Staniel Cay to Nassau: A 7-Day One-Way Bahamas Sailing Itinerary

The yacht is waiting at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club dock when the float plane sets down on the strip. The crew handles the bags from the airstrip; the captain runs through the chart briefing over cold drinks on the aft deck. Less than an hour after the flight lands, the lines are off and the boat is sliding the two-nautical-mile run around to the Big Major Spot anchorage.

First swim of the trip is Thunderball Grotto on the slack tide — a limestone cathedral pierced by shafts of sunlight through the cave openings, sergeant majors and yellowtail snapper drifting through the inside chamber. The dinghy carries the snorkel gear; the captain times the visit so the current isn't a factor. From the grotto it's a short run across to Big Major Cay, where the famous swimming pigs wade out from the beach as the dinghy approaches.

Sandy Cay sits a mile south of the pig beach, and if the tide is right the captain runs the boat across for a sandbar lunch on the bar that emerges at low water — the kind of empty pink-sand crescent the Exumas built their reputation on. Dinner is the chef's welcome menu back on the aft deck at Big Major; the wind dies off after sunset and the stars come out over the water.

Morning paddleboard session in the lee of Big Major; coffee and a long breakfast aboard. The captain slips lines mid-morning for the short seven-mile run north to Compass Cay. With the trades on the quarter, the sailing cat unrolls the screecher and ghosts up the bank at six knots; the power cats and motor yachts barely notice the wind direction.

Compass Cay Marina runs on a single thing — the resident nurse sharks that congregate under the dock for the cleaning of the day's catch. The boat ties to the marina or anchors in the outer anchorage and the dinghy goes in. Nurse sharks are docile by reputation and by behavior; the guests slip into the chest-deep water at the dock and the sharks rotate through within arm's reach.

The other reason to stop at Compass is Crescent Beach on the Atlantic side — twenty minutes' walk across the spine of the cay from the marina, a perfect curving white-sand arc with no one on it. The chef sets a lunch cooler ashore for the day; the afternoon disappears into the water. Evening drinks back at the outer anchorage.

Cambridge Cay sits on the southern edge of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park — a hundred-and-seventy-square-mile no-take marine reserve that holds the cleanest snorkeling in the chain. The mooring field at Bell Island is the captain's first call; if the field is full the alternative is the open bank-side anchorage at Pirate's Lair.

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

Lunch is on the boat or on whichever sandbar emerges at low water; the chef chooses the bar based on the tide chart. Dinner aboard at the mooring as the wind drops with the sun.

The jewel of the park. The Emerald Rock mooring field at Warderick Wells curves around a single deep cut that drains to the Exuma Sound side — the captain calls Exuma Park on channel 9 for a ball, and the boat picks one up on the rising tide. The sand on either side of the cut runs white into impossible blue.

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

On the way back, the visitor center has the skeleton of a sperm whale laid out under a thatched pavilion. The afternoon disappears into the snorkel on the cut wall — current-drift past staghorn coral and parrotfish, the captain following in the dinghy. Cocktails on the mooring as the sun drops behind the cay.

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

The trick is the tide. The captain checks the chart the night before; the tender goes in on a rising tide so the water runs the boat the right direction and there's no risk of getting stranded. Inside the creek the mangroves close overhead and the water turns electric green. Juvenile lemon sharks holding in the shallows, sea turtles cruising the channel, the occasional ray gliding under the dinghy. The Atlantic-side beach at the end of the creek is sand and driftwood and almost always empty.

Camp Driftwood is the high point of the cay above the beach — a half-mile walk up to a lookout the smugglers used in the 1970s to watch for the DEA. The view across the Exuma Sound is the one that lives on the camera roll for the rest of the trip. Back through the creek on the same tide, dinner on the bank-side anchorage.

The northern end of the chain in one day. Allen's Cay first thing — 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 to Norman's Cay 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. The wings are intact, the cockpit is open, the silt-bottom underneath holds bonefish. MacDuff's on the cay does a respectable lunch ashore if the group wants it; otherwise the chef sets it on the aft deck.

Highbourne Cay Marina at the north end of the chain handles the final night at anchor — the bar at the dock for sundowners, dinner aboard or ashore depending on the group's read of the week. For groups who want one more secluded night on the hook, the alternative is Norman's Cay's bank-side anchorage with the lights of MacDuff's running up the hillside.

The crossing back across the Yellow Bank that the round-trip itineraries fight on Day 1 is the easy run on Day 7. The trades are still in the east-southeast, the boat slides downwind across the bank in three to four hours instead of five, and the captain stops mid-bank for a snorkel on a coral head if the wind has settled.

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: paddleboards, kayaks, the inflatable toys off the transom. Some groups call it a quiet day; others run the day at full tilt.

Dinner is the chef's farewell menu — the week'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.