The fifteen or so mile trip down to Little Farmer’s Cay was uneventful – a light breeze on our nose meant it was a motor sail all the way. Never having been there, we spent the afternoon exploring the Island to see what it had to offer.
Little Farmer’s is a small Island with a lot on it: a yacht club, an air strip, a grocery, a liquor store, a clinic and a woodcarver. It has reputation for being among the friendliest Islands in the Exumas – a reputation that was borne out by everyone we met – friendly, smiling and helpful to a person.
A good example was the woodcarver, whom we met on the street soon after we landed the dinghy – he hailed us down, introduced himself and then took us to his studio to show us his work (not our taste). We visited the grocery (nothing fresh, the supply boat was due in a couple of days), the yacht club (empty – June is beyond the high season) and the airport, which turned out to have a surprisingly nice and breezy restaurant (Ty’s) that overlooked a fine beach – we were hot and tired from our walk, so we had an ice cream there.
The next day we spent doing some hiking and snorkeling. We had read (and heard from a local) about a cave “over the hill, behind Oven Rock” on the adjacent island, Great Guana Cay. The cave is 90-foot-deep, has stalagmites and stalactites and drips water from its ceiling. This was our first stop – we dinghied over to Oven Rock (about 20 minute ride), and searched the beach behind Oven Rock for about 20 minutes eventually finding a cairn at the North End of the beach that marked the entrance to a path into the scrub. Following the path through the scrub and over some rocks, we eventually climbed about halfway up the hill, where the path split, one side going to the cave and the other going down to a pretty beach on the other side. Needless to say, we visited both, although we didn’t actually go down into the cave – too gloomy -- this is a case where the journey was of more interest than the destination.
We then snorkeled some head out on front of Oven Rock (small fish and one sleeping Nurse Shark), and an additional set of heads that were on the charts about a mile North of Oven Rock (lots of fish on this one, including a big school of “Cotton wick”, a fish I know nothing about).
Our excursion ended with Lunch at the Ty’s Restaurant and one last snorkel over a plane that had “missed” the runway and lay upside down in 8 feet of water out in front of Ty’s.
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| Welcome to the Friendliest Cay in the Exumas |
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| The grocery store was closed; we talked to the owner who told us that there were no fresh fruit or veggies available |
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| It was a long walk to the yacht club; when the road ended, we had to cross this bridge to get to it |
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| Ice cream reward after a long hot walk |
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| Not much business for the yacht club at this time of year |
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| Oven Rock – one of the two blips in the distance to the left of the rock is My Weigh |
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| If we hadn’t noticed this trail marker, we would have missed the cave |
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| Pondering whether to go in |
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| Luckily, I could take a picture of the stalagmites and stalactites from the entrance |
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| A nice cove and beach on the other side of the Island where we took a dip to cool off from hiking up to the cave |
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| Damn, can't get those fish to stand still for a photo |
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| The wheel of the upside down airplane |
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| The view of the beach from Ty’s |
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