Reviewed by Adrian Sneed, Charter Broker at Sneed Charters — a family brokerage arranging Bahamas charters since 1992. Rates, taxes and fees checked August 2026.

The Exumas are the reason most people book a Bahamas charter, and the reason is not the swimming pigs. It is that the water is shallow enough, and clear enough, over enough consecutive miles that the colour stops being a feature of the trip and becomes the condition you live in for a week. Everything else — the pigs, the grotto, the iguanas — is something to do in the middle of that.

What the Exumas actually are

A chain of roughly 365 cays, the great majority uninhabited, strung out over about 120 miles. On the west side, the Great Bahama Bank: shallow, sand-bottomed, and the source of the colour. On the east, Exuma Sound, which drops away fast. You cruise the sheltered edge between them and cross to the ocean side only where the cuts let you.

This is not a cruising ground you do casually in your own boat. Depths change with the sandbars, the sandbars change with the weather, and the useful anchorage in a north wind is the wrong one in a south-easterly. It is a fantastic place to be aboard a crewed yacht and a stressful one to be aboard a bareboat, which is a large part of why almost everyone here is crewed.

Settlements are few and small — Staniel Cay, Black Point, Georgetown at the southern end. If you want restaurants and streets to walk, the Abacos or Eleuthera will suit you better. If you want to swim off the back of the boat somewhere with nobody in sight, this is the one.

The chain, cay by cay

North to south, in the order a seven-night charter from Nassau meets them. Nobody does all of it in a week — four or five of these is a full itinerary.

Allen’s Cay

Thirty-odd miles from Nassau and usually the first stop. The Northern Bahamian rock iguanas here come down to the beach when a tender lands, which is either charming or mildly alarming depending on how you feel about iguanas. Good holding, easy anchorage, and the moment most people realise the water really does look like that.

Highbourne Cay

A marina, a beach that runs most of the length of the cay, and the first proper sandbars. Thirty-six nautical miles from Nassau, which makes it the realistic end of day one if you leave from Palm Cay.

Norman’s Cay

The sunken aircraft in the shallows is the draw — a wreck from the cay’s drug-running years in the late seventies and early eighties, sitting in water shallow enough to snorkel comfortably. The anchorage is quiet and the beaches are empty.

Shroud Cay

The northern gate of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. Mangrove creeks run right through the cay and you take the tender up them at high water, coming out on the Exuma Sound side at a beach you can only reach that way. It is the best hour of most people’s week and it costs nothing.

Warderick Wells

Park headquarters, and a no-take reserve — nothing is removed from the water here, which is why there is so much in it. The mooring field curls around a sandbar in a shape you will recognise from photographs, and the walk up Boo Boo Hill is the only climbing anyone does all week.

Big Major Spot

The pigs. They swim out to the tender, they are entirely real, and they are best visited early before the day boats arrive from Nassau. Your crew will know what time that is.

Staniel Cay

Seventy-three nautical miles from Nassau, and the closest thing to a hub in the central Exumas: a yacht club, a couple of stores, an airstrip. Thunderball Grotto sits just off it — the cave used in the 1965 Bond film, swum at slack water, entered through a gap you duck under.

Compass Cay

Nurse sharks at the dock, which are harmless and will nonetheless produce the loudest ten minutes of the week. Sandbars nearby that surface and vanish with the tide.

Georgetown and Stocking Island

The southern end, and a different feel — Elizabeth Harbour is big, sheltered and full of cruising boats through the winter. Stocking Island has the beaches. Reaching it and coming back inside seven nights is a stretch; it suits ten days, or a one-way charter with a flight out of Georgetown.

Getting there, and where the week begins

Almost every Exumas charter starts in Nassau. That is where the crewed fleet is based, where the international airport is, and where the yacht can provision. Leaving from Palm Cay Marina on the south-east side of New Providence rather than Nassau Harbour puts you an hour or two closer to the chain, which on day one is the difference between anchoring in daylight and arriving after dark.

You can start in the Exumas instead — Staniel Cay and Georgetown both have airstrips — but a yacht based in Nassau has to reposition to meet you, and that is quoted as a relocation fee covering time and fuel. It is sometimes worth it, particularly for a ten-day charter that runs one way. Your broker prices it alongside the charter so you can see what the convenience costs. More on how that works on the Bahamas yacht charter page.

If you only have a day rather than a week, be honest with yourself about the distances: Highbourne is 36 nautical miles from Nassau and Staniel 73, so an Exumas day trip is mostly a day of running. A Nassau day charter to Rose Island gets you the water, the beach and even swimming pigs, twenty-five minutes from the dock.

What an Exumas charter costs

Rates are the same market as the rest of the country, with the ranges, the APA and the taxes set out on the Bahamas yacht charter page.

One thing specific to here: draft matters more in the Exumas than almost anywhere else we book. A shallow-draft catamaran reaches anchorages and sandbars a deep-draft motor yacht simply cannot, and on a chain built on shallow banks that changes the week rather than the comfort. It is worth saying at the enquiry stage whether you would rather have the space or the access. See also our guide to yacht charter cost.

When to go

December to April is the settled, busy, expensive season, and Christmas and New Year go furthest ahead. May, June and November are the value windows — the water is warm, the crowds thin out and prices have not moved yet. July and August are hot and quiet. August into October is hurricane season; charters run, but with a weather plan and flexible thinking rather than a fixed itinerary.

Whenever you come, wind direction matters more than the month. A settled easterly is a good Exumas week. A strong northerly makes the banks uncomfortable and pushes the itinerary around, which is exactly the kind of decision you are paying a captain to make.

What is included, and what is not

Charters here are quoted either all-inclusive or plus expenses, the second running fuel, provisioning and dockage through an Advance Provisioning Allowance. Your broker confirms which applies to your Exumas itinerary in writing; the mechanics are explained in full on the Bahamas yacht charter page.

Exumas yacht charter FAQs

What happens after you send your dates

Four things, in this order.

• One dedicated broker. You deal with the same person from first enquiry through to disembarkation, not a call centre or a rotating queue.
• A reply within 24 hours. A broker reads every enquiry personally and comes back with a shortlist, or an honest answer if your dates are tight.
• No obligation at enquiry. We shortlist and quote against your dates before you commit to anything. If nothing fits, we say so.

Send your dates

Tell us the week, the island group and how many are aboard, and your broker comes back with the yachts that are actually free — and what they will cost with APA included. Get your shortlist.