Days on the water

Turtle Creek

Paddleboarding the mangroves

A ten-minute boat ride puts you at the mouth of the creek, where you trade the boat for a paddleboard and follow the mangrove channel upstream. The water is knee-deep and glass-clear — green turtles, stingrays, and clouds of small fish move underneath you the whole way.

• ·About an hour of gentle paddling; beginners do fine
• ·Captain, guide, boards, and a cooler of ice and water included
• ·Moderate fitness helps — the paddle in is against the current

Hoffman's Blue Hole

A full day across the Berry Islands

The island's signature day trip. A five-minute jungle trail on Hoffman's Cay opens onto a hundred-foot-wide sinkhole ringed by limestone ledges — swim it, jump it, photograph it. Lunch is at Flo's Conch Shack, then a snorkel stop at White Cay over reef and a sunken sailboat on the way home.

• ·$240 for each additional person beyond four
• ·Private charter for up to eight: $1,800
• ·Boat, captain, guide, and a cooler of ice and water included

The Sandbar

An island that exists for three hours

Around low tide a long spine of sand rises out of the bank and becomes, briefly, a private island. You can walk its whole length in twenty minutes. Sand dollars, sea biscuits, conch, starfish, and sea cucumbers turn up in the shallows on either side.

• ·VIP setup adds $60 per person — gazebo, chairs, champagne, meat and cheese platter
• ·Timing follows the tide, so the departure moves day to day

Berry Islands Tour

A day built around what you want to see

Not every good day fits a menu. Shelling runs, remote beaches nobody else lands on, a birthday, a proposal — the boat and crew go where you ask. Call the dive shop with roughly what you have in mind and they put together the route and the timing.

Snorkeling

Shallow reef, minutes from the dock

A couple of shallow reefs sit just off Chub Cay — close enough that the trip is a morning, not an expedition. A guide stays in the water with you. Turtles, reef fish, coral heads, and, more often than people expect, reef sharks going about their business.

Scuba Diving

Reefs and walls five minutes from the marina

Sites run from ten to a hundred feet, so a mixed-ability group can dive together. The Berry Islands sit where the bank drops away, which is why the marine life is what it is: sharks, turtles, rays, and reef fish — no chum, no feeding, they simply live there.

• ·Gear rental $60 per person per day (two-diver minimum)
• ·Departures are flexible, usually 9am or 2pm; reserve ahead
• ·First morning, arrive 30 minutes early for paperwork and gear fitting
• ·Underwater photos of your group: $100

Scuba Lessons

First breaths underwater, in the pool

Discover Scuba is a half day: a pool session to get comfortable, then one reef dive to forty feet with an instructor beside you. No certification needed. For younger children, Bubblemaker stays in the pool — shallow, short, and usually the highlight of the week.

• ·Discover Scuba: minimum age 10, gear included
• ·Bubblemaker: minimum age 8, pool only, parent's approval required