The Berry Islands

Our last intention had been to push from Nassau to The Berry's then off to Bimini and finally making our way to the states.

We got a little held up in The Berry's. Dave and I ended up becoming buddy, buddy with the owner of the marina, The Berry Islands Club. It's an adorable, quaint little place. The owner, bought it just over a year ago and is in the process of fixing it up a bit.

Here's where the story gets interesting: I'm going to exclude names, because there's a threat issue for the owner. He's an environmental lawyer who is included in one of the lawsuits against BP from oil spill. Because of this fact, he's been threatened a few times. So, he travels everywhere with his bodyguard.

When we first arrived, we all whooped it up. Instantly felt like family. We became quick friends with his bodyguard. We spent our time here playing in the water and running around like madmen with him.

The owner and the bodyguard have asked us to stay and help out at the marina. Dave would primarily be working on fixing up the place, and I would be working in the restaurant and bar area. In exchange, we'd receive room, board and food.

We told them we'd think about it.

The next day, they both hopped onto a plane and left. On their way out, they told us to watch the place. So, we've stayed to keep an eye on the place.

Our first day was crazy. We busted our buns! We had no direction, no information - we just had to make things up as we went from what little information we knew. There are two locals who work here full time. They didn't seem to like the idea of us coming in. They weren't even told we'd be staying to help out, so they were left with us to deal with.

After a couple days of trying our best to make things work and to pacify the two employees, we felt unwelcomed and intrusive. We're not even sure when the owner is coming back.

We have our truck back in the states we need to retrieve, we're not really sure what our place is here - and we're not willing to hang around for who knows how long to find that out - especially when the two people we're working with here don't seem to want us here.

So, we're waiting for our weather window. We're still helping out in whatever way we can. We like the idea of staying to help, but it's all too ambiguous and vague. It's just too confusing for us!