Acklins and Crooked Island form one of the most remote and pristine cruising destinations in the entire Bahamas. Located in the southern Bahamas east of Long Island and north of the Turks and Caicos, they are separated from the more familiar northern islands by several hundred nautical miles of open water, a distance that filters out the casual charter market and leaves a destination of extraordinary natural quality for those willing to make the passage. Abeking and Rasmussen, the German yard founded in 1907, builds yachts of the ocean capability required for this transit: all-aluminium construction, deep fuel tanks, conservative structural engineering, and crew accommodation for a professional team that can manage an offshore overnight passage from Nassau or Long Island to the Crooked Island Passage. Three Abeking and Rasmussen charter yachts are available to guests who specify Acklins and Crooked Island as their destination. These vessels, typically 45 to 65 metres, carry the range and sea-keeping to reach this destination comfortably and to explore its reef systems, blue holes and uninhabited beaches during the charter week. The diving off Crooked Island Passage ranks among the finest in the Bahamas: the wall drops from 10 to over 2,000 metres in the passage channel, with current-driven coral growth that has not been subjected to the diver pressure of the northern islands. The advance provisioning allowance on an Abeking and Rasmussen Acklins charter requires careful planning: provisioning in Nassau or George Town on Exuma before the southern transit is essential, as local supplies on Acklins are extremely limited.
