Black Cay and Little Farmers Cay

Departing George Town we saw a big navy blue sloop going our way and hailed them on the VHF. Corsaire is a 50 foot Beneteau with a draft ten inches deeper than ours. We were both headed north but toward different destinations, but both intended to go later to Staniel Cay. 

We both passed out through Conch Cay Cut from the shallow harbor out to the deep (NE) side of the island chain and had a great sail past several of the chain of cays for 19.4 miles. We had set the small jib in the harbor to aid the engine but out in the deep water we saw that we could carry the genoa so we let it fly, rolling up the jib behind it. We later let the boom out to leeward as far as it could go, and hoisted the reefed main, without turning into the wind, and then trimmed it in. With the wind  from the southwest and our course northwest it was a beam reach and brisk enough to move the boat at speed and without significant waves, because the wind was off-shore and did not have room to build the waves up in the space between the islands and our boat, less than a mile from shore. We entered the SW (bank or shallow) side of the island chain through Glass Cay Cut and anchored behind Black Cay as planned.

We were the only boat there. 

I had planned to visit the town of Rolleville on Great Exuma the next day. The Rolle family was and is big in the Exumas, with a town, a village and a cay named after them as well as about four businesses in George Town. But the anchorage was rolly (the cruising guide uses the phrase “subject to surge”). So we left the next morning for the ocean, via the same cut, and sailed  the 25 miles to Little Farmers Cay which we approached from the ocean through Farmers Cay Cut. The sailing was much like the day before but the wind was a bit forward of the beam and stronger; having flown the Genoa, we were overpowered so we partially furled it and reduced speed a few tenths below eight knots. The cruising guide says that at Little Farmers Cay anchoring is poor but that moorings may be taken, and to call Ocean Cabin on the VHF. No problem, was the reply, aim for the white house on the hill once in the cut. Here is the white house.

 And here is the view from the white house, out through the cut:

We took a mooring, off White Land Beach, just below the white house, where we were protected from the westerly winds. There we met Ken and Linda, sailing Adele Mary, named after his two grandmothers, a beautiful Shannon 39 . ILENE left, Adele Mary, right, Big Farmers Cay in background:

He is from Vail and manages a portfolio of commercial real estate and she retired from an IT job for the railroads.

We invited them to a shared dinner aboard ILENE that evening and then took a walk on the island, meeting JR, carver of wooden statues from sweet tamarind limbs.

We bought the owl on whose bottom JR is carving his initials. We did not haggle but he offered us a 20% discount “because it’s Easter”. JR is big on the healing properties of the bark, leaves and fruits of the trees that grow on his property. He told us about his island. He gave us a tour of his home, his shop and the southern part of the island. He asked if he could buy a gallon of gasoline for $10 (fuel of any kind is a lot more expensive here than in the states) to operate his generator to make electricity (it had been several days since the electricity on the island was working.  One NEEDS a generator) so the fish in his freezer would not spoil. We agreed and in  fact poured more than a gallon of gas from our dinghy tank to his.  The cruising guide said the cost of moorings was $10 so we asked JR to pay Terry, the proprietor of Ocean Cabin restaurant and provider of moorings, the $10 for us and he paid this sum to Terry’s daughter.

Dinner aboard ILENE was a big hit with good food, wine, conversation and a show of lightning from all around us which lit up pieces of the sky from below the horizon and without the thunder signifying proximity. When we heard faint thunder at last, it was time for the party to end.
            We went to sleep at about 11 but were awakened by a terrible crash at about 1:30. By the time we were up in the cockpit with the engine and instruments on, we were far from where we had been, and where the other moored boats were. It was raining hard with a lot of wind. We had not hit or been hit by another boat; we had hit a rock. We backed out into deeper water, dropped the anchor, watched it set, and I stayed in the cockpit to see if the distance from our boat to the cursor of the chart plotter, set on a landmark 0.250 miles away, changed out of its range of .248 to .252 miles. One thousandth of a nautical mile is six feet. We were secure again, and far enough away from the land in front of us, the shoal behind us, and the other boats nearby still on moorings. Ilene was quite scared. I was too focused on trying to do what had to be done to get scared about what might happen if those things did  not work.  I called Terry of Ocean Cabin on VHF in the morning to tell him that his mooring had broken and that part of it was still attached to ILENE and he could come and get it. I had pulled it aboard so it would not get tangled with our propeller while we were backing.We both saw that the weakest link in his rusty old chain had simply rusted through. I later learned that a sort of rough justice had accidentally been done. I had not known that the mooring price had been raised from $10 per night to $20. So in fact I paid for only half a night’s rental, and we were on the mooring only half a night.

          Next day at about 1 pm the wind had shifted to the east. Now we had swung closer to shore and the depth alarm, set to go off at seven feet, made its horrid squeal. We were in just over six feet of water with our 5’ 8” draft. A group of snorkelers came by to tell us that our anchor had gotten wrapped around a coral and was wrecking it. They were satisfied with our answer that in the middle of the night, we had a legitimate emergency concern other than the environment. They helped us get our chain in without further damage to the coral and we moved to a spot in a channel further north along the same eastern side of Little Farmers Cay, but better protected from the strong easterly winds, by the south end of ocean facing Great Guana Cay.  There were moorings here too, and moorings are generally considered more secure than an anchor, but this had proved not true at Little Farmers Cay. So we put in a Bahamian moor (the people on the islands call it a "merenge" because the boat's stern twitches back and forth): one anchor is set out the normal way and the other, also from the bow, at an angle of about 150 degrees from the first anchor. This way, when the current rushes from SE to NW, one anchor is holding and when the tide turns and the water rushes the other way, the other anchor holds. The result is that the boat’s bow does not move very much. ILENE is in the darker blue, (deeper) water and you can see an ocean roller roaring in through the cut at the left.

  

On our third and last day, the afternoon of Easter Sunday, I took in the dink and walked the island.

Its Yacht Club in the NE was closed.

Most of the names in the Cemetery are Nixon or Brown.

Its airport runway is level along the NW coast; a seven seater had recently landed, I was proudly told.

The Baptist (only) Church and elementary school.

What caused these eroded waterside rock formations, so typical of the Exumas? Salt water.

I met two gentlemen, Messrs. Rolle and Wilson, sitting on an Easter Sunday afternoon. 

They, as had JR, the carver, were kind enough to answer many questions. If anything said in this posting is incorrect, please blame my hearing or memory, not their accounts.

It seems that everyone on the island is either (1) a descendant of one woman who, one at a time, had two husbands: Mr. Nixon and Mr. Brown, or (2) related by marriage to such a descendant. The island is owned and run by the family.  If an outsider like me wanted to live there, a family member would lease me land for 99 years, a family member would contract to build a house for me and I would be welcomed in such manner as the only non-family member. On neighboring Big Farmers Cay, there are several large vacation homes owned by people from Canada or the US, but not on Little Farmers Cay.

There are 65 residents about 18 of whom are in the elementary school. Those of high school age are sent off the island to school. Those who return are provided with a piece of land and the foundation of a house but it is up to the new family to finish the construction. This house has seen better days.

There is one policeman and one police car and quite a few feet of paved road per capita. The garbage is picked up and brought to the dump.  

 Cotton was once grown on the island and a few bushes of wild cotton are still in evidence.

 Little Harbor, with the government dock, where you can come ashore without getting your feet wet.

We had a delicious and inexpensive dinner of cracked conch (sort of like fried calamari) and lobster tail at Ocean Cabin restaurant.

 Little Farmers Cay was an interesting island of family unity and unlike Black Cay, a place of unexpected, undesirable and excessive night time excitement.

Posted from Highborne Cay.