Qualla: Exuma

Exuma: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. The Lucayan people called them Curateo, meaning "outer far distant land," and the name still fits. The Exumas are a 120-mile arc of over 365 islands and cays strung across the central Bahamas like a broken necklace, most of them uninhabited, many of them unnamed. From the air they look like splashes of white sand and dark scrub floating on water that shifts from pale aquamarine over the banks to a sudden, bottomless indigo where the Exuma Sound drops away. It is the kind of landscape that makes people do impractical things, from Captain Kidd allegedly stashing treasure in Elizabeth Harbour to a promoter staging the catastrophically fraudulent Fyre Festival in 2017.

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Image: CC BY 3.0

Exuma: Emptied and Resettled

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Exumas carry a layered history of arrivals and departures. The indigenous Lucayan people lived here for centuries before Spanish colonizers enslaved the entire population in the 16th century, leaving the islands completely uninhabited. For the next two hundred years, the only...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Exuma: The Color of the Water

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. What draws people to the Exumas is, above all, the water. The shallow banks produce colors that look digitally altered but are simply the result of white sand beneath a few feet of crystalline sea. Divers and snorkelers explore Thunderball Grotto near Staniel Cay, the underwater ...

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Image: User: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Exuma: Island of the Famous and Infamous

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. The Exumas have long attracted people seeking privacy on a grand scale. Princess Margaret visited Goat Cay as a guest of Babbie Holt. Jackie Onassis came for the anonymity. David Copperfield purchased an island, as did Johnny Depp, Tyler Perry, and Eddie Murphy. The Bahamian tax ...

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Exuma: Wind, Sails, and Junkanoo

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 3.0. Sailing is woven into Exuma's identity. The Family Island Regatta fills George Town's harbor every year, its Bahamian sloops racing under a press of canvas in a tradition that predates the resorts by generations. The George Town Cruising Regatta and Black Point Regatta draw sailo...

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Image: CC BY 3.0