Over the past 10 years, Paul and I have spent four winters exploring this fabulous cruising area. The Bahamas are often referred to as “a yachtsmen’s paradise” and we’d have to agree. Lying a mere 50 miles off the coast of Florida, the Bahamas are a 700-mile-long archipelago basking in a sparkling sea.

However, if you prefer a more active social scene and the comforts of a marina (and who doesn’t once and a while?), there are good facilities in the popular destinations of Nassau, Freeport and the Abacos, as well as a few other smaller ports scattered throughout the islands. We'll show you some of these facilities in future updates of this page.

There are very few aids to navigation in the Bahamas and the shifting sand bars and changing reefs can make navigation challenging, but the water is so clear you can often see the bottom in depths of 20-feet. Because the water is clear and shallow, you can often read the depths by the colour of the water - the darker the colour, the deeper the water. On our first cruise to the Bahamas, Paul built these ratlines for Two-Step and the added height helped us a lot when navigating through shallow or reef-strewn waters.

If you love scuba diving, the visibility is unbelievably good in these islands, and there’s an abundance of vibrant reefs to explore. Most of our best dive experiences, some which resulted in award-winning underwater footage for Paul, have been in the Bahamas.