The Bahamas Yacht Charters

Board in Nassau around midday. The yacht leaves the harbour by its east end, past Porgee Rocks, and heads south-east across the Great Bahama Bank: thirty-odd miles of clear, shallow water over white sand. By late afternoon you are off Highbourne Cay, the first of the Exumas.

• The Yellow BankA stretch of the bank dotted with coral heads, some only a few feet under the surface at low water. Captains cross it with the sun high and a lookout forward, which is why the first day starts when it does.
• Highbourne CayA private island with a marina, a store and a restaurant. Yachts at anchor call ahead on the radio for permission to land.
• First swimOff the back of the yacht, in water clear enough to count the starfish on the sand.

The morning starts by tender at Allen's Cay, about two and a half miles north of the anchorage, where rock iguanas come down the beach to look you over. Then an hour south on the bank, past Norman's Cay, to the first island of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

• Allen's Cay iguanasThe Allen Cays rock iguana is critically endangered and lives naturally on only two small cays here. Look and photograph, and leave the feeding out: researchers are worried about what visitors' food is doing to them.
• Shroud Cay's creeksA cluster of mangrove cays laced with tidal creeks. Tenders may run the north creek only, at idle speed; every other creek is for paddles.
• The parkEstablished in 1958 and covering 112,640 acres of land and sea. Nothing living or dead may be taken from it: no fishing, no shelling, no conch.

A short run down the bank, west of Hawksbill Cay, to the cay where the park has its headquarters. Moorings here cannot be reserved: the captain calls the park on the radio that morning, and larger yachts anchor just to the south. Ashore there are trails, small beaches and a hill with a tradition.

• Boo Boo HillA short walk from the park office to the top of the cay, where visiting crews leave a piece of driftwood marked with the yacht's name.
• Trails and beachesBoardwalks and marked trails cross the cay to a string of small beaches.
• In the waterSnorkel the coral by the mooring field around slack tide, when the current eases. Nothing may be touched or taken.

Seventeen miles down the bank, past Bell Island, Compass Cay and the Pipe Cays, to the anchorage every Exuma charter finds its way to. Big Major Cay has the swimming pigs; Staniel Cay, next door, has the grotto, the village and the yacht club.

• Pig BeachThe beach on the west side of Big Major Cay, an uninhabited island with a colony of feral pigs that swim out to meet the tender.
• Thunderball GrottoA limestone cave just off Staniel Cay, the setting of the 1965 Bond film Thunderball and used again for Never Say Never Again in 1983. Your crew times the snorkel for the tide.
• Staniel Cay Yacht ClubThe social centre of the Exumas since 1956, about a mile and a half from the anchorage by tender: a dock, a dining room and a bar that pours until midnight.

The long day of the route: about three and a half hours back up the bank, past the park, to Norman's Cay. In the late 1970s the island was a smuggler's private airstrip. Today it has a marina, a hilltop restaurant and a wrecked aircraft in the shallows.

• The plane wreckA Curtiss C-46 Commando that came down in the shallows off the south end of the island on 15 November 1980, during practice landings. Both people aboard walked away. It lies in a few feet of water and is snorkeled from the tender.
• Lehder's islandThe smuggler Carlos Lehder arrived in 1978 and ran Norman's Cay as his own airstrip until the Bahamian authorities moved in from 1982.
• The Yacht ClubThe island's restaurant, in an open-sided timber building on the highest point of the cay, above the marina.

Board in Nassau around midday. The yacht leaves the harbour by its east end, past Porgee Rocks, and heads south-east across the Great Bahama Bank: thirty-odd miles of clear, shallow water over white sand. By late afternoon you are off Highbourne Cay, the first of the Exumas.

• The Yellow BankA stretch of the bank dotted with coral heads, some only a few feet under the surface at low water. Captains cross it with the sun high and a lookout forward, which is why the first day starts when it does.
• Highbourne CayA private island with a marina, a store and a restaurant. Yachts at anchor call ahead on the radio for permission to land.
• First swimOff the back of the yacht, in water clear enough to count the starfish on the sand.

The morning starts by tender at Allen's Cay, about two and a half miles north of the anchorage, where rock iguanas come down the beach to look you over. Then an hour south on the bank, past Norman's Cay, to the first island of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

• Allen's Cay iguanasThe Allen Cays rock iguana is critically endangered and lives naturally on only two small cays here. Look and photograph, and leave the feeding out: researchers are worried about what visitors' food is doing to them.
• Shroud Cay's creeksA cluster of mangrove cays laced with tidal creeks. Tenders may run the north creek only, at idle speed; every other creek is for paddles.
• The parkEstablished in 1958 and covering 112,640 acres of land and sea. Nothing living or dead may be taken from it: no fishing, no shelling, no conch.

A short run down the bank, west of Hawksbill Cay, to the cay where the park has its headquarters. Moorings here cannot be reserved: the captain calls the park on the radio that morning, and larger yachts anchor just to the south. Ashore there are trails, small beaches and a hill with a tradition.

• Boo Boo HillA short walk from the park office to the top of the cay, where visiting crews leave a piece of driftwood marked with the yacht's name.
• Trails and beachesBoardwalks and marked trails cross the cay to a string of small beaches.
• In the waterSnorkel the coral by the mooring field around slack tide, when the current eases. Nothing may be touched or taken.

Seventeen miles down the bank, past Bell Island, Compass Cay and the Pipe Cays, to the anchorage every Exuma charter finds its way to. Big Major Cay has the swimming pigs; Staniel Cay, next door, has the grotto, the village and the yacht club.

• Pig BeachThe beach on the west side of Big Major Cay, an uninhabited island with a colony of feral pigs that swim out to meet the tender.
• Thunderball GrottoA limestone cave just off Staniel Cay, the setting of the 1965 Bond film Thunderball and used again for Never Say Never Again in 1983. Your crew times the snorkel for the tide.
• Staniel Cay Yacht ClubThe social centre of the Exumas since 1956, about a mile and a half from the anchorage by tender: a dock, a dining room and a bar that pours until midnight.

A day trip to the southern end of the route, down the west side of Staniel Cay: a swim stop off Bitter Guana Cay, then lunch in Black Point, a working Bahamian settlement on Great Guana Cay. The yacht is back off Big Major Cay by evening.

• Bitter Guana CayA long, uninhabited cay between Staniel Cay and Black Point, with a beach on its bank side for a swim and a walk.
• Black PointThe settlement on Great Guana Cay: a bay open to the west, a dock, and a handful of family-run restaurants a short walk from it.
• Back at StanielTime for whatever was missed yesterday: the grotto on a better tide, or a sundowner at the yacht club.

North again in short hops: past the Pipe Cays to Compass Cay, for its marina sharks and the pool at its north end, then round Rocky Dundas into the anchorage at Cambridge Cay, back inside the park. The approach to Compass Cay's marina carries only six feet at low tide, so the yacht anchors off and the tender does the visiting.

• Compass CayA private island with a small marina, where swimming with the resident sharks is the main attraction. Day visitors pay a landing fee.
• Rachel's Bubble BathA lagoon at the north end of Compass Cay, where the ocean swell breaks over the rock into a natural pool. Your crew picks the tide.
• Rocky DundasSnorkeling caves just south of Cambridge Cay, with stalactites lit by the sun through a hole in the roof.
• The Pipe CaysA cluster of small cays and shallow creeks south of Compass Cay, explored by tender.

North up the bank, back past Warderick Wells and Shroud Cay, to Norman's Cay for the last night. In the late 1970s the island was a smuggler's private airstrip. Today it has a marina, a hilltop restaurant and a wrecked aircraft in the shallows.

• The plane wreckA Curtiss C-46 Commando that came down in the shallows off the south end of the island on 15 November 1980, during practice landings. Both people aboard walked away. It lies in a few feet of water and is snorkeled from the tender.
• Lehder's islandThe smuggler Carlos Lehder arrived in 1978 and ran Norman's Cay as his own airstrip until the Bahamian authorities moved in from 1982.
• The Yacht ClubThe island's restaurant, in an open-sided timber building on the highest point of the cay, above the marina.