Exuma Chain
A Sublime Display of Bahama Blue
The Exumas Cays are a chain of islands jutting out of kaleidoscope blue waters like the jeweled tips of underwater mountains. They embody everything sublime about the Bahamas as a sun, sand and sea paradise with the best white sands beaches in the world, bar none, and thriving marine ecosystems. Fly into one of the cays or pleasure cruise from the North to the South of the chain, and along the way you will travel through dimensions of time and space that will awaken the senses.
Once you've landed in Staniel Cay or Georgetown, the capital, take a day or two discovering local restaurants and hangouts. Swim out to Mystery Cave, a blue hole on Stocking Island that plunges to a depth of 400 feet. Snorkel inside Thunderball Cave, made famous for its starring role in the James Bond films Thunderball and Never Say Never Again. Explore Exuma’s premier marine attraction, the Exuma National Land and Sea Park, the first marine protected area established in the Bahamas.
Take a ride over to Major’s Spot Cay; when the engines throttle down and the shore comes into clear view, believe your eyes when you see swimming pigs paddling their way to eagerly greet you. Bring snacks, they’ll be grateful.
In the Exumas, with water visibility like none other in the world, there is a way the sun glistens like a handful of diamonds tossed across the surface of the sea. The blues alternate from azure to aquamarine, and sapphire to sky blue.
Make your acquaintance with the Three Sisters, an outcrop of rocks steeped in folk legend. Walk miles along sand dunes surrounded by cerulean waters in Moria Harbor Cay Park; take in the stunning beauty of Pelican Beach in Little Exuma, where the Tropic of Cancer crosses over. Explore the underwater curiosities of the Atlantic side of the cays, like stromatolites, enormous fossilized algae that tell stories thousands of years old.
Great Exuma and Little Exuma, once called Yumey and Suma by the Indigenous Lucayans, along with their family of cays, have gone through many transformations over the years. The early days were lawless, marked by pirateering and shipwrecking. Norman’s Cay is legendary for its association with the notorious period of drug running, a throwback to the early roots.
English Barons turned their hands to cotton plantations during the early period of Loyalist settlement, bringing along the first major wave of enslaved Africans. The infamous plantation owner Baron John Rolle, upon his death, left his holdings to the emancipated Africans, and many of their descendants still live in Rolleville and Rolletown.
The Exumas have had an incredible journey into the 21st century. All along, the islands have provided inspiration to globe trotters, from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who vacationed there, to Tyler Perry, who flies in regularly to relax and rejuvenate on his own private island. As well as inspiration, you will find laughter in the Exumas, sipping a cold beer at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club; you will find your zest for life eating conch salad as the sun sets at the Chat & Chill Beach Bar on the lee side of Stocking Island.
