If you are looking for unspoiled nature and turquoise waters, the Exumas are generally considered the “Holy Grail” in the Bahamas. And that’s our next destination where we will sail 40nm southeast from New Providence’s West Bay anchorage to Highbourne Cay, affectionately known as the “Gateway to The Exumas”.

Highbourne Cay sits at the top of the island chain and it’s is a private island with eight beautiful beaches, all with powdery white sand, perfect for spending time relaxing under the warm sunshine.

As we got closer, the colors of Highborne Cay are so mesmerizing and ever-changing (with the light, depth, and bottom type), it is difficult to take your eyes off the land and waterscape. We felt like we’re in a constant state of “drunken” mindset with the amazing views, we cannot stop looking around and being amazed; the colors are so intense and so beautiful. On top of that, sunrises and sunsets are incredibly beautiful, and diverse and look different from day to day.

Many people had forewarned us that Highborne Cay can be a bit of a chaotic anchorage, and here’s the reason: A lot of people charter catamarans from Nassau and head to Highborne the moment the planes land. One would think that to charter a boat for a week, you’d have to have at least some boating experience… but that hasn’t been a reality here at Highborne. All of the chartered boats that came zooming into the anchorage don’t have their VHF radios on and don’t bother to turn on their anchor lights at night and they tend to anchor too close to other boats. Fortunately, no incidents happened while we were here.

The holding here was pretty good once we set the anchor, but we did have to back down hard on the engine to confirm. There were quite a few boats (I’m guessing mostly chartered boats) around us who had to reset their anchor or decided to drag a bit before grabbing hold of something on the bottom.

We splurged and opened up a bottle of bubbles we’d saved to celebrate and cheer our first stop in the Exumas.  It took years of planning, hard work, saving, and some rather grueling boat projects to get our boat this far. We went into the harbor for a look around and light provisioning, met the infamous island mascot “Luann” the parrot who’s very protective of her keeper. She squawks at anyone who comes too close to him.

The next day we headed north in the dinghy to Allan Cay also known as Iguana Island (one of several places that carry that designation). The island boasts no human population, true of many of the islands in the Exumas. But more impressive is the population of hundreds of Iguanas, origins unknown. As soon as we beached the dinghy, hundreds of Iguanas ran towards us as though they were hungry tourists rushing to an all-you-can-eat buffet. At first, we were a little scared of them, we heard they may bite by accident, their eyesight is not very good, and often mistake feet and fingers for food. But soon we got very comfortable with them. We fed them leftover cabbage from last night’s stir-fried vegetable dinner, it’s all we had to spare, but they loved and ate every little bit of the cabbage leaves including the hard stem.

The next stop, is the north coral reef for snorkeling. Initially, it was not obvious to us where the coral reef was. We scouted around for the best spot before dropping the dinghy anchor. I was a little apprehensive in the moderately-strong current but Claudia, a much stronger swimmer than I am, reassure me that we were good to go and she’s got my back. We got in the water and started soaking up all the incredibly colorful underwater sea life. Despite the warm sun, 20 minutes in the cool water made us wish we wore our wetsuits. The water was incredibly clear but the best coral and fish gatherings were in the deeper water where the current was the strongest. It was humbling to realize that at the whim of the changing tides we could be swept away. We got back to our dinghy, tired but enjoyed every moment of one of the best days we’ve had.

Tomorrow we continue south to Norman’s Cay where we’ll dive for the famous Escobar’s drug smuggling plane that was dumped there in the 80s.