January 12, 2009 FLO’S AT LITTLE HARBOR CAY

PICS
• Leaving Bullocks at sunrise
• Flo’s little tidally-sensitive anchorage cove
• Summer Breeze’s mooring in front of Flo’s Restaurant
• Typical sand flats appearing at the 3 foot low tide peak

After five days at Bullocks Harbor on Great Harbor Cay, we got a beautiful weather window upon which to sail southward down the Berry chain. All five cruising boats had the same idea and we all left the same morning as if in a caravan, most heading farther south for Nassau. We decided to make 33 miles south to Little Harbor Cay, the home of famous “Flo’s Restaurant”. Flo Darville and her son Chester are the only occupants on the whole island. Great Harbor Cay is about 2 miles long and a quarter mile wide. The Darville family name is an original Bahamian family, and they are truly “out island” settlers. Their dock, home, and restaurant is all there is, and it’s a constant battle to keep mother nature from taking it back. It’s just a toehold on a jungle cliff side over the water, an amazingly simple business venture. I’m not embarrassed to admit; I envy them and their lifestyle a bit. However, if this was my home during hurricane season, I’d be totally terrified.

Arriving at Little Harbor Cay just before sunset, we had to anchor off behind nearby little Cabbage Cay in about ten feet of water and wait until the next morning’s high tide to enter Flo’s tiny little protected cove. At low tide, twice a day, much of this area comes completely up out of the water making access somewhat tricky and totally tide dependent. Early the next morning at high tide, with the help of Chester on the vhf radio looking down on us with binoculars from high above, we navigated the quartermile of shallows into Flo’s cove anchorage . . . “a little to port, a little more to starboard, closer to the rock on the left, etc.” We’re the only ones here. Whew