The Exumas Yacht Guide

Cruising & Staging

Every Exumas passage starts with one decision: bank side or sound side. The bank, west of the chain, gives you flat water in any easterly, 7 to 15 feet over white sand, and visual navigation between scattered heads; the sound, east of the chain, gives you unlimited depth, a beam sea in the trades, and faster point-to-point times for deep boats. The chain's cuts connect the two, Highbourne, Ship Channel, Wax Cay, Conch, Dotham, Farmers, Galliot, and Cave Cay among them, and the cuts are where the Exumas bite: an ebb tide pouring off the bank into an onshore easterly stacks up a rage, short standing walls of water that have rolled tenders and broken bones, and the rule is simple, transit cuts at slack or with wind and tide aligned, never ebb against onshore wind above 15 knots. Tide on the banks runs about 2.5 to 3.5 feet on Nassau timing with local offsets, and the skinny-route discipline is half-tide-and-rising, so a grounding is a 20 minute wait instead of a crane. Deep boats, 10 feet and over, run the sound and pick their entries: Highbourne Cut, Conch Cut, Galliot, and Cave Cay Cut carry the honest water, and Emerald Bay at the bottom takes you straight in from the sound. The 40 mile stretch from Highbourne to Staniel is the postcard core and where 90 percent of traffic stays. Plan it in 15 to 25 mile days; the distances are short and the point is to stop.