The Bahamas & Exumas
- Region: western Atlantic, southeast of Florida, hundreds of islands across shallow banks
- Scale: Nassau to Highbourne Cay about 35 nautical miles, Highbourne to Staniel Cay about 40, Fort Lauderdale to Nassau about 180
- Season: December to April, with the Atlantic hurricane season 1 June to 30 November
- Draft: much of the Exuma bank carries about 1.8 m, so deep-draft yachts run the Exuma Sound side and enter through the cuts
- The cuts: tidal streams of 2 to 4 knots, with Dotham Cut around 120 feet wide, so transits are planned around slack water
- Cruising permit from 1 April 2026: USD 600 for 30 days, USD 2,000 for six months, USD 3,000 for twelve months for vessels over 100 feet
- Anchorage fee from 1 April 2026: USD 200, USD 1,000 or USD 1,500 for vessels over 100 feet on the 30-day, six-month or twelve-month permit, payable only if not in a marina
- Frequent Digital Cruising Card: USD 1,500 for vessels over 100 feet, valid two years
- Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park: moorings only in the mooring fields, no anchoring, no fishing of any kind
- Park moorings: Warderick Wells north field takes vessels to 150 feet at USD 50 a night in 2026, paid through the ParkPay platform
- Charter surcharge in the park: an extra USD 14 per person per day on mooring and anchorage fees
- Largest marina: Albany on New Providence, 71 slips taking vessels to about 250 feet
A hundred and twenty miles of cays
The Exuma chain runs about 120 miles southeast from Nassau and that is the cruise. Nassau to Highbourne Cay at the northern end is 35 miles, Highbourne to Staniel Cay another 40, and Staniel to Georgetown at the bottom about 60. Florida is close, with Fort Lauderdale about 180 miles from Nassau and Bimini only 50 miles off the Florida coast. The chain has a shallow bank on its western side and the deep Exuma Sound on its eastern side, and which of the two a yacht uses is decided by its draft.
A week is Nassau down to Staniel Cay and back, moving 20 to 40 miles a day and stopping twice. Two weeks reaches Georgetown and Long Island at the southern end, or turns north instead to Eleuthera, Harbour Island and the Abacos, which is a different and gentler kind of cruising. Owners doing this properly build in slack water at each cut and do not plan a fixed arrival time anywhere.
Highbourne to Georgetown, cay by cay
Highbourne Cay at the top of the chain has a small marina, fuel and a beach, and is the usual first stop out of Nassau. Norman's Cay just south has a wrecked drug-running aircraft in the shallows that guests swim over and a beach bar at MacDuff's. Shroud Cay, inside the national park, has mangrove creeks that a tender can run at the right state of tide and comes out on an ocean beach. Warderick Wells is the park headquarters, with a mooring field in a channel of water so clear that the boat appears to be floating on nothing.
Further south the chain gets busier. Staniel Cay is the hub, with the Yacht Club, a fuel dock and an airstrip, and the two famous excursions within a mile of it, Thunderball Grotto and the swimming pigs on Big Major Cay. Below Staniel, Black Point, Little Farmer's and Cave Cay are quieter, and Georgetown's Elizabeth Harbour is a large protected basin with a long-standing cruising community. Almost every anchorage here is over white sand in three to six metres.
Two metres of water over the bank decides more about a Bahamas cruise than any budget does.
Draft, the cuts and the marinas
Depth is the whole question. Large parts of the Great Bahama Bank carry around 1.8 metres, which puts a modern 50 metre displacement yacht permanently on the Exuma Sound side. The cuts between the cays are the doors between the two, and they run 2 to 4 knots of tide, with Dotham Cut about 120 feet wide, so transits are timed for slack water and abandoned when an opposing ocean swell makes the cut break.
Marina options are concentrated. Albany on the southwest of New Providence has 71 slips and takes vessels to about 250 feet, and it is the address for large yachts in the Bahamas. Hurricane Hole on Paradise Island and Nassau Yacht Haven cover the rest of the capital, and Baha Mar and Atlantis have their own basins. Down the chain there are small marinas at Highbourne, Staniel Cay and a few private cays, all sized for boats far below superyacht scale. A 50 metre yacht in the Exumas is at anchor or on a park mooring for the whole cruise.
Fronts, trades and the months
December to April is the season and the weather is mostly benign. Days run in the mid twenties, the trades blow east to southeast at 10 to 20 knots, and the water is clear and warm enough to swim in without thinking about it. The hurricane season officially runs 1 June to 30 November and takes almost all the large yachts out of the country.
The variable is the winter cold front. Systems push off the North American continent every five to seven days from December into March, swing the wind through southwest, northwest and north, and blow 20 to 30 knots for a day or two before settling back into the trades. On a chain of low cays that run north to south, a front means moving to the other side of an island, and the good lee anchorages are known and get busy. A front that arrives with an ocean swell can make the cuts dangerous, which is the one genuine hazard in this cruising ground.
American holidays and the pig beach
The Bahamas season is shaped by American holidays more than by any regatta. Christmas and New Year, Presidents Day week in February, and the spring break weeks in March and April are the pressure points, and Nassau marina space at those times is booked well ahead. The rest of the winter is remarkably quiet by Mediterranean standards, and a yacht can have an Exuma anchorage to itself on a Tuesday in January.
Two places are exceptions. Staniel Cay and the Big Major pig beach are worked by day boats and seaplane tours from Nassau throughout the season, and by mid morning there can be dozens of small craft in the anchorage, so guests are better taken there at seven in the morning. Georgetown fills with the cruising fleet from February.
Nassau, and the airstrips down the chain
Access is the easiest of any destination on this list. Lynden Pindling International at Nassau has direct service from most of the eastern United States, from London and from Canada, plus full private jet handling, and it is 20 minutes from Albany or the Paradise Island marinas. Exuma International at Georgetown takes jets and has direct service from Florida. Staniel Cay, Norman's Cay, Black Point and several private cays have airstrips for light aircraft and charter turboprops.
That airstrip network is what makes a two-week Exuma cruise practical, because a guest can join or leave the boat halfway down the chain without a day of repositioning. The seaplane and light charter operators out of Nassau and Fort Lauderdale run this routinely. The other route in is the boat itself, since Fort Lauderdale to Nassau is an overnight run and many American owners simply bring the yacht across.
Ashore, and what there is of it
There is very little ashore and that is the point of the place. Staniel Cay Yacht Club is a bar, a restaurant and a fuel dock with brightly painted cottages behind it, and it is the social centre of the middle Exumas. Big Major, Compass Cay and Thunderball Grotto are half-day tender excursions and are what most guests remember.
Nassau is where the shore life is, and it is a different country. Albany, Baha Mar and Atlantis run resorts, golf, spas and restaurants at international standard, and the capital has the shopping, the provisioning and the hospitals. The Abacos and Harbour Island on Eleuthera sit between the two extremes, with Dunmore Town on Harbour Island offering a genuinely good handful of restaurants and pink sand. Guests who want nightlife should be told before they book that the Exumas have none.
The 2026 fee regime and the park
The fee structure changed on 1 April 2026 under amended customs regulations and owners should budget for it properly. For a vessel over 100 feet a temporary cruising permit costs USD 600 for 30 days, USD 2,000 for six months or USD 3,000 for twelve months, with one or two free re-entries on the longer permits. A separate anchorage fee applies to vessels not lying in a marina, at USD 200, USD 1,000 or USD 1,500 for the same three durations. A Frequent Digital Cruising Card costs USD 1,500 for a vessel over 100 feet and runs two years.
The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park has its own regime, and it is a no-take zone where nothing living or dead may be removed. Anchoring is prohibited in the mooring fields, moorings are booked and paid through the ParkPay platform, the Warderick Wells north field takes vessels to 150 feet, and the 2026 mooring rate is USD 50 a night with an extra USD 14 per person per day on charter vessels. Technical support in the Bahamas is thin outside Nassau, so spares come from Florida by air freight and anything major is a run back to Fort Lauderdale.
The honest downside
The Bahamas punish the wrong boat. A deep-draft yacht is excluded from most of the anchorages the destination is famous for, and its guests end up in tenders for the good bits while the mother ship sits in the Sound or at the top of the chain. Even a shallow boat is working around tide tables for the whole cruise. There is no marina in the Exumas that will take a large yacht, no fuel in useful quantity outside Nassau and Staniel Cay, and no technical help at all.
The second point is that the shore experience is close to nonexistent and the famous excursions are crowded. The swimming pigs are a day-boat destination with a queue, and the grottoes work only at the right tide. Provisioning at the standard a large yacht expects means loading in Nassau or freighting from Florida. And the season is short and the fee regime is moving upwards, so an owner comparing this to a Mediterranean summer should be clear that he is buying water and emptiness and very little else.
Who it is for: An owner with a shallow-draft yacht or a serious tender programme who wants empty, luminous anchorages an afternoon from Florida and does not need anything ashore.