A no-take marine sanctuary the size of a small country, one morning's sail from our dock. This is what the ocean looked like before anyone got to it.
The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park was set aside in 1958, decades before marine conservation was fashionable, and the Bahamas National Trust has guarded it ever since. Nothing inside may be fished, caught, or collected. The result is water so clear and reefs so thick with life that the rest of the Bahamas looks pale beside them.
Charters from Nassau spend their best days just getting here. From Staniel Cay, the park's southern anchorages are a morning's sail. You can snorkel a protected reef by lunch and be back at the swimming pigs for sunset.
The park headquarters, a curling ribbon of turquoise over white sand, and the mooring field every Exuma photo you have ever seen was shot from. Climb Boo Boo Hill and leave a piece of driftwood with your boat's name, the way crews have for decades.
Protected coral heads, drift snorkels through the cuts, sea turtles in the shallows, and beaches without a single footprint. The no-take rule has been working for almost seventy years, and you can see it.
The park is the wild half of the Staniel Cay week. The famous half, the swimming pigs and Thunderball Grotto, waits just south of the boundary.
Look at the chart and the argument makes itself. The park sits in the central Exumas. So do we. A Nassau charter burns a full day reaching water we wake up next to.
See how the park fits into a week aboard in our 7-day Exuma itinerary, or read why we based the fleet at Staniel Cay.
A protected stretch of cays and reef in the central Exumas, established in 1958 and managed by the Bahamas National Trust. A strict no-take zone, which is why the water inside is the most alive in the Bahamas.
The southern reaches begin a short sail north of our base. Cambridge Cay and the headquarters at Warderick Wells are within an easy morning's sail.
The park maintains mooring fields at its most sensitive sites, with fees paid to the Bahamas National Trust. Your captain or our crew briefing covers where to moor and where anchoring is permitted.
No. Fishing, lobstering, and shelling all wait until you are outside the boundary. The trade is snorkeling over reefs protected for generations.
Charter from Staniel Cay and the most protected water in the Bahamas is a morning's sail, not a delivery passage.
Start planning your tripOr hail the crew directly: 401.212.1778 · crew@scyachtpartners.com