Hiding from weather at Little Farmers

Ben, on Faroubavoile, quite concerned about his 6 foot draft (depth of his boat under water surface) followed us up to Little Farmers Cay. Being the off-season (most cruisers have headed south or back to the continental United States) there are only a few boats in the anchorage, the three of us dropped our anchor at the same time with approximately 80 feet of rode. Shortly after, we noticed we were uncomfortably close to each other. It was the difference of boat design, size, current and wind. BoomDeYada was sitting over top of our anchor in 7 feet of water. Ben deploys two anchors in what is called Bahamian style anchoring…it’s typically used when you’re in a narrow cut with strong current. Two anchor rodes spread apart with the boat in the middle; the boat stays in position pivoting between both anchors.

Bahamian style anchouring

One anchor takes the strain with current and then the other anchor takes the strain when the current changes with the tide. Being from France, he thought that was the way it was done in the Bahamas…it’s not, I haven’t seen anyone do this yet. Not only is it difficult to deploy, he also won’t swing like the rest of us. He stays stationary pivoting in one spot. Someone who may be anchored 150 feet away can swing right in to him.

Jettie having the larger dinghy, picked up Ben, Julie and I and we went into Little Farmers Cay to explore the village. Now, in the off-season, it looks very depressed, fairly deserted but for a few men sitting under trees or by buildings. They wave; chickens roaming the yards. We approach a small store and a man 200 feet away yells out to the store keeper (Tasha) that she has customers. Tasha comes around the corner of the building to unlock the door.
Inside,there is no produce except for few potatoes and onions, Ben and Jettie purchase some canned goods. Tasha, sees Julie’s finger and says she needs it looked at, she will call a lady who is a nurse to come look at it…really it's a clever way to extract money from the tourists. One hour and thirty dollars later, now we have it confirmed, what we already knew, that Julie’s finger is going to be fine.
We wander up to Ocean Side Bar & Grill for Terry to open the bar for us...I love the hours they keep. An interesting man, he poured our drinks, chatted with us and then surprisingly tried to sell us on the Quran, then sticks us with a ridiculous bill...we pay it with smiles of course.

More foul weather at anchor in Farmers Cay

We stay two nights at Little Farmers due to an expected West wind; here we have protection from the West. Another gale storm comes through in the middle of the night. As I typically do, I sit in the cockpit watching the storm, tracking our position and keeping an eye on the boats around us. Forty minutes later, the winds die down and back to bed. If we had known we were to have a week of nasty weather we would have stayed in George Town! Still no sunshine; just overcast and intermittent rain.

Our anchor chain in light winds. At one point our anchor was sitting right beside our boat.

Ben's boat, Faroubavoile...don't ask me what it means!