Little Farmers Cay

A quiet day at the beach

We moved on Good Friday to Little Farmers Cay. On the way we passed Musha Cay, which is an island owned by David Copperfield. We read that it costs $20k a day to stay there and you must know David. Being that was a little out of our price range and we are not friends of David, we waived as we passed by. We were treated with a great fireworks display Friday night from this island.

It was a calm day, which was a good thing because we passed through some very shallow water on the way. I was again stationed on the bow watching for reefs or large rocks that we might hit. We did “bounce” on the bottom once or twice and I’m sure we left “tracks” in the sand a few places too, but got through.

The anchorage in Little Farmers Cay is open to the North and has Little Farmers on the East and another island to the West, with a island just South of the anchorage. It also serves as a pass through for boats passing from the East side of the cays to the West side and vice versa. It should be a good anchorage for about any wind direction except for wind from te North. Well, that is the theory. Some of the anchorage is very shallow and unusable, and some is deep enough for sail boats, but you really have to know where you are going in order to not run aground. We safely anchored for the night in the still calm waters and only about 3 feet below the keel.

After arriving, we dinghied over to the Little Farmers Cay Yacht Club to see if we could find info about Internet and to possibly get dinner. Being a holiday, they opened late, so we finally got dinner around 8 that night. Turns out everyone goes fishing on Good Friday. We had fresh caught snapper.

At the marina, we met a father and son who had been cruising the Bahamas in an old sailboat. Their story was that they were on their way back to Nassau to pick up a boat they had purchased from a couple while there a little earlier. This couple had brought their boat to Nassau and encountered several major repairs. At least $12K in repairs and they could not be done in Nassau. They were at that point, fed up with boating, and sold their bought to this father and son for $10. What a deal. The son had arranged for some buddies to meet him in Nassau to help him sail the boat back to Florida. We hope they make it.

In the morning, we awoke to find that we were in a tide change, with winds going the opposite way, resulting in our boat, because of it longs sides that act as sails in these situations doing a “dance” around the anchor. In fact, we found our bridle wrapped around the hull. We had quite a time getting unwrapped. We then decided that it would be a good idea to move to a mooring ball. I am not crazy about doing that because our hull is so high off the water and have ended up dropping the boat hook, or at least, getting yelled at by the Captain.

So Bob decided that he would try and come up with a system that would make it easy for me. Since we were still anchored already, he took the dinghy and added some additional line tied to a fender on the end, giving me a larger “target” to try and catch. It turned out that worked fine.

After getting settled in our new location, we ventured over to meet some folks that arrived and had moored near us. They had been to Little Farmers Cay before and told us we needed to go over and find Jr the Woodcutter. He makes native wood carvings of owns, sea birds, faces and fish. We later joined the couple, Kathy and Ted, off Victoria, and Mark and Marlene off Benjamin-Edward that they knew and went to the Ocean Cabin Restaurant for rum punches and conch fritters. Kathy and Ted had us all over for dinner. Kathy had turkey she had been saving, so we had our Easter dinner with mashed potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce. What a meal! This is not an easy thing to do on a small sailboat for 7 people.

Ted and Kathy on Victoria left on Easter Sunday to go on South to George Town, so their son could return back to Canada.

We had encountered a problem with the generator Saturday afternoon. It is making some very strange noises and Bob feared that it needed brushes or bearings. So we resorted to charging the house batteries with the engines again. Bob thinks that this will be a major repair, so we are going to call Tuesday and order a portable generator from a company in Nassau and have it sent by the mailboat to Staniel Cay where were are headed shortly. In the meantime, Mark and Marlene on Benjamin Edward, offered the use of their portable generator and that seems to be working.

Monday we picked up a loaf of homemade bread from a woman in Farmers Cay who bakes bread for boaters.

While we were there, another "front" came through. Here is a photo taken upon its arrival. It seems we are getting 4 days between the fronts that last 3 or 4 days as the present weather pattern.

Front passing through Little Farmers Cay