July 21, 2026•7 min read•By Maurits Dierick, Charter Broker & Former Yacht Captain
Bahamas Exumas Yacht Charter: 7 Nights from Nassau (2026)
Seven nights down the Exuma chain from Nassau: the Land and Sea Park, Thunderball Grotto, the swimming pigs and the nurse sharks of Compass Cay.
The Exumas are a chain of small cays running southeast from Nassau, sitting on some of the clearest, shallowest water in the Caribbean.
That shallow water is the whole appeal: the seabed is visible in most anchorages and the colours run from white through turquoise to deep blue. It also shapes the week. A few of the best stops work best at particular states of the tide. Thunderball Grotto is easiest to swim at slack water, Shroud Cay's creeks run through on the incoming, and the sandbars off Norman's Cay come and go. Your captain handles all of that, so it is nothing you need to think about, but it is why the days are ordered the way they are.
162 nautical miles from Nassau and back over seven nights, November to April.
Before we dive in, it's worth noting the route below is also available as an interactive map on our Exumas charter page.
The route
Nassau → Highbourne Cay → Norman's Cay → Shroud Cay → Warderick Wells → Staniel Cay & Big Major → Black Point → Compass Cay & Pipe Creek → Nassau.
A complete day-by-day route from Nassau down the Exuma chain via the Land and Sea Park, Thunderball Grotto, the swimming pigs and Compass Cay, with anchorages, timings and the stops we'd plan ourselves. Enter your email and we'll send the full PDF to your inbox.
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Day 1: Nassau to Highbourne Cay
Board in Nassau around noon, and the 35-mile crossing falls into the afternoon.
The route crosses the Yellow Bank, where coral heads sit in three metres of clear water and the crew reads the bottom by colour. That stretch is about an hour and it's the introduction to what the water here does.
Highbourne Cay is the gateway to the chain: a private cay with a small marina and a beach on each side.
Dinner at Xuma above the beach, or on board.
Passage: 5 hours, 35 nm, across the Yellow Bank in afternoon light. Mooring: Highbourne Cay Marina or the west-side anchorage. Beach: Highbourne west beach. Dining: Xuma.
Day 2: Norman's Cay
A short detour north first, to Allan's Cay, where the Exuma rock iguanas come down the beach to meet the tender. They're endangered and they are not shy.
Then six miles south to Norman's Cay, which was Carlos Lehder's smuggling airstrip in the late 1970s. There's a C-46 in the shallows that missed the runway, now a snorkel site in three metres of water.
The sandbars off the western hook come and go with the tide. Lunch and a long afternoon on them.
Passage: 1 hour, 6 nm, plus the Allan's Cay tender detour. Mooring: Norman's Cay anchorage. Beach: the western sandbars. Dining: MacDuff's.
Day 3: Shroud Cay
Six miles south and into the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, 176 square miles running from Wax Cay Cut to Conch Cut. The park was established in 1958.
Shroud Cay is mangrove. Creeks cross the whole island and on the right tide the tender or a paddleboard rides Sanctuary Creek through to an empty ocean-side beach on the far side. Camp Driftwood is the climb above it.
There's nothing ashore. No bars, no docks. Dinner on board at anchor.
Passage: 1 hour, 6 nm. Mooring: Shroud Cay park moorings. Beach: Sanctuary Creek ocean beach. Dining: on board.
Day 4: Warderick Wells
Twelve miles down to the park headquarters, where the mooring field curls along a sandbar.
There's a 16-metre sperm whale skeleton on the beach. It died of ingesting plastic, and the park makes a point of telling you so.
Snorkel the coral gardens off the mooring field, then walk up Boo Boo Hill, where crews leave driftwood boards carved with their yacht's name. Leave one.
The park office takes the mooring fee and sells the only souvenirs for forty miles.
Passage: 2 hours, 12 nm. Mooring: Warderick Wells park mooring field. Beach: the mooring-field sandbar. Dining: on board.
Day 5: Staniel Cay and Big Major
Sixteen miles south, out of the park.
Time the arrival for slack tide at Thunderball Grotto, the domed cave from the 1965 Bond film. Inside there are light shafts through the roof and a swirl of sergeant majors.
Then round to Big Major Spot, where the swimming pigs paddle out to meet the tender.
Staniel Cay Yacht Club has been the chain's clubhouse since 1956, and there are nurse sharks under the dock lights after dark.
Passage: 2.5 hours, 16 nm. Mooring: Big Major Spot anchorage or Staniel Cay Yacht Club marina. Beach: Pig Beach. Dining: Staniel Cay Yacht Club.
Day 6: Black Point
Five miles south to the largest settlement in the central Exumas, and the day that grounds the week. No resort, no marina complex. A few hundred people.
Lorraine's Cafe does conch fritters and a coconut bread people plan routes around. Her mother bakes it fresh if you ask a day ahead. Scorpio's pours rum at the end of the dock.
Walk to the blowhole on the ocean side, swim off the beach, and let the afternoon go.
Discover the destinations
From the Cyclades to the Caribbean, see the destinations our fleet covers, summer and winter.
Passage: 45 minutes, 5 nm. Mooring: Black Point anchorage. Beach: the settlement beach. Dining: Lorraine's Cafe, Scorpio's Inn.
Day 7: Compass Cay and Pipe Creek
Back north twelve miles into Pipe Creek, the tangle of cays and sandbars between Staniel and Compass: waist-deep flats, tidal channels, sand in every direction.
At Compass Cay marina the nurse sharks lie on the submerged dock shelf and you can wade in among them. They've been fed there for decades.
Rachel's Bubble Bath at the north end fills with sea foam on the incoming tide.
Last night at anchor in the creek.
Passage: 2 hours, 12 nm. Mooring: Pipe Creek anchorage or Compass Cay Marina. Beach: Rachel's Bubble Bath, Pipe Creek sandbars. Dining: on board.
Day 8: Nassau
Around seventy miles back across the banks, with an early start and a swim stop at Highbourne to break it. Motor yachts and power cats make it an easy afternoon arrival.
Groups who want water over towns. There are two settlements on this route across eight days and one of them has a few hundred people in it.
It suits families. The pigs, the iguanas, the nurse sharks and the sandbars all work for children, and none of it needs a certification or a long passage.
It suits catamarans and power cats specifically. The draft is the whole conversation here and it's not a preference, it's what the banks allow.
It suits winter. November to April, when the Med is shut.
Practical notes
Round trip from Nassau.
The charter agreement in the Caribbean and Bahamas is often structured differently from the Mediterranean. We work mostly with CYBA terms out here and MYBA terms in Europe, and we'll walk you through what your particular yacht is offered on. For the background: MYBA vs CYBA and the APA explained.
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