Farmer's Cay

Today we wandered around on shore for a bit at Farmer's Cay. The settlement here has 55 residents, and most of them are in some way descended from a freed slave named Chrisanna whose two sons bought the island outright from the English Crown and willed it to their descendants. We had lunch at Ocean Cabin (Terry and his wife also own the mooring we are on) and walked down to the Farmers Cay Yacht Club (home to one yacht) to have drinks. Afterwards we dinghied over to Great Guana Cay as we had read there was a large cave in one of the hills. We beached the dinghy and walked along the beach for a bit, spotting a huge eagle's nest with a mother eagle screeching at us to stay away. The trail to the cave was worn but not well marked, by the time we arrived at the cave we were both hot (why, why do we always forget to bring bottles of water?) and ready to get into the shade. Luckily the cave provided more than enough shade, it was 90 feet tall (deep?) and had a huge pool of clear water (if only we'd brought our snorkeling gear). Stalagtites and -mites were still being formed; we could hear the plink, plink of the water dripping constantly. In one spot someone had placed a bucket to catch the drips. But they must've put it there a long time ago because it was completely calcified inside and out and had long ago become a solid stone. Someone had left a plastic cup to drink water from the bucket and Kevin actually tried a taste. It's no different than the cisterns the locals use to catch the rainwater. The pool in the cave had some tiny shrimp swimming around, and along the shore were swarms of hermit crabs. Lord knows how they got there, since the cave was well inland and they would've had to scramble down a 50 foot drop to get into the cave. But now that they were inside I don't think they could get out as was evidenced by the fact that they were all too big for their shells. After resting a while we went back to the boat and had a quick swim to cool off. Kevin inspected our mooring with his snorkel. Basically they sank a huge concrete block (4'x4'x2') with a hole drilled in the middle. They ran a chain around that hole and attached a rope rode with a float that looks like a tetherball. The rope ends in a loop and this is what we tied our lines onto. Kevin said that the chain is a little worn but will still hold us. We wouldn't want to be attached to this thing in a hurricane, but since the weather is calm, it'll do.