..........................MacGregor Index Page.......... 2015 Bahama Trip Index Page

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............ ......................--- Little Farmers Cay Stay ---.

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..........................................................(April 29th To May 6th) Anchorage --- N 23º 57.712´ ==== Trip Mileage = 788 miles ..................W 76º 19.345´ ==== Day's Mileage = 10 miles

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Might be best to explain at this point why I hung out at Little Farmers for so long. Basically there was a weather event happening that hadn't happened for some time before this. Every morning you could get the weather at 8:30. A woman, sorry I forgot her name, would come on then on 16 and tell you to go to 12 if you wanted the weather and then she gave a very detailed weather report. After day after day and wind and squalls from mainly the west she said the last time she had remembered weather like this was 30 years previous. During the period I was there larger boats moved in and out of the harbor and I could of also but the reason I didn't was the next anchorage north was Black Point. I'd stayed there on the way south and liked it and it had great protection from the east, as do most anchorages in the Exumas. Problem was it is wide open to SW, west and NW and that was where the wind and squalls were probably going to come from. So I decided to just sit all of this out in a well protected location with protection from weather from any angle. Also I liked Little Farmer. Nice quiet place that was pretty and the people were all nice.

Weather wise a front slowly moved south over us from the SE U.S.. Before it got to us the wind was out of the east and then when the front finally moved past us the wind clocked in from the west. First the front stalled on top of us and then slowly moved past us in a SE direction. There it stalled for good but wasn't done.

It then started to drift back to the NW slowly and moved back over the top of us again and off to the NW. None of this was happening quickly and ...

... during most of these days moisture was streaming up over us. Some of it light and some of it quite heavy, like 3-4 inches one day. We were also hit buy a couple lightning storms and some squalls with no lightning. One squall came past us and ran over the top of Black Point to the north of us where they clocked winds in excess of 50 kts. I'd say ours were above 40 during that one and over 30 in another one. The last lightning storm hit the Batelco tower about 1500 feet from the boat and took out Internet and some other communications. That happened the day before I finally moved north.

There was a lot of cloudy weather with no sun or very little a couple days. It tested the solar and batteries and they came out fine but I was glad to have the 560 watts of solar on the boat. The batteries never got below about 55% even during 3-4 days of very little sun. The panels put out some amps even with total cloud cover. As I write this up in the Berrys with over 2 months on the water now the solar has provided plenty of power for the 63 quart fridge, fans, VHF radio, autopilot, Sirius radio and all the computer time I want. I've gotten some power at times when running the outboard but have also gone days, like the stay at Little Farmer, without running the outboard and also for the past 160 miles have sailed it all without the outboard with the exception of about 4-5 miles. With that in mind I'm really glad that I added the extra solar to the boat and have really appreciated the shade it has given and the sturdy handhold's that it has provided when moving around.

With the weather out of the way let's take a look at what Little Farmers had to offer because there were a lot of good times there also, not just weather related ones.

Some of the following pictures and text will talk about different areas of the Island. Most of the town is located just above Little Harbor. I moved over to Big Harbor where you can get in a ways if you draw about 4 feet or less. The airstrip, not an airport, is on the NW end of the island and there is a nice restaurant/bar there just feet off the runway. Farmer's Cay Yatch Club is on a point at the NE end of the Island. The island is only about 1 mile in length top to bottom and just over ¼ mile wide so not a large island. Most of these islands have diesel generators at some location and some paved roads and a few vehicles from time to time but mostly people are on foot or using golf carts. You can walk all over and maybe passed by a golf cart and I think I only saw a vehicle moving once or twice while I was there. Keep in mind there are no gas stations so if you have a vehicle you might have to travel by boat to another island to get gas to bring back here. All of which is expensive but also you aren't going to put on very many miles on your car or truck.

The first night on the new anchorage in Big Harbor two guys come up in a dinghy and ask if I have an onion they could have. I pulled out one and we talked some. One, Martin, was on a 30' C & C anchored out in the channel and the other, Tony, was anchored near me and had a Gemini 3000 (30 foot cat). We decided to hook up some as they were going to wait out the weather here also.

A day or two later they came by in Martin's inflatable and picked me up and we beached the dinghy over on the beach in Big Harbor next to the boat above. I figured the boat had washed ashore but later when we returned at high tide it was actually floating. Still it looked in no condition to actually go out.

Most of the boats that came in didn't anchor but used some mooring balls in the main channel like the boat above...or....

.... like this one. There were also a couple mooring balls in the channel over on the far side of the bay by the house above. There was shallow water between the two channels.

Martin was anchored out in the nearby channel due to his 5 foot of draft and had some problems before he extended his rodes. The current is very strong in these channels, especially where the boat above is and where his was. He had a Danforth anchor and it struggle to reset in the reversing current. I think he drug close to a boat one of the first nights there so never slept well after that and would constantly get up and check to see if he was dragging. This proved very beneficial to a boat that had tied to a mooring ball (not the boat above). In the middle of the night they lost the connection to the mooring ball somehow and were drifting out to the cut where there is a reef. Martin woke to check his situation and noticed them off over by the cut and got into his dinghy and motored over and awoke them before they were drug by the current into the potentially very dangerous cut.

The mooring balls are available from Terry at Ocean Cabin and I think the maraina has some. If you want one call either on the radio when you come in.

From time to time and place to place you will see boats like the one above that will remind you that bad things can happen. Get good anchoring gear and get good at using it in different conditions, especially if you sleep through about anything like I happen to do.

As you move about in the Bahamas you will become aware of a lot of smaller plane traffic. Think of this area like the Alaska Bush, without the snow and a lot more water. There you have bush pilots ferrying people an supplies to settlements that can only be reached easily by plane. In the Bahamas supply boats haul most larger items to the island settlements but people and some supplies are carried on small planes. You can charter planes to take you from Nassau to about any place that has an airstrip, and there are a lot of those, or there are scheduled flights to some of these islands either once a week or more often. The plane above and just landed on Little Farmer and was soon back in the air above.

Tony, Martin and I walked over to the airstrip and to the restaurant that is just a few feet from it and .....

.... can be seen just outside the door on the far side of the restaurant.

Above we have Martin on your left and Tony on your right.

Martin drives truck and specializes in those really large loads that only travel during the day with numerous escort cars. He bought a 30' C & C and with no sailing experience left Florida's west coast and sailed to the Bahamas, not that he or I would recommend someone doing this. In hindsight it would of probably been better if he would of taken a shorter cruise to check the boat out and take care of a few items. The boat itself was in great shape but he was having problems with the batteries and the charging system and it was imperative that he kept the batteries up, or at least the start battery so he could start the diesel. I later helped him with that to some degree but wonder how he made out. Since I don't have a phone here I don't know as I write this. I'll call him when I get back to the states. He hung around for a couple days after I left as his sister was flying in with a friend. They would then head slowly towards Nassau where he would drop them off so they could fly back home. A flight from Nassau to Little Farmer is about $100 so not bad.

Tony has a dive business in Cozumel, Mexico and was sailing a 30' Gemini cat as I mentioned before. Later up the Exumas I finally snorkel into some grotto's and snorkeled over some reefs there. Tony made that so much more interesting as he put names to the fish we would see and also to the different coral formations. He is a wealth of information on all of that and is an accomplished sailor that sails as much as is humanly possible including on and off anchor almost all of the time and if the winds are light still sails and doesn't fire the motor up. A good inspiration to me. If you are a diver and would like to go to the Cozumel area consider getting in touch with his business ScubaTony.com. He would leave a couple days before me as he had to pick up a friend at the airport up at Black Point. He was there for the 50 kt winds of the squall that hit there and said he saw 8 foot waves in the anchorage. I'm glad I wasn't there for that since the anchorage was so exposed to the direction the squall came in from.

The restaurant, sorry I don't have the name, has a nice deck that ...

.... faces Exuma Bank to the west and...

.... we were ....

.... treated to the beginning of what would be a great sunset. I had conch fritters here also and they were delicious. We probably spent over 3 hours just having a nice visit.

With dark approaching we walked down the runway...

... past the wind sock, shirt??, in the direction of ...

.... Farmer's Cay Yacht Club. They use the airstrip as their road and you also just walk or ride down the airstrip to the restaurant.

There is no tower or any thing like that. You will see planes that are going to land circle these airstrips to check the windsock and to probably warn anyone using the strip that they are going to land. There were lights along the strip but we wondered if they actually worked as some were in pieces. They had solar cells on top and a little antenna and Tony said that they probably, maybe, could be turned on by a plane landing. I would sure hate to be on that plane landing in the dark here. These are short strips and as you can see you would not want to go off onto the shoulders of the strips you would be in the ocean, rocks, or vegetation. The end of the strip reminded me of the air craft carrier I served on in the Navy. You have pavement down there and then water. You had better get the landing and takeoff just right.

At the end of the strip you turn right and the pavement ends and a dirt/gravel road heads off to the yacht club.

The setting sun really started to ...

.... light up the rocks and vegetation.

We soon arrived at the yacht club and were on the foot bridge where the view was very impressive.

Just a short way back up the road you have this view looking to the west with the tidal flats the creek fills and empties and past it the narrow west side of the island where the airstrip is.

Martin took Tony and I back to our boats and I took one final sunset picture.

Above I'm anchored in Big Harbor with ....

... Tony's Gemini just to the north of me and ...

.... Martin's C & C further out in the main channel.

While I was there a couple different supply ships....

... would come in from the deeper waters of Exuma Sound and then do a 180 out in the deeper channel and ...

... smaller boats would pull along side and load and/or unload supplies and possibly passengers. I was amazed at how they could bring these boats in and turn them in the strong current in channels not much wider than the boats were long. It was pretty impressive.

===================== Tip of the Day =========================

At home I have dish TV and listen to Sirius music channels out in the shop as I work. Before taking this trip I bought a Sirius radio and subscribed to Sirius. I bought a couple different docking stations. One runs on 110v and I started using it in the shop and left it there. I also bought a couple mobile 12v docking stations and antennas for them. I left one in the Suburban and the other I used in the Endeavour while I lived on her in the yard but .....

.... transfered to the MacGregor before leaving.

I think being alone on this boat for over 2 months as I write this that having the radio has kept me half way sane. I'm not talking out loud to myself near as much as the first week or so of the trip. I'm a NASCAR fan so can listen to the NASCAR channel or to any of the races that are taking place.

I have the radio for a good part of the day listening to 50's to 80's music and often have it playing during the night on an easy listening station as the music helps me get back to sleep in the middle of the night when I awake and my brain goes into overdrive. In the past we had iHome speakers that looked like the one above but they ran on AA batteries. The batteries last quite a while but now they have the speakers and they can run on 5 volts. You use one of the plugs that has USB ports on it and plug it into a 12 volt outlet on the boat. So now no more having to put batteries into the speaker. One line above goes to the radio and the other to the 12 volt/USB connector for power. These speakers have very good sound quality, at least to me they do. I can turn the volume up on the radio and hear it out in the cockpit without having to move it out there.

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