February 8, 2013
On February 6, we traveled from Black Point to Little Farmers Cay via the Bank and anchored on the west side of the island. We have spent two enjoyable days here, meeting some nice people and having a couple of great meals.
Last weekend was the '5Fs' festival here - First Friday in February Farmers Festival and the island was packed; we purposely avoided the crowds and came down after the festival concluded. This week there have been no more than 6 boats here, in total, and it has been a great opportunity to talk to the locals.
We first hiked over to the settlement on Wednesday morning and checked out the government dock.
Little Farmers is much smaller than Black Point and has a smaller and older dock. The Cay is serviced by the same mail boat (Captain C) as Black Point and Staniel Cay, but the water in the harbour here is not deep enough for the mail boat to reach the dock; the boat anchors off and the supplies must be brought in on a barge. It was at the government dock that we met our first local - 'Altimous' (Ali) who runs a small bar and liquor store near the dock. A few locals were moving their boats off the dock before low tide and Ali jokingly said to me "You are next". I didn't understand what he meant and asked for what? He responded "To move your boat". I told him our dinghy was on the beach on the west shore. He again jokingly said, "Well, if it is well on the beach, it might be there when you get back" I assured him that our dinghy was, hopefully, secure with an anchor up on the beach and a stern anchor. Ali was very friendly and jovial (a word I don't often think of using, but seems perfect). As we met more folks, we were pleasantly surprised that Ali was not the exception, but the rule. The Little Farmers residents seem universally very friendly and jovial (that word again).
We then walked up to Farmers Cay Yacht Club, a small marina at the north end of the Cay.
After entering, we were warmly greeted by Roosevelt Nixon, the owner. He had been working on his roof and had tar on his hands so we jokingly did an 'air’ handshake. After a drink and conversation with Julian (sometimes bartender and Bahamas Electric employee), we ordered lunch which was delicious. As we ate, a party of three Bahamians sat down behind us. At one point one of the women from this party said, "Is this your first time to Little Farmers?" I responded yes, to which she said with a big smile "Mine too!" She explained that she was a government doctor from Nassau making rounds on three of the Exuma cays for the first time. She was loving her visit. Doctors are supposed to visit the out-islands monthly, but there is a shortage of doctors, so the Cay had not had a visit for several months; there is, however, a resident nurse, that was also part of the lunch party. The doctor was raised in Nassau; her father originally came from Cat Cay. She said that her father was very serious about his children's education - she joked, "My father didn't build us a play room, he built us a study room". It had obviously paid off, she attended college, medical school, and did her residency in the US before returning to the Bahamas. She intended to try to convince her supervisor to let her regularly do rounds at Farmers and the adjacent cays.
We again returned to FCYC for lunch the next day, returning to our boat via the island airstrip. No TSA here Mon, just need to keep alert for incoming traffic!
Today (Friday) we plan to move a little farther south to Lee Stocking Island in advance of some more strong easterlies.
Tom
Little Farmers Cay
No comments:
Post a Comment