It was pretty windy this morning. We hung out on the boat after taking Fuzzy ashore for his morning constitutional. After lunch we decided to walk in to town. For the town walk we tied the dinghy off at the dinghy dock at FCYC. Since the tide was falling and the wind was blowing towards shore, we tried a new technique that we’ve seen a lot of locals with small boats use. Bud tossed a stern anchor off and we tied the bow to the dock. We’ve been using the little Danforth type anchor that Gary gave us. It weighs almost nothing, but works like a charm. This is the first time we deployed it in rocks, and not sand, and it held.

Before we walked to town Bud stopped at the Yacht Club and asked the proprietor, Roosevelt Nixon (yes, that’s his name) if there were any fish in these waters that you shouldn’t eat. When he came out I asked Bud what he said. “He said there’s only two, big Barracuda and the Horse-Eyed Jack.” “He did not say that,” say I, figuring this is Bud pulling my leg as usual. Oh, yes, he really said that. So our Big-Eyed Jack is known locally as a Horse-Eyed Jack and it just went from supper to fish bait. That took the lilt out of our gait.

We walked downtown anyway. There’s not much to downtown Little Farmer’s. This is the island that has 55 permanent residents. I took a picture of the main dock in town; the buildings are the government office, the fish market and the post office. Bud stopped at the liquor store and got a $20 bottle of gin. The guy who owned the liquor store was out front with two young men fixing an outboard motor, but he stopped when we came up and opened the store. He confirmed that Horse-Eyed Jack isn’t to be eaten. You won’t die, but you’ll spend a lot of time on the toilet.

I took pictures of the cut from Exuma Sound between Great Guana and Big Farmer’s. You can see the line of breakers where the outgoing tide was meeting the east wind. These cuts can get all but impassible with a strong tide meeting a strong opposing wind. Even today, it doesn’t look like it’d be fun to go through it. I also took a picture of cotton plants that are now growing wild. They must be left over from two hundred years ago, when they tried to put plantations on these islands. All these pictures are in the gallery.

After we got back to the boat Bud tried fishing again. This time he hooked a nurse shark. It was probably at least four feet long. He didn’t even try to land this one. We did get it close enough to try and cut the leader to set it loose, but as he finally worked it up to the side of the dinghy, the line broke at the leader, so the shark left with the leader and hook. While he was trying to bring in the shark, you could see a big Barracuda in the water, just hanging out and watching the shark. It was about 3 feet long. Bud’s finally getting some excitement from fishing, but we still had just rice and vegetables for dinner.