10-Day Bahamas Itinerary: Georgetown to Nassau Through the Exumas

The flight from the US lands at Exuma International (GGT) by lunchtime; the transfer to George Town and the tender ride across Elizabeth Harbour to Stocking Island puts the group aboard inside an hour. The chart briefing happens over cold drinks on the aft deck — the captain laying out the northward sweep, the chef pulling the first lunch from the galley.

Stocking Island is the cruisers' anchorage for Great Exuma and the southern terminus of the chain. The harbor is a wide protected basin that holds hundreds of yachts during the winter cruising season; in April and May it thins to a few dozen, and the white-sand beach on the harbor's east side runs empty for miles.

Chat n Chill, the headline beach bar of the southern Exumas, sits on the point at the harbor entrance — a thatched bar in the sand, a daily conch salad cleaned to order, and a community of full-time cruisers liming the afternoon away. The crew runs the dinghy in for sundowners; dinner is the chef's welcome menu back aboard with the lights of George Town across the basin.

First real cruising day. The trades fill in mid-morning from the east-southeast, the captain hoists sail out of Elizabeth Harbour, and the boat slides up the bank side of the chain on a quiet beam reach. If the weather is settled the captain runs through one of the cuts — Galliot or Rudder Cay — to the Exuma Sound side for a few hours of trolling on the drop. Wahoo holds in the depth in the fall; mahi-mahi and yellowfin tuna run year-round.

Lee Stocking Island sits roughly twenty nautical miles north of Great Exuma — a small cay that until 2012 hosted the Caribbean Marine Research Center, since shuttered. The anchorage on the western side gives good protection from the easterly trades. Perry's Peak, the highest point in the entire Exuma chain, rises to a hundred and forty feet above the cay — a short hike from the anchorage, the only place in the Exumas where the whole bank side of the chain is visible at once.

Afternoon swim and snorkel off the boat; the chef makes the day's catch into a tartare on the aft deck before dinner. The wind dies off after sunset and the anchorage holds still.

A short hop up the bank — ten miles, a quiet morning sail — puts the boat off Rudder Cut Cay before lunch. This is the private-island stretch of the chain: Musha Cay next door runs as a five-figure-a-night private resort, and the cays around it hold no settlements, no docks, no bar tabs. What they hold is the giant sandbar that dries off Musha at low water — a half-mile of ridged white sand with no one on it.

This is the beach day. The boat anchors a few hundred yards off, the tender runs the group in as the bar emerges, paddleboards and floats come off the transom, and the chef sets the long lunch on the sand. The resort guests next door pay five figures a night for this view; the sandbar itself goes to whoever anchors first.

The snorkel is the strangest in the chain — a stainless-steel mermaid draped over a grand piano in fifteen feet of water off the cut, commissioned by David Copperfield, who owns Musha. The captain times it to slack tide and trails the dinghy. For a detour with a story, Darby Island sits a short tender ride south, its abandoned 1930s plantation mansion slowly going back to the bush. Dinner aboard on the bank side as the bar slips back under the tide.

The chain's headline cay. Staniel Cay Yacht Club sits at the harbor entrance — the unofficial capital of the central Exumas, the SCYC dock for a re-provisioning run, the Peanut Colada at the bar that the regulars rate as the cay's signature drink. The group's call on whether to take lunch ashore at the SCYC or aboard.

Thunderball Grotto is the headliner — the limestone cathedral pierced by sunlight that James Bond's stunt double swam through in the 1965 film. The captain times the visit to slack tide so the current isn't a factor; the inside chamber holds sergeant majors, yellowtail snapper, and the occasional spotted ray drifting through. The dinghy stays tied to the rock outside.

Big Major Cay's swimming pigs are the easy second stop — they wade out from the beach as the tender approaches, and the photos are the photos. Sandy Cay's bar emerges a mile south at low water; the chef sets a spread on the bar, the boat anchors a few hundred yards off, and the afternoon disappears into the empty pink sand and the bank water that runs the color of an Instagram filter that hasn't been applied.

Short morning hop up the bank from Staniel to Compass Cay. With the trades quartering, the sailing cat unrolls the screecher and ghosts up at six knots. The boat ties to the marina or anchors in the outer anchorage on the bank side.

Compass Cay Marina is the resident-nurse-shark stop — a dozen-plus docile sharks rotate through under the dock all afternoon, swimming around the guests in chest-deep water. Crescent Beach on the Atlantic side is the second draw — twenty minutes' walk over the spine of the cay from the marina, a curving white-sand arc with no one on it on most days.

Pipe Creek, the maze of cays and sandbars between Compass and Sampson Cay to the north, is a half-day on its own — the dinghy threads the shallow tidal channels at high water, the white sand glows through clear water, and starfish and conch fan out across the bottom. Captain's call on whether to spend the afternoon here or back at Crescent. Dinner aboard at the outer anchorage.

Cambridge Cay sits at the southern boundary of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park — a hundred-and-seventy-square-mile no-take marine reserve. The boat picks up a mooring at Bell Island or anchors in the bank-side Pirate's Lair anchorage; the captain calls Exuma Park on channel 9 for the ball.

The Sea Aquarium, a coral head south of the cay, holds the densest reef-fish concentration inside the park — grouper and snapper holding under the ledge, the occasional spotted eagle ray cruising the sand on the far side. Fifteen feet of water, a slow drift in the current, the captain trails the dinghy behind the swimmers as a safety boat. Rocky Dundas, the small islet just north, has a pair of grotto caves the tender threads at slack tide — the inside chamber lit from below by sunlight on the white sand bottom.

Lunch is on whichever sandbar emerges at low water; the chef chooses the bar based on the tide chart. Afternoon either back on the snorkel or laying out the water toys at the mooring. Dinner aboard as the wind drops with the sun.

The jewel of the no-take park. The Emerald Rock mooring field at Warderick Wells curves around a single deep cut that drains to the Exuma Sound side — the sand on either side of the cut runs white into impossible blue, the picture every Exumas charter postcard is trying to be.

Boo Boo Hill is the high point of the cay — a thirty-minute marked hike from the visitor center, with cruisers' driftwood signs left by every yacht that has ever picked up a mooring here. The tradition is to leave a piece of driftwood with the boat's name on it; the chef carves one over the morning coffee. From the top, the whole field of yachts on the moorings is laid out below.

The visitor center has the laid-out skeleton of a sperm whale under a thatched pavilion. The afternoon disappears into a drift snorkel on the cut wall — staghorn coral and parrotfish on the current, the captain trailing in the dinghy. Cocktails on the mooring as the sun drops behind the cay; the 10-day pacing means two nights here if the group wants them.

Shroud Cay is uninhabited and effectively a sandbar laced with mangroves — the whole interior of the cay is a tidal creek system. Sanctuary Creek is the navigable channel, a winding mangrove tunnel that drains from the bank side to the Atlantic.

The trick is the tide. The captain checks the chart and times the tender ride to a rising tide so the water runs the boat the right direction. The 10-day pacing means waiting for the right slot instead of forcing it — a small detail that makes the difference between a hurried tunnel ride and a slow drift through the mangroves with the cameras out. Juvenile lemon sharks and sea turtles hold in the shallows; the water turns electric green where the mangrove roots tangle into the bank.

The Atlantic-side beach at the end of the creek is sand and driftwood and almost always empty. Camp Driftwood, the high point of the cay above the beach, is a half-mile walk to a smugglers' lookout from the 1970s — the view across the Exuma Sound is the one the camera roll keeps. Back through the creek on the same tide, dinner aboard at the bank-side anchorage.

The northern end of the chain in one day. Allen's Cay first — the endangered Bahamian rock iguanas come out onto the beach as the tender approaches, the only place in the world the species lives. The captain runs the dinghy in for a half-hour ashore, then the boat picks up the trades and slides south for the second stop.

Norman's Cay is where Carlos Lehder ran his cocaine operation in the 1970s — the smuggling plane he ditched in the channel still sits in ten feet of water, perfectly snorkelable on the slack tide. Wings intact, cockpit open, bonefish over the silt bottom. MacDuff's on the cay does a respectable lunch ashore if the group wants it; otherwise the chef sets it on the aft deck.

Final Exuma night at anchor. Highbourne Cay Marina handles the call for a marina dinner with the bar at the dock for sundowners; the alternative is Norman's bank-side anchorage with the lights of MacDuff's running up the hillside. Either way it's the last night on the hook in the chain — the captain pulls the chart on the morning's crossing back across the Yellow Bank.

The Yellow Bank crossing that the Nassau round-trip itineraries fight on Day 1 lands as the downwind run on Day 10. With the trades still in the east-southeast, the boat slides downwind across the bank in three to four hours, the captain stops mid-bank for a snorkel on a coral head if the wind has settled, and the route delivers the boat into the lee of Rose Island by mid-afternoon.

Rose Island is the picture-perfect last anchorage — bank-side water flat off the swim platform, beach to the south for a walk, a few miles east of Nassau but far enough off the city to feel like another country. The water-toy slate gets a final outing. Some groups call it a quiet day; others run it at full tilt with the last of the slate.

Dinner is the chef's farewell menu — the trip's running list of catches and finds reduced to a single plated set, paired wines from the cellar, the lights of Paradise Island visible across the harbor entrance to the west. The final sunset of the trip drops behind the mainland.

An hour's run from Rose Island back to the Nassau marina for check-out and the transfer to Lynden Pindling International (NAS). The chef makes the final breakfast on the way across the harbor; the crew has the bags ashore before the morning is over.

Most groups schedule the flight home for mid-afternoon or later — gives the morning a slow finish on the boat instead of a rush to the airport.