Little Farmers Cay 5F’s Festival

 Little Farmers Cay

We headed out from Staniel Cay and Big Major early, heading to little Farmers Cay, where we were promised a mooring right across from the Little Farmers Yacht Club.  The sail was great, close hauled with the perfect wind for it.  It was apparent soon into the sail that there was a race going on among the cruisers to get to the best anchorage and mooring field there, for the festival.  There were a half a dozen boats ahead of us and more than that behind, the boats were pouring out of Black Point, where Falco had spent the day before.  It is about 5 miles into the 15mile trip.  

We went around the south side, and the area between Little Farmers and Great Gauana was pretty full. And the radio was a constant stream of boats hailing for moorings.  We were not optimistic that our “reservation” would be honored.  When we called, the harbor master came back with yours is the one on the end.  We tied up, and had one of the best spots in the place for our draft.  IT WORKED!!  The cruising guide said there was gas and diesel available, which was not the case, and chasing the race boats would take fuel.  I asked the harbor master about this, he said, “I get you some fom da reserve”.  I brought in the can and he siphoned 5 gallons from an old drum into my can, and ran it without issue.  No rule against pipetting by mouth here. Another thank you.

We went to the festival in the town, which was very nice, several booths set up and everything you need.  The people were so friendly, introducing themselves and the kids, and taking the time to chat about everything and anything.  The festival is a big event for the Cay.

We found the Lobsterman and bought a couple of nice ones for dinner.  We have begun to substitute lobster in our recipe book from Louisiana where it calls for crawfish.  They call them crawfish here anyway.  Pierre struck up a conversation and for $50 bucks a piece he would take us out there and show us how to get dem mon.  We took him up on the offer.  The five of us, Pierre, Mireille, Laurent, Emily, and myself headed out, the adults with our new spears and the kids with their snorkel gear.  Staniel is the lobster mans son and he was the demonstrator, they made it clear that what he got was theirs, and what we got was ours.

The first place we went we drifted over some shallow area, and then it went to about 30 feet. Staniel had a mask from the early Bond movies, no snorkel and some fins.  He swam down 30 feet, looked around for a while, wham, came up with a big lobster.  I went down about 20 feet, saw my life flash before my eyes, and darted back to the surface for air.  He did say he would show us how, and did not promise we could actually do it. 

We went to another spot and I saw him get a few more.  Then he gets the kids into the boat and says, grab onto these lines.  There were two each about 5 feet long off either side of the stern.  We grab on and he puts it in gear.  Just let go if you see one.  He was not talking about the propeller of the 150hp engine spinning 3 feet from my face, but about two little antenna of a lobster 20 feet away sticking out from under a rock.  Staniel was good at this, he would break free, go to the bottom, come back up in the time to catch the boat after a circle.   We did manage to shoot at a couple of lobsters during the outing but missed every time.  We now know how to get dem mon.

We were out of sink with the races on the first day, going downtown again.  I watched a man cleaning conch, he made it look easy, kind of like getting lobsters.  I’ll try that again another day.  He stopped me in town and began to talk, like we had know each other for years.



Road/Runway at Little Farmers Cay



The next day I got out to watch the start of the races, making sure to look both ways for airplanes as the only road is also the runway.  All the boats anchor at the starting line, they blow the conch and the race is on.  The bow man pulls the anchor moving the boat to windward, and then raises the sail.  It looked like a workout.  The sails are huge, with the boom extending 10 feet behind a 20 foot boat.  The boards they go out on are 2” x 10” to keep from tipping.  Dinghies from cruising boats outnumbered racers by 10 to 1, it was a blast to watch. 

The Exuma school band played for all of us at the end of the days racing.

The festival set a record for cruising boats this year, 117, the previous record was 93. All in all a great few days.  We set out for Emerald Bay Marina with a train of about 20 boats we could see.