Seven hundred islands, and almost every visitor sees one. This route leaves Nassau on the second morning: Eleuthera’s pink sand, the Exuma cays and their sandbars, and Andros — the largest island, the least visited, and the blue-hole capital of the world.
Nassau
One day is right. The Queen’s Staircase, the pirate history at Fort Charlotte, and the straw market — then get out. Seventy per cent of the population lives on this island and it is not what the country is.
To Eleuthera
A short hop east to a island 180 km long and rarely more than a couple of kilometres wide. Settlements here date to the 1640s, when Bermudian Puritans arrived looking for religious freedom and found limestone.
Harbour Island
A ferry from north Eleuthera to three miles of pink sand — the colour comes from crushed shells of red foraminifera in the reef. Dunmore Town is clapboard, golf-cart-only and among the prettiest settlements in the Caribbean.
The Glass Window and the caves
The Glass Window Bridge is the narrowest point of Eleuthera, with deep Atlantic navy on one side and bank turquoise on the other, separated by a few metres of rock. Then Hatchet Bay caves and the Queen’s Bath tidal pools.
South to the Exumas
Via Nassau to Great Exuma. The chain runs 365 cays down a shallow bank, with sandbars that emerge and disappear on the tide and water so clear the boat appears to be floating in air.
The cays
A boat day: Thunderball Grotto — the cave from the Bond film, snorkelled at slack tide — Big Major’s swimming pigs, the nurse sharks at Compass Cay, and a sandbar lunch on ground that will be underwater in three hours.
The Land and Sea Park
The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park was the first marine protected area of its kind in the world, established in 1958, and is a no-take reserve. The difference in fish size and number inside it is visible without any expertise at all.
Long Island
South to the deepest of the blue holes: Dean’s, at over 200 metres, sits in a bay and is where free-diving records are attempted. You can snorkel the rim and look straight down into black.
Cliffs and the point
Columbus Point at the northern tip has limestone cliffs dropping into open Atlantic, and the island’s spine road runs past churches built by a priest-architect who worked across several islands.
Andros
The largest island in the country by area, with the third-largest barrier reef in the world along its eastern edge, the greatest concentration of blue holes anywhere, and bonefish flats famous among fly fishers. Almost nobody comes.
Out
Back through Nassau. If the schedule allows a late flight, the Tongue of the Ocean drop-off is worth one last dive — from a couple of metres to over two thousand within a few hundred metres.
Good to know
Inter-island travel is by small plane or mailboat, and connections almost always route through Nassau. Build the itinerary around the flight schedule rather than the map.
The Bahamas is expensive — most food is imported and prices reflect it. Out Island guesthouses are far better value than Nassau resorts.
Hurricane season runs June to November, with the peak in September. Dorian in 2019 stalled over Abaco and Grand Bahama for a day and a half; the risk is not theoretical.
Shorter or longer?
Eleuthera and the Exumas only — two islands, no Andros leg.
The northern cays and the sailing waters, still rebuilding after Dorian.
Time it for Boxing Day or New Year and take bleacher seats on Bay Street from two in the morning.