Off to Small Farmer’s Cay

A cloudy start to the day. We didn’t have far to go so we took Jeldi Jeldi to the lovely white beach for a walk. We discovered an abandoned marina and house, they ran out of money in the development, maybe a good thing. We walked up to the top of the rise to see the open Atlantic sea the other side. Found two dead snakes and decaying ‘Plot For Sale’ signs but nothing much else.

Manchineel trees in abundance with their very poisonous fruit.

Had a gentle sail with the Genneker and then a tricky motor across a very shallow sand bank to our mooring in Small Farmer’s key. We found a buoy to attach to but once I caught it the boat was moving so fast I couldn’t keep hold of it and dropped the boat hook into the sea, so that scuppered tying up. Poor Clint had to jump into the sea and sort us out, and rescue the boat hook from the bottom of the sea (luckily it was shallow). We were rather close to a Motor home called ‘Knot on Call’ – Americans love their corny names. We were very envious of the huge fish he had caught and was filleting with all the skill of a surgeon, while their dogs looked on drooling. Not much on the island but the restaurant that owned the moorings. We had a very good meal of Crack Conch (in batter) and Grouper. We had a chat with our motor home neighbour who was also eating at the restaurant, he was a heart surgeon and has retired, they have sold everything and just live on their boat with the dogs.

We were the last of the 3 tables to leave at about 8:30 pm and discovered our neighbours frantic as our boats were nearly touching. The tide and current swirling both our boats around uncontrollably. We tried tensioning our ropes but Rowan realised that wouldn’t work so we would have to leave our buoy in the pitch dark and try and anchor between the 4 boats in inky darkness. The whole area is reefy and shallow, the books stipulate only navigable in good light! Very tense as our only real option was out in shallower sand, and never advisable after knocking back 3 stiff Rum Punches! Clint and Xavi did the first watch to the change of tide at 11pm, to make sure all was ok. We got down to 10cm water clearance before the tide turned.