The Rest of the Exumas

Written April 16-22, 2025

Ok, well maybe not all the rest of it, but at least the parts we saw and visited.

After Julia left, we headed north again to explore the northern Exumas. Lots and lots of small islands and Cays. We made tracks for Little Farmer Cay where we had planned to go with Julia but aborted due to the weather.

Little Farmers Cay

We are starting to figure out getting in and out of the various cuts along the Exuma chain. One can run inside the islands and cays, to the west, about 4 miles on the Bahama Bank in 7 – 15 feet of water, or head out the cuts to the east and be in 30 – 100’s of feet of water in the Exuma sound. With prevailing winds from the east, typically the inside passage is smoother unless there are westerly winds. From George Town to Little Farmer Cay, we can’t run the whole way inside as our draft is too deep. The winds were favorable and our passage was calm.

However, the entrance to many of the cays needs to be timed with tide and wind as these cuts build up a bit of wave otherwise and there is lots of current.

A rather narrow cut and we’d planned to take an anchorage immediately to starboard on the other side of the cut. Low tide and a narrow entrance said no to us. We then looked at the north anchorages for the Cay. Shallow and we were not liking them. Around the back of the island where water was deeper, the wraparound swell still was not enjoyable.
The water was clear and we put out of flopper stoppers which helped.
We got the dinghy down and headed around the island to the tiny harbor where we could tie up the dinghy. We passed the airport in the process. It seems almost every island and cay, no matter how small has an airport. We even saw a plane take off from this one…. barely.
Apparently everyone of the 60 or so people who live on Little Farmer is a descendant of a freed slaves from Exuma who 165 years ago (or so) settled the island after they were emancipated. There seems to be multiple folks who have taken to the arts. I especially liked this pig.
We visited with JR, a wood carver who sells his carving to various dealers around the world. He told us he has carving in his bones and started out carving bars of soap till his mom got mad because they had no soap. He finally changed to wood. In this image he is getting ready to carve the date on the bottom of this little parrot we purchased. A very nice, gentle soul.
There are 3 restaurants on the island. We called all three on the phone and only one answered and told us they were closed. We called this one of VHF 16 and they said they could make us dinner. We had to preorder. We had a drink in the bar with a couple on another boat while we waited for our food to be finished. We were the only groups of visitors in town while we were there but I think the day tour boats from the little resorts in the area probably bring their guests here.

The bar and restaurant were eclectically decorated and we had a tasty traditional meal of grilled grouper, peas and rice and mashed sweet potato. We topped it off with a bowl of pink ice cream. We also had a very interesting chat with the owner about the origins of the Little Farmer flag (on the wall next to the Bahamian flag in the pic) and his years in Europe and 10 years living in Libya. We’ll leave it that he was not a fan of Hillary or Obama and a very proud Bahamian. He designed the Little Farmer flag.
We enjoyed our visit to Little Farmer. A few hours was more than enough time to see the sights.

Black Point

After an overnight in Little Farmers, we headed north a short distance to Black Point. We picked the less crowded anchorage south of the point but found it quite rolly and choppy. We knew a front was coming through as we needed good protection from the east winds. After a dinghy visit around the point to town and lunch, we moved to the more crowded anchorage as we knew we wanted a smooth anchorage and this was seeming like a getter bet.

Our lunch stop the sold us on moving around the corner. Look at how clear that water is! This is before the storm came through.
Our “lower” Blackpoint anchorage. Very pretty, but not quite enough wind and swell protection.
Julia, this one is for you! These are bromeliads that seem to grow prolifically in this part off the Bahamas. everything gets reused on an island. I have to admit though, I have seen tire planters in New Mexico as well.
The bay at Blackpoint is beautiful as all the bays seem to be here. This one has a very shallow rise to shore so one has to be very careful not to anchor too close.
Tide is out. A long walk to shore if you dinghy up here. We are anchored to the left out of the picture.
A visit to the blowhole. The limestone here is riddled with whole so blowholes are not uncommon. One of the sites of Blackpoint.
Speaking of small Government.
Not surprisingly, sailing is very popular in the Bahamas (although I have to say we’ve not seen any of these small boats sailing.) Every island has a regatta and there are regional and national regattas as well. Not sure how folks get their boats from one island to another. Do the sail them or send them on a mail boat?
Speaking of mail boats, here is the Blackpoint mail boat arriving. Some islands get one boat a week, others perhaps more often. Obviously they carry more than mail, but the name has stuck. The boat heads through the anchorage to reach the Government dock. Sometimes they get stuck in the shallow waters (we saw this in Rock Point) or have to weave around boats anchored in the channel and get stuck. They work to power off and wait for a higher tide.

This particular mail boat was important is the island was out of Kalick, one of the local beers, and of course many other basic supplies for the island. Shopping is almost always fairly basic but sufficient to eat healthy.

We spent a few days here, visited with some friends on another boat of our same manufacturer, met some new friends and had lunch and sync’ed with some folks we’d met earlier in the Bahamas and had dinner. There is not really lots to do on these islands beyond visiting, eating, drinking and walking beaches (or snorkeling if the water is calm.)

Staniel Cay

We are hitting the cruiser hotspots in the Exumas. Next stop north is Staniel Cay. Blackpoint is pretty close, only 2 – 3 hours run and reasonably calm from the strong easterly winds to the west of the islands. Farther than we’d want to dinghy to see more sights so we move to a new anchorage

The main Staniel Cay anchorage. One has to pick a spot to tuck into this sea of boats. It can seem daunting, but looking visually, checking AIS (not all boats have it; a little signal that shows where each boat is) and looking at rader and depths, we found a very nice big spot to the left of the image in close to shore.

Staniel is apparently home of the original swimming pigs. Swimming pigs seem to have become a thing in the Bahamas. My skeptical self views it as; put pigs on an isolated cay, advertise them, let the tourists come and feed them for you and then harvest them for a pig roast.

We did not swim with them, nor feed them but did have fund with this guy who swam out to our dinghy, circled us and then determined we were not going to feed him so swam away.
The cruisers beach. Boaters dinghy over for sunset, bring their own beverage and chat.
Staniel is a small bit of civilization with a resort, fuel dock (we did not use), cabins, restaurant, small marina, a dinghy landing spot (isn’t this nice!) and two “supermarkets”, the Blue store and the Pink store.
A view from the marina office where you pay $8.00 to dispose of a bag of garbage. One has to hold onto garbage for a LONG time to find a place to get rid of it. We’ve been in the Bahamas since March 6th until April 4th, we’d only been three places we could dispose of trash. And forget about recycling. Despite this, there is not lots of garbage around o the islands. Obviously, every island has a way to handle it but might not make it available to boaters.
How would you know it is the Blue store? The door straight ahead. A small store, but good selection of can’s good and a small selection of frozen meat.
And in the distance…. the Pink store. A bit more produce but overall, less selection. We bought a bit from both. One has to buy at every stop just to be sure you have enough as you do not know what the next store will have.
We had a nice meal at the Staniel Cay restaurant and a decent overpriced bottle of wine. Menus are pretty typical, fish (fried, grilled or blackened), burgers, tacos, maybe pork BBQ, always beans and rice and mac and cheese. But, it was on a real place with real silverware, so quite a luxury. They bar is a cruisers handout but just are and headed back to the boat.
The Thunderball Grotto is a small cay/island just off Staniel Cay in the channel to the Atlantic. There is a hole in the middle of it where the fish love to hang. There are some ropes you can use to aid your snorkeling as the current can be a bit strong, but you do not have to dive down to get in. I also scout our snorkeling and if it is good Jim joins me. This one was really rather amazing. We really do need to get that underwater camera. The entrance is right below the shear cliff.
There is/was lots to do in the Exumas. We’ve only seen mermaids in this fashion, but there is so much color and lots of nice mural work throughout the islands.

As this post is getting long I think I’ll break it into two posts. Stay tuned for the rest of the Exuma story!

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