung around so long, and managed to become so endearing that we couldn't think of eating him, though we did name him "Dinner". He adopted the boat as a new lair, I guess, and spent a lot of time scratching up against it, bumping his head (loudly) on the rudders), and rolling playfully over on his side, as though he were looking up at us. There were several turtles at this anchorage too, grazing and swimming about.
One anchorage spawned a small waterspout just as we arrived. It didn't look like much but it rose over one small cay and had debris swirling in the air one to two hundred feet high! Then it moved off, gathering intensity as it went. It was all the more amazing as there hadn't been a breath of wind all day, and there wasn't any after either!
On the negative side I developed a tooth abcess just as we were arriving at the Berrys, and have been pretty well out of commission. My face swelled just like the caricatures you see of kids with handkerchiefs holding up their sagging cheeks and tied up on top of their heads. Luckily we have a supply of prescription medicines on board and the course of penicillin seems to be doing it's job. When we forked out all the money for those drugs I wondered whether it was worth it, but this small incident alone proves it definitely is.
Also, we can't get our dinghy motor to start, so we haven't been out exploring at all. We do have oars for the dinghy, but the currents are so strong trusting to them alone might not be wise.