Category: Bahamas

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (3)

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (3)

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Con­clud­ed from Part 2…

Staniel Cay is an active stopover for sail­ing yachts with an affa­ble yacht club for lunch. We spent an hour mean­der­ing its wind­ing lanes and admir­ing the col­or­ful cot­tages. On the way back we stopped at Com­pass Cay to “swim with the sharks”—big, friend­ly nurse sharks which behave like aquat­ic dogs, nos­ing up to a water-lev­el dock to be fed bits of conch and allow­ing their sand­pa­per backs to be scratched.

These nurs­es are quite dif­fer­ent from your image from “Jaws” (and as vet­er­an Bahami­an divers know, we have noth­ing that threat­en­ing in local waters any­way).…

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Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (2)

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (2)

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Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

Land and Sea Park (Bahamas Nation­al Trust)

Once reached, the gem­stone islets of Exu­ma invite you to mean­der at a delib­er­ate pace in placid, gin-clear waters. There were sail­boats and cruis­ing lots galore along the islets, and you can see why. Sail­ing from one to anoth­er, drop­ping anchor by whim or fan­cy, is an expe­ri­ence that will wash the world away.

Every islet is dif­fer­ent and has its own attrac­tions. At Ward­er­ick Wells Cay is the Exu­ma Cays Nation­al Land and Sea Park—a good first stop after cross­ing over from Eleuthera.…

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Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (1)

Exuma: Jewels in the Sea (1)

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EXUMA, BAHAMAS, FEBRUARY 5TH— Get­ting from our home island of Eleuthera to oth­er Bahami­an Fam­i­ly islands is com­pli­cat­ed, usu­al­ly requir­ing air trav­el via Nas­sau. But the near­est of the Exu­ma Cays is only about 40 miles from Cape Eleuthera, or 65 miles from Governor’s Har­bour, and you can do that in under two hours in a fast boat. So off we went from Cupid’s Cay aboard Capt. Paul Petty’s immac­u­late Mar­lin 35 skiff, Mar­ti­nis & Biki­nis.

The date was our anniver­sary, so it couldn’t have been bet­ter timed. Paul and his affa­ble mate Dwayne had six pas­sen­gers, includ­ing three res­i­dents of Rain­bow Bay and three Cana­di­an ladies, one of whom orga­nized the expe­di­tion.…

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