Sailing the Exumas - Staniel Cay back to Little Farmer's Cay

We awoke to another blustery day.....strong wind from the west.  Not a normal condition for long periods and it churned up the normally placid Exuma Banks water!

We had planned to await low tide at 11AM to be able to enter the Thunderball Grotto for some snorkeling.  We ended up being able to sneak in what I normally think of as the "back side" of the grotto with just a few inches over our heads.  Sorry - no underwater photos this trip - I didn't bring my case that holds my camera!  Bummer!

So, you'll just have to take my word that we spent a fabulous half hour in the grotto - with bread crumbs to feed the fish.  We saw beautiful angel fish and an enormous variety of the usual reef fish.

Time to head in to Staniel Cay Yacht Club for water.   We were almost out (we started with 200 gallons).  We're about 1/2 way through the 10 day charter, so we felt like we were doing pretty well conserving the water.

Unfortunately, the wind was strong!  But since we really had no other options, we tossed off the mooring ball and  pulled over to the large dock.  It was very blustery and the wind was pushing us hard onto the (padded) dock.  The boys got busy putting the water in the tanks.  Turns out we used 161 gallons - so just about 4 gallons of water per day per person.  Not bad!

The crew had to use a "springline" to allow Duane to angle us away into the strong wind and escape the dock.  The crew-coordination worked wonderfully and we were away from the dock in a jiffy!

Safely away from the dock - we headed out Big Rock Cut into the Exuma Sound.  Amazingly, the sound side was almost calm in comparison!   We sailed with just the genoa (foresail) out in 15 knots of wind.  This pushed the boat happily along at about 5 knows.  We could have put more sail up, but everyone was happy for the couple of hours it would take to get back to Farmer's Cut.


Going out Big Rock Cut....

We had the fishing line in the water.....

Everyone relaxed along the way.

Capt'n Duane....

Beautiful easy sail.....

See what I mean about relaxing...

Capt'n Duane took a break....Capt'n Buddy and first mate Laurie.....

One of the few photos of Karen!

More relaxing .....ahem.....sleeping.....

Dick heard the fishing line whir - and reeled in our first fish!

We believe it is a yellow tailed snapper.

Filleted and put in the freezer for later use!  We have plans for dinner tonight that don't include cooking!

And then we started catching barracuda.....several were caught - good fighting fish, but not edible.  This one went back to the ocean.

Filleted and put in the freezer for later use!  We have plans for dinner tonight that don't include cooking!

Uneventful sail - back into the anchorage at Little  Farmer's Cay to avoid the worst of the west wind.

We contacted Ocean Cabin via radio to order dinner....then everyone got cleaned up an we dinghied in for some pre-dinner fun.


Dick #1 met us at the public dock.

We had to get him to pose with Dick #2!

Then we wandered over to Ty's for an adult beverage before dinner at Ocean Cabin.

Working hard to figure something out on Lindy's Ipad. 

Sharon and Buddy on their 25th wedding anniversary sunset at Ty's Sunset Bar.....perfect.

Everyone enjoyed the ever-present "ring toss" game.  

Lot's of celebrating when the ring was captured on the hook!

Laurie's turn....

See what I mean about celebrating!

Group photo  with Terry after dinner....

Terry "worked the crowd" to get everyone ready to sing the "Little Farmer's Cay" anthem.

And now....drum roll.....the video of the patrons all singing the theme song...."Little Farmer's Cay".   It's really a nice song.  Really.  I know you don't believe it.....fun though!

And on the way back to the boat....we had Ayden make us some more of that conch salad!  Yum!  A wet dinghy ride back in the dark finished us all off.  We gave Sharon and Buddy a little photo album with all the photos of them I could find thru the years.  Fun to look at them as young folks!