The Exumas in a week: Nassau to Staniel Cay and back

Board at Albany around midday and go. Four hours south-east across the Yellow Bank, lunch under way, and the water changes colour as the first cays come up. Highbourne is the gateway: nurse sharks cruising round the marina dock, the iguanas on Allen's Cay next door for anyone who wants to tender over before dinner, and the first sunset over the banks. Before the move in the morning, walk from the marina across to Horseshoe Bay: a white beach with hammocks and pontoons, a little bar on the sand that opens at midday if you call ahead, and buggies for anyone who would rather ride. Grapes for the iguanas.

• Twenty minutes from the airport to the boat
• The Yellow Bank: the colour arrives
• Nurse sharks off the Highbourne dock

Forty-five minutes south, then Ellie's favourite day in the north. Tender into the marina and walk the island, a long one through the scrub, until you come out on the west beach: chairs set up on the sand, piña coladas, water the colour of a swimming pool. Burgers and conch fritters at MacDuff's behind the beach, very chilled, and buggies for anyone who would rather drive back than walk. In the afternoon the tender runs to the cartel's drug-running DC-3 lying in six feet of water off the lagoon: jump in and snorkel it.

• The long walk to the west beach, piña coladas at the end
• Burgers at MacDuff's, buggies if you want them
• Snorkel the DC-3 drug plane

Into the park, the first no-take marine reserve in the world. The anchorage at Warderick Wells curls round a giant sandbar that appears at low tide, and the moorings sit in a crescent of white sand. Hike up Boo Boo Hill and leave a piece of driftwood with the yacht's name on the pile at the top, pass the fifty-foot sperm whale skeleton on the beach below it, then take the jet skis and explore: the sandbar, the cuts, the empty beaches on the cays either side. The reef here has fish that have never been chased, and the stromatolites on the shore are living fossils that look like rocks.

• Boo Boo Hill, the driftwood pile and the whale skeleton
• Jet skis round the park's sandbar and cays
• A drift snorkel on a protected reef

The day everyone came for. Anchor off Big Major and go to the pigs first, before the day boats from Nassau; feed them and swim with them, and they swim out to meet the tender or the jet ski. Thunderball Grotto at slack low tide, the cave from the Bond film with the light coming through the roof. Then Staniel Cay Yacht Club for drinks and a game of pool, and stay for the sharks: the nurse sharks gather under the marina dock every evening around sunset and you watch them, and pet them, from the low end of the dock.

• Carrots for the swimming pigs, first thing
• Thunderball Grotto at low tide
• Drinks and pool at the yacht club, then the sharks at sunset

There is enough around Staniel for two nights, so stay, either at the same anchorage or round the other side of the island. This is the float-off day: everything that floats goes in, the pool comes off the boat, the esky goes in with it, and everyone drifts together for the afternoon. The crew set a torch-lit dinner on the sand of an empty cay nearby, as the family have done here for years. If the group did not get the grotto yesterday, the tide gives you another chance this morning.

• The float-off: toys, pool, esky, hours
• A torch-lit dinner on a nearby beach
• Round the island to a new anchorage, if you like

Back north forty-five minutes into Pipe Creek, a maze of turquoise channels between Compass and Staniel. Swim with the nurse sharks under the Compass Cay marina dock, and walk five minutes to Crescent Beach on the Atlantic side. Rachel's Bubble Bath at the north end of Compass is a natural whirlpool when the swell is up, and the Rocky Dundas caves across the cut are a snorkel into a cavern with stalactites. Then the beach picnic, in your own little bay at Pipe Cay, Ellie's favourite in the whole Bahamas. Sunset drinks in the creek are the photograph of the week.

• Swim with the nurse sharks at Compass Cay
• The beach picnic in your own bay at Pipe Cay
• Sunset in Pipe Creek

Two and a half hours north to the top of the park and one of the prettiest anchorages in the chain. Shroud Cay is a ring of cays round a shallow mangrove creek, a nursery for turtles, conch and small sharks, and you explore it by tender, jet ski, paddleboard or kayak, all the way through to Driftwood Beach on the Atlantic side, with the climb to Camp Driftwood above it for the view over the whole north of the park. At the right state of tide the current round the little point there becomes the washing machine: grab a noodle, get in on one side, and it carries you round to the other. The crew time it. Last night in the park under a sky with no lights in it.

• Jet skis and tenders through the mangrove creeks
• The washing machine, noodles compulsory
• Driftwood Beach on the Atlantic side

An early start and breakfast under way, back across the bank for Albany by lunch and afternoon flights. If the flights are late, the Fish Fry at Oh Andros for the conch salad on the way to the airport.

• Breakfast on the move
• Albany by lunch, twenty minutes to the airport
• Oh Andros at the Fish Fry if the flight is late