Little Farmers Cay

Denzell the peanut guy

Welcome to Farmers Cay

Pictures are out of order bc laptop decided to roll over and die; thus my tablet has been called to duty. Revisions will be made when a new one is acquired.

Another visitor

JR's beautiful work

On Wednesday, February 5 we picked up anchor and moved north approximately 3/4 of a mile, to Kemp's Bay anchorage. Besides being a little closer to Farmers Cay, it also provides better protection from the upcoming southwest winds.  After the move we dropped the dink and made a visit to Kitty Hawk, chatting with Brett, Kim and Mike who we last saw at Black Point Settlement.  From there we dinked to the west side of the island pulling the little boat onto the west bay beach in front of Ty's Sunset Bar and Grill.  After a couple of hamburgers and fries we were entertained and informed of the history of the island and the lay off the land, including areas of interest.  It seems Ty is a descendant from the Nixon-Brown family one of the original settlers and owners of the island.

Little Harbor visitor

Little Farmers was settled by a woman, Chrisanna (circa 1842), and has a current population  of about 45.  Chrisanna, a freed slave from Great Exuma moved to Farmers Cay with her two sons and daughter Michael Joseph Nixon and Adam and Eve Brown. She bought the island from the English Crown and willed it to her descendants as generational property. It remains a private island owned by those descendants.

We hiked some of the 68 acre island meeting many of the residents. Denzell was playing his homemade drums in his front yard and invited us for roasted peanuts, pomegranate and tamarind.  The peanuts were delicious and the others had their own distinct flavor.  When leaving Denzell also requested Ruth take along fresh picked thyme. Next we visted with JR, a very talented wood carver.  Apparently he is known and sells throughout the Bahamas.  He was not pushy and of course we don't have room aboard, though I considered purchasing a beautiful wooden Mahi Mahi.  Finally we made it to Little Harbour, where you can swim with turtles.  These are wild turtles, captive by no one. We also saw stingrays and other fish in the harbour.

On Thursday, after coffee I attempted to turn on my laptop to make a few notes in preparation of this blog entry.  No luck. The laptop appears dead.  We got rain last night but Pura Vida has never leaked a drop.... until now. Unwisely I left it under a portlight and it had a puddle the size of a 50 cent piece on its top.  I wiped it off and she wouldnt come on.  I've tightened the frames on the portlights and hopefully can have laptop repaired in George Town.  On this day we also explored the Great Guana Cay Cave near Oven Rock.  It was a 15 minute hike from the beach and not something you'd expect.

Bahamian racing boat

The Farmer Cay festival started Friday. It is the islands biggest event including Bahamians from across the islands as well as cruising visitors. There is food, music, dancing, various contest and a one design regatta.  The regatta boats are locally made and each has hiking boards that extend outward, mid beam, where the rail meat gets to ride.  In other words guys sit on the extended boards as counter weight.  We chased them around in our dinghy for a while until we realized the course extended through our anchorage.

Tomorrow we plan to shove off, at high, slack tide, around 0700 toward George Town, which will be our home base for a while.