Friday, March 12, 2010 Little Farmers Cay

Little Farmers Cay (N23 57.219 W076 19.001)

Well this morning it was Winfield Lash’s turn for their mooring to break. The winds were still high all night and expected to remain high throughout today as another cold front comes through tomorrow.

Solitaire hailed us on the radio to let us know that Winfield had broken loose. Dave heard them on the radio and kicked on the engines so they hadn’t gotten to far. I’d noted that they were coming our way so we probably could have grabbed them, if Dave hadn’t heard, and they wouldn’t have gone far. I later found out that after our mooring had snapped, they’d put out an anchor. I was glad that the mooring had waited until daylight before letting them loose! They tried anchoring & had a rough time finding a suitable anchoring spot. Terry showed up and they reattached to the mooring and dropped an anchor. Then Terry went to Madcap and took an anchor out for them, and then on to Solitaire. Better safe than sorry with the strong winds expected tonight and tomorrow. The weather is calling for near gale winds and possible water spouts from the front that’s heading our way.

After things settled down Marge hailed me to see if I’d like to go for a walk & see if we could find any seashells. Wayne wanted to tear the garage apart to see if the flagstaff was there and it sounded like a splendid idea. Dave was going fishing at 11:00 so we all went to the beach at the same time. We hailed Beth and Nancy to see if they’d like a girl’s day ashore (Madcap & Solitaire). Nancy had a ton of things to do but Beth joined us and we had a nice afternoon checking out the nooks and crannies of the beaches for shells. It was a beautiful day for a walk. The sun was out and it wasn’t really to hot – it was quite comfortable to walk along and in the water. While cutting across the island, we checked out one young man’s artwork (composed of shell and driftwood). He beckoned us into his house to look at it to see if we might be interested in any of it or in purchasing some peanuts. I enjoyed looking at his shells and work but we weren’t interested in buying anything. We walked to the other side of the island and down the airstrip to the Little Farmer’s Yacht Club.

We could see Dave and Olli fishing off the tip of the airstrip and they took off as we neared the Yacht Club so they must have had good fishing. We got cold drinks at the Club and met Oscar – he owns the round, pink house over on Big Farmers - before heading back towards town. A plane had come in after we’d left the airstrip and it took back off again as we were leaving the Little Farmers Yacht Club. It’s thrilling to watch planes come and go from these islands on the small landing strips! I imagine trying to line up with the strip and touch down without bouncing to much and breaking a strut.

Back at town we’d stopped at the store for bread and fresh fruit then went over to the conch shell pile to see if there was any good specimens. We all found a couple of nice shells and then ran into Olli and Dave as they were unloading their catch – a merchant fish, a couple porgy and another couple I can’t recall their names. Three stingrays were hovering in the shallow waters near the cleaning tables waiting for the scraps as they cleaned the fish. The rays were not disappointed and got a plentiful amount of the scraps.

Marge stayed with the guys to wait for Dave to finish up and Beth and I headed back to the beach with our booty from the sea to hail Wayne then Jim for a lift back to the boats. “Kolibrie, Kolibrie, Kolibrie, this is Swee’pea, Swee’pea…” No response so we tried Jim. “Madcap, Madcap, Madcap, this is Crazy Lulu, Crazy Lulu… Oh, this sounds more like Swee’pea…” That cracked me up. Wayne heard us after we got a hold of Jim and switched to channel 17. Somehow the radio on Kolibrie had been left on channel 17 instead of 16 so he never heard my call & wondered why I called Jim LOL. He missed a good hailing!

Happy hour on Solitaire was amazing. I didn’t know you could fit that many people on a boat! Solitaire, Lapidus, MadCap, Winfield Lash, Kolibrie and Oscar. 11 people in the cockpit! I’d have never thought you could fit that many people in a cockpit – what a great boat! Nancy & Jim’s boat has so much room – quite wonderful and their kitties really made me miss ours. Other than Winfield Lash breaking loose this morning, we had a terrific time and it was a wonderful day. The weather, water, company… it was a good BAHAMIAN day :)