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Aerial of Berry Islands
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Cruise Ship at Stirrup Cay
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Chub Cay Club
I’ve been frequenting the Berry Islands since the 1980s as I worked on projects from Chub Cay and Whale Cay in the south to Great Harbour Cay in the north with several other Berry Islands in between. In more recent years I've enjoyed the islands even more as I explore them in my old dive boat “Gone Astray”.
The Berry Islands are located on the southern edge of the northeast Providence Channel, a major shipping route from Europe to America. Along that channel a hoard of cruise ships visit the Berry’s Stirrup Cays where guests enjoy great beaches and snorkeling. I hear today they even have zip lines and swimming pigs like those in the central Exumas.
A well-known wrecker named Cameron lived on Little Stirrup in the 1700s, today the island is known as CocoCay. Wrecking was a common occupation in the Bahamas which involved salvaging cargo from ships that wrecked on the endless reefs that surround the island nation. Bahamian wreckers also worked the Florida Keys reef and settled there even before Spain ceded Florida to the U.S. in 1819. A noted settlement on Great Stirrup was Williams Town that had a customs house during the time of Britain’s King William IV. Freed slaves were settled there by Bahamas Governor William Colebrooke in 1836 after British emancipation in 1834. Prior to that, British Navy Captain Allan Bertram was buried on the island, leaving his name on Bertram’s Cove. In 1863 the British Imperial Lighthouse Service built a light on Great Stirrup which still functions today, though now on solar power instead of whale oil and kerosene that was originally used with lighthouse keepers present.
One of my favorite Berry Island stories involves Whale Cay which was bought by Joanne ”Joe” Carstairs in 1934. Joe was a Standard Oil heiress who grew up in London and became a famous speed boat racer, besting many men of the day. She transformed Whale Cay into her own sanctuary with hundreds of Bahamian employees to tend her home and to play in her marching band which residents in Nassau would boat over to see. Ms. Carstairs had affairs with movie stars Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo and named a beach on Whale “Beach La Femme”. Besides famous girlfriends, other celebrity guests included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Duke having abdicated the throne to England before serving as Governor of The Bahamas during World War II.
East of Whale is Little Whale Cay which was owned by American entrepreneur Wallace Groves who created Freeport, Grand Bahama in the mid-1950s. He had a home, a private airstrip and a menagerie of wildlife on Little Whale including peacocks and other exotic birds, many of which survived him.
While the Berry Islands are a popular cruise ship destination, they’re also an ideal cruising spot for private vessels to enjoy the many islands, beaches and secret little coves. I’ll continue to enjoy them on our new boat!
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When I was working on Rum Cay as a young Ocean Engineer and pilot in the early 1980s it was about as quiet and serene as you can get. My client was David Melville, an heir to Thom McAn shoes who owned the Rum Cay Dive Club. There was the Club, a short gravel airstrip, Kaye’s Bar, a few dozen natives and some feral cows in the bush - that was about it. My job for David was to stop erosion on the beach in front of the Club and investigate doing a marina in the old salt ponds around Port Nelson, the only settlement. David was a good man, he really cared for the islanders and spent a lot of money trying to help out the dwindling population. Every time I flew in to do engineering work he turned me into a charter pilot flying people in need of a ride on my way out. The airstrip was rough and short with an annoying, slightly dangerous palm tree at one end. The reefs were pristine and full of fish and the beaches long, beautiful and deserted.
Rum Cay was the second island Christopher Columbus landed on in 1492 naming it Santa Maria de la Concepcion. He encountered Lucayan Indians as with his first stop on San Salvador to the east. What are believed to be Lucayan Indian petroglyphs can be seen in caves on Rum but the Indians themselves were exterminated throughout the Bahamas by the Spanish in the early 1500s. Once the people were gone there was nothing else to take and the island remained uninhabited until a large group of settlers arrived in the late 1700s, the British Loyalists. King George granted large tracts of land to the Loyalists on Rum Cay and they came on sailing vessels with seeds of cotton and other crops along with their African slaves, building supplies and livestock including the cows who’s descendants are still there.
It’s hard to believe that Rum Cay once boomed with thousands of residents and a number settlements including Port Boyd, Carmichael, Times Cove, Gin Hill, Black Rock and Port Nelson (the only one still populated). Salt production was once an important industry throughout the Bahamas and salt pans for solar evaporation were constructed on the southern end of the island east of Port Nelson, these are still visible from the air today. Salt and agricultural exports included cotton, citrus fruits, vegetables, pineapples and sisal (a long-leafed, cactus-like plant whose fibers were used to make rope). These crops led to a sustained population on Rum Cay with miles of still existing slave walls marking off properties and pastures. The rocky soil turned out to be unsuitable in the long term and British law freed the slaves in 1834, many of the Loyalists who hadn’t already gone packed up and left. The former slaves who were left behind continued to survive but the population has dwindled for generations.
In more recent years The Bahamas government completed a much larger and safer airstrip. A new marina was also built on the southwest end of the island by the Little family who developed Sumner Point and the island’s first and badly needed safe harbor. Unfortunately a hurricane damaged the marina’s entrance channel proving that life can still very tough on Rum Cay.
Scuba diving off Rum is some of the world’s best. Dive sites with names like The Chimney and The Grand Canyon foretell of the beauty to be seen underwater. Besides spectacular walls plunging off into the abyss, there are shipwrecks to explore including the 1861 wreck of HMS Conqueror on Sumner Point reef. Rum Cay will always be a nice place to visit and a good memory for the author.
To learn more about the Bahamas, check out The Bahamas A History Through Maps. Island Map Store also offers custom maps of the Caribbean, Bahamas, Florida and many more! Call us at 239-963-3497 or visit our site! 
My interest in Key West became more serious when we started to make maps of Florida with a ten map series dedicated to the Keys and Dry Tortugas. Key West is a particularly important map because of the island's rich history and it's alluring nightlife, which is about all most people around the world know about the Keys. As with each of our maps, I go the location with the goal of making an attractive wall piece which visitors can understand and that locals approve of in terms of names and nuances.
I made several dedicated trips to Key West and stayed in historic hotels. As I went to the various landmarks it surprised me I'd been to them before, a habit inherited from my parents, though I'm sure some of my visits were in an altered state. A love of history also got me started collecting antique maps many years ago.
After finishing our map of Key West we started contemplating a coffee table book on the Keys which came to be in early 2020, The Florida Keys, A History Through Maps. It was only possible with my co-author who grew up in the Keys and also collects antique maps.
Key West is an island city that was once the wealthiest and largest town in Florida, built on the back of shipwrecks along the Keys reef line. There's railroad history and much more to explore when you get there, maybe even a seafood restaurant and a bar or two!
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The map of 
