Exumas Charter Itinerary

Exumas Itinerary

Exumas Yacht Charter
The Exumas are three hundred and sixty cays running a hundred and thirty miles south-east from Nassau, most of them uninhabited, all of them sitting on a bank so shallow that the water reads as light rather than colour.





At the centre is the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, the first marine reserve of its kind anywhere, established in 1958 and no-take since 1986. Reef, shark, grouper and conch have all recovered inside it. The result is a chain where the wildlife is the itinerary: nurse sharks, iguanas, turtles and, inevitably, the pigs.





Every route we shape is a starting point, not a fixed schedule. Stay a second day where the light is right, move with the weather, or follow a captain who knows the cove worth the detour. That freedom is the point of chartering. What follows is one considered way to read the Exumas; the rest we tailor to you.
Day 1

Nassau to Highbourne Cay

A five-hour run south-east from Nassau, and the bank opens out beneath you ’ sand, grass, coral heads, all visible in ten metres of water. Highbourne is the northern gateway to the chain: a marina, two beaches and little else. Beachcomb Horseshoe Bay, snorkel the reef, and dine on the aft deck.
Day 2

Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park

Into the park, where nothing may be taken ’ not a shell, not a fish, not a conch. Warderick Wells is the headquarters, its mooring field set in a creek the colour of antifreeze. Snorkel the coral gardens, then climb Boo Boo Hill and leave a piece of driftwood with the yacht’s name on it, as everyone has since anyone can remember.
Day 3

Rocky Dundas & Compass Cay

Rocky Dundas is two limestone caves you enter by tender at low water, stalactites overhead and light coming up through the entrance from below. Then Compass Cay, where nurse sharks ’ harmless, sandpapery, thoroughly habituated ’ crowd the dock and let you swim among them. Dinner on a beach afterwards, in the dark.
Day 4

Pipe Creek & Big Major’s

Pipe Creek is a maze of sandbars between cays, and at low water a sandbar appears in the middle of it that exists for about four hours. Paddleboard it, picnic on it, and leave before the tide returns. Then Big Major’s Spot, where the pigs swim out to the tender. It is ridiculous. Everybody does it.
Day 5

Thunderball Grotto

Snorkel the grotto early, before the day boats: a cave you enter underwater at slack tide, its collapsed roof letting light down in shafts through clouds of sergeant majors. They filmed Bond here twice. Afterwards, Rachel’s Bubble Bath on the rising tide, where the Atlantic swell breaks over the rocks and foams into a natural pool.
Day 6

Little Farmer’s Cay

South an hour and a half to Little Farmer’s, a cay with fifty-odd residents and a strong sense of itself. Wild green turtles come into the shallows by the dock, and you can wade out to them. Buy conch salad cut in front of you at the dockside. Snorkel the patch reefs offshore, then nothing much at all.
Day 7

Bitter Guana Cay

Bitter Guana is home to the Bahamian rock iguana, endangered, endemic and entirely unbothered ’ they come down the white cliffs to the beach as the tender lands. A last snorkel, a last walk on sand with no footprints, and then either the run north to Nassau or a short flight out from Staniel Cay.

Exumas Yacht Charter Enquire

Enquire about chartering in Exumas to receive current yacht availability, seasonal guidance and expert insight into the cruising areas, anchorages and experiences that best fit your preferred style of charter, creating a clearer route to the right itinerary.