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Nassau and back · 7 nights · From Nassau

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

The milk run: Norman's Cay, the Land and Sea Park, two nights at Staniel for the pigs and the grotto, Pipe Creek and Shroud Cay

Best months

November - May

How long

8 Days / 7 Nights

Start and finish

Nassau to Nassau

Planned by

The Ahoy Club charter team

The idea of the week

The week we send almost everyone on first, and nobody has ever asked for a different one. Fly into Nassau, board at Albany twenty minutes from the terminal, and run straight out across the Yellow Bank into water you can read the bottom through at thirty feet. Then a week of short hops down the cays: Norman's Cay, the Land and Sea Park, two nights at Staniel Cay for the pigs, the grotto and the sharks under the yacht club dock, Compass Cay and Pipe Creek for the picnic, and Shroud Cay's mangrove creeks on the way home.

The first and last legs are the only long ones. Everything in between is under two hours, so mornings are a swim, the move is before lunch, and the afternoon belongs to a new cay. Sandbars appear at low tide and vanish at high, and the crew plan the picnic around them.

Superyacht charters start on any day of the week, so the route stands on its own. Legs are approximate, at a steady ten knots, and the captain adjusts them for the weather and the tide on the day. The banks are shallow, so the yacht moves in daylight and takes her time.

The route

1Highbourne CayHighbourne Cay, northern Exumas · 38 nm · 4 h
2Norman's CayNorman's Cay, northern Exumas · 7 nm · 45 min
3Warderick WellsWarderick Wells, Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park · 17 nm · 1.75 h
4Staniel Cay and Big MajorStaniel Cay, central Exumas · 18 nm · 1.75 h
5Staniel Cay, the other sideStaniel Cay, central Exumas · Stay, or 2 nm round the island
6Compass Cay and Pipe CreekCompass Cay and Pipe Creek, central Exumas · 7 nm · 45 min
7Shroud CayShroud Cay, Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park · 24 nm · 2.5 h
8NassauNassau, New Providence · 48 nm · 5 h

What the crew arrange along the way

The beach picnic, on a sandbar or in your own bay

The crew land a table, chairs, umbrellas and a kitchen and cook lunch there, with the yacht in view. Ellie's favourite is the little bay at Pipe Cay, but the Exumas have more picnic beaches than we could list, and a sandbar that only exists at low tide is the Bahamas version.

A themed day or night on board, at least one

The Bahamas is about the boat, so we plan at least one themed day or night. Tell us the idea before the charter and the crew have the costumes and decorations ready. Pirate night suits the Exumas: half these cays were pirate anchorages.

The float-off day

Ellie's ritual. Every toy that floats goes in the water: the pool detached from the boat, the mats, the loungers. The esky goes in with them, and everyone drifts off together for the afternoon with drinks and snacks and nothing to do. Any yacht with floating mats can do it; the ones with a sea pool do it best.

Family & friendsFirst charterBeachesMost popular

Day by day

Highbourne Cay

Highbourne Cay, northern Exumas · 38 nm · 4 h · Board, cross the Yellow Bank, first Exumas water

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

Norman's Cay

Norman's Cay, northern Exumas · 7 nm · 45 min · The walk, the piña coladas, the plane

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

Warderick Wells

Warderick Wells, Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park · 17 nm · 1.75 h · The Land and Sea Park, by jet ski

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

Staniel Cay and Big Major

Staniel Cay, central Exumas · 18 nm · 1.75 h · Feeding and swimming with the pigs, the grotto, sharks at sunset

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

Staniel Cay, the other side

Staniel Cay, central Exumas · Stay, or 2 nm round the island · A second night: the float-off and dinner on a beach

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

Compass Cay and Pipe Creek

Compass Cay and Pipe Creek, central Exumas · 7 nm · 45 min · Sharks at the dock, the picnic at Pipe Cay

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

Shroud Cay

Shroud Cay, Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park · 24 nm · 2.5 h · The mangrove creeks and the washing machine

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

Nassau

Nassau, New Providence · 48 nm · 5 h · Disembark

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

Make this week yours

Tell us the dates and who is coming.

This is a sample week, planned by the Ahoy Club charter team from trips we have run before. Every stop moves with the weather, the tide and the group. We reshape it around your yacht and your dates, book the tables and quote the rate.

Australia

+61 (02) 9327 3333

Europe

+33 4 9367 3735

USA

+1 561 813 7511

ahoyclub.com · charter@ahoyclub.com
https://ahoyclub.com/charter/itinerary/bahamas-exumas-1-week

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