Well, we continue to move to the next spot with protection from the upcoming weather. This isn't all that bad as each new destination always has something new and exciting to see and do! Our weather holes lately were Sampson Cay and we are now down in Little Farmer's Cay. Here is a little bit about each.

Sampson Cay: After leaving Warderick Wells we headed toward Staniel Cay. On our way we decided to stop just north at Sampson Cay. Our 'stop' ended up being 12 days! We anchored out the first day and went ashore to visit the island. We thought it was a private island but it is...and it isn't! It is owned by one owner but he put a lovely marina, store, restaraunt and some accommodations on the island for other to use and they use it occasionally as well.

The next day we listened to the weather forecast and a blow was expected on Wednesday with another storm coming through on Friday/Saturday that had the potential to be a 'Super Storm' with 50+ knot winds. It didn't take much convincing but two other sailboats were headed into the marina and encouraged us to do the same. We took a slip for one night and checked into the forecast further. We went back to enquire about staying through Saturday. They had already placed bets that we would be back in wanting to stay on! They won! Actually, the weather just missed us and landed east of the Bahamas...but we sure did sleep well. It was our pricey treat at $2.75/foot per night PLUS water and power so tried to pretend we were on our own private island. We took morning sunrise walks out to the gazebo on the south end of the island and watched the sun rise while sipping coffee. Then we would bring out the squeeky ball and give Mija and Chula their morning workout!

Between the inclement weather we took a side trip to Staniel Cay where we bought a whole chicken and some ground beef to augment our pantry. We dingyied over to Big Major, Thunderball Cave and up Pipe Creek where we ran into Soulmates and Lady Hawk. It is amazing how you bump into the same fun folks along the way!

There was happy hour on the dock every night to watch the sunset and to look for the Green Flash. It is a BIG deal to spot this tiny, elusive flash of light! At happy hour we met some cruisers, No Agenda (Ray and Susan) from Dallas originally. They have a 70' power boat and invited us for happy hour the next night (Valentine's Day). We passed by the next night and Vicky was amazed since she had never been on a larger power boat. Imagine a king size bed, granite in the kitchen, a treadmill on the fly bridge, five levels! Spectacular and first class. Suddenly our 40' monohull sailboat seems small.

Ah, the weather has turned nice and we must leave our 'private island' paradise. So, off we head to Black Point. It was a big 10 or so miles so we leisurely got up and made our way down. It is a nice little community where apparently Lorraine's coconut bread is a must have. We unfortunately missed the store hours so left the next day empty handed and headed down to Little Farmer's Cay. Another lovely spot. So nice that we decided to stay for the weather blowing in on Monday, Wednesday and the weekend....or should we say 'until the next good weather window to Georgetown!

When we first got to Little Farmers we stopped by Ocean's Cabin restarant for lunch. Ed had lobster salad and Vicky had the turkey and cheese sandwich and, of course, Kalik (beer). After lunch several boats had difficulty coming into the anchorage (shallows that are on the charts but not so easy to spot). Ed ended up helping Terry Bain (local) pull off two boats and had to dive on one boat to unfoul a dingy painter that got stuck in the prop while the boat was trying to get off the sand bank. It was quite the site to watch Terry attach a line to the halyard and heal the monohull sailboat while pulling. While watching from the shore, Vicky was talking to the locals and lamenting that Boto had not caught a fish yet. Halle (Jeronimo) offered his services to teach us how to fish Bahamian style. We took him up on it and went on our few hour lesson the next day.

We started our lesson by getting conch for bait (and a few to eat). Then Halle taught us how to fix the hand line, hook and bait. We went to a point, dropped the anchor and BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM...we had 4 trigger fish. We pulled up and went across the harbor. Next thing it was BAM, a Coni, then BAM...a Big Eyed John. After two more of each...we had more than we could eat so we called it a day, went to the beach and cleaned our fish. Yes, it was more work than catching them! We prepared them 4 different ways and are still trying the results, all excellent so far. Looks like we won't starve now! What fun!