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The Exuma Islands are a long chain of cays stretching southeast from Nassau. They are surrounded by shallow azure waters. Close by, however, is the deep Exuma Sound which, like the border of the Great Bahama Bank and Tongue of the Ocean, precipitously drops from the shallow bank, causing the same appearance of “drop-off” once again.

   The Exumas are sparsely populated, though are situated in a way that places them under heavy air travel and as a halfway point for yachts. Again, like the other Bahama islands, it would be wrong to imagine these as beautiful palm lined islands. Low bushes, casuarina trees and “sea oats” make up the greenery. Also, countless cays are small, some tiny, others only a barrier reef just above the water level.
   The most populated is Great Exuma, the largest and most southernmost, with the settlement of Georgetown.  Staniel Cay is a common halfway point in this outback chain. Nearby here and Big Major Cay is “Thunderball Cave,” a natural grotto for divers and snorkelers which

Stocking Cay

some consider more beautiful than Amalfi on the coast of Italy by Capri. However, Thunderball Cave is far more remote, and its natural beauty gains more luster from its wilderness isolation.
   There are other settlements on these cays, like Hurricane Harbour. Boats dot the few inhabited harbours and bays, some can be seen peacefully dazzled in sunlight reflections at anchor by a deserted cay.

A typical cay in the Exumas

   A picture of isolation, left, gives a good idea of the beauty of the Exumas and the waters around them. They are overflown by dozens of planes headed toward Cat Island across the deep Exuma Sound or  even further out from here is San Salvador or Watling Island where Columbus is believed to have made his first landfall.

   The dangerous currents and shifting sands of the Great Bahama Bank are clearly seen around the Exumas. At low tide much of the sandy bottom around some cays can become land. Exotic patters in the sand show how strong the scouring current can be. Channels that look like a beautiful blue lagoon can have 

treacherous undercurrents, especially when the tide shifts. These create such marvelous patters as those below. View of nature at work along here is most

often only from an airplane. If you take a boat from a nearby populated cay, you often can’t come in close to such scenery due to the shifting bottom. Sometimes even far out, with no land in sight, yachters can come upon “sand bores,” parallel ridges of sand scoured into a frustrating maize with clear deep channels between these underwater sand dunes. They shift with the tide and cannot be marked.

   Evening and morning cause other things to come to life on these quiet cays. The temperature at this time of glowing dusk is perfect, the breeze lulls one to peace sighs. A patter, a scurry, rustling in undergrowth, scampering— and dozens of iguanas emerge onto the beaches and head for the tide line.  A large central cay received its name from their population “Great Guana Cay.”

   Flying over these cays one can imagine how some planes and yachts are swept away and covered by the shifting sands of the shallow bottom. But isolation sometimes seems a little more eerie when one does come across evidence of man’s passing. Here’s a drug smuggler, a DC-3. It was either forced down or lost an engine and had to ditch. This picture, taken by Yann Arthur Bertrand, was taken within the last decade. 

A bit of nothing in nowhere. All day long the wind does nothing but curse over this petty obstacle and the sea hammers away at it relentlessly. At night its cold, day its hot. No shadow, no relief. Bad place to be shipwrecked. This could be 50 miles from Nassau. But any place outside the view of others can be hazardous in the Bahamas. 

  The cays seem to lose a little beauty when you see what your fate would look like if you went down. Help is far away. Even if you make it to shore, you are on a lonely island. Chances of being seen by a passing plane maybe good if they are browsing the cays . . .but if they are on their way south to Great Exuma or bisecting to Cat Island, chances are you’ll only be a frantic blip waving from a sandy speck.
   But where are all the others? There is no mystery to this DC-3. No sudden loss; a slow death; its body will remain as one of the 20th century’s contributions to these waters. But  where are the pictures of the  

many dozens that have vanished over these islands? Has an indifferent sea just covered them all up and left the non mysteries behind? Or is there more to the Bahamas than meets the eye?
   One is glad to come upon settlements, like Hurricane Harbour. You feel you’ve finally walked off the face of a clock that has stopped. The Exumas are fascinating because they have all the characteristics of isolation, yet are close enough civilization so one can sample that special spirit that haunts such places. 

Hurricane Harbour

  Life along the them is tied into the sea, and thus it is inexorably tied into mystery, for the sea itself is a mystery. The sea is always near to us yet unapproachable. Yet only in the Bahamas has the sea made land so teasingly near yet far away. Both live in between rugged harmony and antagonistic disharmony. Together they remain here, both forever near yet somehow unapproachable.

Looking down the Exumas

Lets go Eleuthera, Cat Island, and San Salvador!

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