Yacht Charter Exumas

Yacht Charter in the Exumas

The Exumas are the jewel of the Bahamian archipelago — a chain of 365 islands and cays stretching southeast from Nassau for approximately 150 kilometres, their shores washed by water of an unearthly turquoise that is the result of white sand banks visible through only a few metres of crystal-clear depth. The Exumas offer the most rewarding and most challenging sailing in the Bahamas: the shallow banks require careful navigation and good visibility (preferably with the sun high overhead and behind the navigator), but the rewards are extraordinary — remote, uninhabited anchorages of breathtaking beauty, the most concentrated marine life in the Bahamas, and a sense of sailing in genuinely unspoiled waters that is increasingly rare in the Caribbean.

The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park

The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, established in 1958 as the first land and sea reserve in the Atlantic hemisphere, covers 453 square kilometres of sea and island between Warderick Wells and Shroud Cay. Within the park, fishing and collecting of any kind are strictly prohibited, and the results are spectacular: lobsters and conch are abundant in the shallow water, nurse sharks rest in extraordinary numbers on the sandy bottom, and the reef fish — grouper, snapper, angel fish, and parrot fish — are so accustomed to humans that they approach snorkellers with curiosity rather than fear. The park headquarters at Warderick Wells has a remarkable collection of whale bones and a hilltop trail with panoramic views over the bank.

Big Major Cay and the Swimming Pigs

Big Major Cay, near Staniel Cay, has become one of the most-visited spots in the entire Caribbean basin — home to a colony of feral pigs that swim out to charter yachts and tourist boats in expectation of handouts. The pigs, whose origin story involves legends of pirate provisions and failed farming experiments, have been photographed by every major travel magazine in the world and have made the Bahamas instantly recognisable to a global audience. The anchorage off Big Major Cay is one of the most beautiful in the Exumas — surrounded by low, sand-fringed islands in water so clear that the bottom is visible at 5 metres depth.

Staniel Cay and the Thunderball Grotto

Staniel Cay, the main provisioning stop in the central Exumas, has a small but excellent yacht club, a fuel dock, a grocery store, and several good restaurants. The Thunderball Grotto, a sea cave just offshore from Staniel Cay that was used as a filming location for the James Bond films Thunderball and Never Say Never Again, is one of the finest snorkelling sites in the Bahamas — its interior illuminated by shafts of sunlight entering through holes in the roof of the cave, the fish remarkably tame and the coral still largely intact. The cave is best visited at low tide and is accessible to confident swimmers.