From Bahamas

From Bahamas

We've been hanging out at Little Farmers Cay for the past few days with Frank & Debbie. This is where we pulled in years ago, anchored next to Frank and he came over to our boat, introduced himself & offered us some lobster he'd just speared. And so our friendship began! We've been enjoying diving together again and it's always nice to have more than one person to get a big fish which is what we did yesterday. I saw a really nice sized yellowfin grouper, got the boys with their spears over and they worked together to get it while Deb and I supervised. It had a really deep hole in a ledge, both of them nearly lost their spears but in the end we had 2 large fillets of delicious grouper. We're really trying to enjoy this now since once we leave the Bahamas this kind of fishing will come to an end.

A couple of days ago we hopped on Frank & Debbie's boat and headed down to the next cut towing our dinghies. He anchored in a little cove just inside the cut and since his ear was bothering him, he took us around in the dinghy so we could drift dive & fish and not have to worry about the current. Whenever Jon came up with a lobster, Frank was right there to take it from him. Galliot Cut is where I saw nine eagle rays swimming in formation through the cut, the most I've ever seen at a time. I tried to get pictures but they weren't very clear. Debbie made us a delicious lunch and we had time to just relax & shoot the breeze on their boat. Then Jon & I dinghied back to our boat at sunset.

I made a lemon cake the other day in remembrance of the lemon cake that we were so excited about on the first cruise down here in the Cape Dory. We had our cat with us on that trip and she added a lot of humor and good photo ops to it. It was late in the trip and we'd been saving this box cake to have when our provisions were getting low. It was all frosted and sitting just inside the companionway. Then I passed Kitty's little litterbox out the companionway to Jon for cleaning but we didn't do a very good handoff and it spilled all over the cake. There were two very disappointed campers on the boat that night and the cake went overboard.
From Bahamas

Farmers Cay has been a real hoot; everyone is so friendly and it just feels good to be here. The water is so many shades of blue and crystal clear. I took a nice run a couple of days ago and part of my loop around the island included the airport runway. Where else but here would I get to do that? The reason why we're hanging out here is for the 5F's Festival .... The First Friday in February Farmers Cay Festival. There are loads of boats here and the weekly supply freighter arrived this morning blaring Bahamian music as it always does but this week it also was carrying some of the Bahamian C class sloops for the regatta. As we were sitting beachside waiting for the race to start this Bahamian came up to Jon and asked if he would be crew since they were short one. So he got to work his tail off on one with 4 other guys and they won the race! First, all the boats line up between two buoys and anchor. When the race director waves the yellow shirt, everyone (Jon) hauls up their anchor as fast as they can to get momentum and the oversized sail is raised and off they go. In order to avoid capsizing and sinking (which one boat did), there are 4 guys hiked out on pry's (wood planks) (Jon) and with each tack, the pry has to be moved to the other side (Jon) and reweighted with people to balance the boat. On each downwind tack, the bilge pump wires are held up to the battery to pump the water out (Jon) before the next bash to windward. Winners got free drinks for the night but we headed over to the other side of the cay to get mutton stew for dinner with Frank & Debbie. It was a really nice day.
From Bahamas


That morning, Jon & I walked on a nice little trail on Big Farmers Cay to a cave. It had a green pool of water inside and plenty of mineral rich water dripping from the ceiling. It wasn't an elaborate cave but it was nice to just be able to go into it on our own and not have to be on a tour for once. The trail continued on over to a windwardside beach full of flotsam, including a few sea beans to add to our collection. If we ever have a house, we envision having a huge, clear vase filled with sea beans.

The wind has picked up over the past couple of days and it is kind of rolly in this anchorage but it's close to the wifi antenna so that is definitely the priority! We joke that when we pull into an anchorage we don't care if it's calm, safe, pretty or anything other than whether there's a good wifi signal! Right Maggie??? It's especially noticeable when the current is really running, pinning us broadside to the wind, creating a roll. Jon staggers out this morning and I'm complaining that I keep waking up in the night hungry, not knowing why. He asks me when in this anchorage am I not contracting at least one muscle to stay in place and I have to say never! Even in bed you're bracing. So wow, am I burning calories all night? No wonder I'm hungry. With all our aches & pains we chuckle that one day we may not be able to climb up into our bed the way we have to. It is like a gymnastics exercise to get up there if a hip or knee is smarting. But we decided we weren't going to talk about what is hurting anymore, only what isn't hurting. Well that frees up a lot of airtime!

A few days ago we spent half a day taking apart the wind generator twice and determined that it definitely has issues that were there right from the beginning, they've just gotten worse. The company is sending us new parts and if we get them in Panama, we can put them in! Thanks Mark for your advice, you were right on!