Exploring Exuma in the Bahamas
When I travelled to Nassau in the Bahamas in 2014, I begged and begged and begged for the the tour company to fit me into one of their all day tours to Exuma. This trip represented the first time I had
, so I wanted an epic adventure story to cap it off. From what I had been told, Exuma was as epic as it could be in that area.I asked the tour organizer at the hotel on my second day in the Bahamas if there was any room on the tour for that week. She told me that most people book that tour weeks and weeks in advance. I knew I had to see Exuma before I left, so, for the next two and a half days, I walked into the tour office every few hours and asked the lady if there was space on the tour. Finally, on the day before my last full day in the Bahamas, the tour operator decided that they would allow one extra person to come on the tour for the next day. That was it. I was going to Exuma.Exuma is almost like a national park in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. It is comprised of an archipelago of over 300 islands. The islands are home to sharks, stingrays, iguanas and even wild, swimming pigs. The area also boasts some of the most turquoise water in the world.The next morning, a bus picked me up at the front doors of the hotel, dropped me off at the harbour in Nassau, and a group of us filed onto a power boat that looked kind of like a cigarette boat. The boat had turquoise blue splotches of paint on the side and the words "Power Adventures." I sat on a bench near the front beside a couple from Texas. The boat pulled out of the harbour. We jetted across the turquoise water.Nassau, the harbour and all of the surrounding islands disappeared around us. We sailed across the open, turquoise sea. The waves grew. The boat dropped over and over and over again. Some of the passengers clenched their seats, grabbed their partners and rubbed their stomachs. I grinned. We were truly disconnected from the world at the moment. For the next hour we cruised across different depths of turquoise water, and then, once the water reached a depth of only a few feet for miles, the first islands of Exuma came into view.The water, because it was so low, was the most turquoise water I'd ever seen. The boat driver told us that, at around midday, the water level lowers to a level where a thin band of sand becomes exposed across the sea, dries out, and provides a walkway across the water. I didn't know how dramatic this would be, but he ensured us that we would would walk on this pathway later.The boat docked at an old, wooden dock at a small island. The driver threw some food over board. He explained that the islands were home to all sorts of large fish, birds and even sharks. As he said this, a swarm of fish jutted towards the surface, a flock of birds swooped in, and three lemon sharks jaunted towards the food. My eyes gaped. I had never seen wild sharks before.The driver carried a cooler off of the boat. We followed him up a wooden staircase that wound through the island's palm trees and lush greenery, landed on a platform on top of the hill that provided shade, tables and a bar, and then stepped down stairs that led to the other side of the island. I stopped on a platform. The rocks on the other side of the island jutted out in a large C around the turquoise water. Sand lined the shore. Another large C of rock jutted across from the beach, which calmed a lot of the water from the open sea. I stared at the private beach.
For the rest of the morning we lounged on the beach. I walked along the sand, swam in the water, and followed a stingray, as it drifted along the sea floor. We ate a tropical lunch on the platform at the top of the island, drank beer and then threw our scraps into the water off of the front of the island. Swarms of fish bolted to the surface any time food hit the water.Once everyone had finished eating, we all piled back into the power boat, drove a little bit away from the island and stopped in a small inlet. We strapped on our flippers, masks and life jackets, hopped in the water and snorkelled around. The current tugged us towards the open sea. A reef lived beneath us. Hundreds of tropical fish swam around. I bought a selfie stick for my GoPro for this trip, so I snapped some pictures and videos under water (one of which included a very tiny jelly fish). After a while, I noticed a shell on the bottom of the ocean. I let out that air in my life jacket, swam down and grabbed the shell. I now had a part of Exuma.
On our way back from the dive spot, the boat zoomed across miles of turquoise water that seemed like it was only a foot deep. The boat slowed down in the middle of the water. The driver dropped an anchor in the water. We all stepped off of the boat, waded through the shallow water and gazed around the sea. Turquoise water drifted for miles in all directions around us, a crab crawled across the surface and a dry pathway of sand wound across the middle of the sea for miles.We walked through the water until we reached the sand pathway. The driver carried a cooler full of beer to the sand. I stepped onto the sand, grabbed a beer and walked down the pathway. The sand path seemed like a never ending walkway across the entire sea. Small waves broke on each side of it.After a while, we waded back to the boat, hopped back in and drove through the turquoise water again. We approached a small island. The driver aimed the boat straight towards the island. The boat jutted into the sand. As the boat stopped in the sand, an iguana ran out of the brush, and then another, and another. Within a minute of our boat arriving, over one hundred iguanas were visible on the island. The driver explained that, because there were so many tour groups that come to these islands to feed the iguanas, they knew to come running out when a boat arrived. We all hopped off of the boat. The driver handed us some grapes, told us to grab a small stick, and then showed us how to stick the grapes on the end of the stick and feed the iguanas. I found a stick, stuck a grape on it and held it in front of an iguana. The iguana yanked the grape off of the stick.After I fed a few iguanas and tossed my stick, I decided I would feed one more before we left, so I grabbed a stick, which was smaller than my original stick, shoved a grape on it and held it in front of an iguana. The iguana lunged at the stick. It bit my thumb. My chest tensed. My thumb ached. Luckily it didn't break the flesh. I was, however, Googling whether or not iguana bites were toxic later in my hotel room.We all piled back into the boat. As the sun started to come down, the driver reversed the boat off of the island, veered through the smaller islands and headed back towards Nassau. I peered back towards Exuma. I grinned, as the islands darkened beneath the setting sun, jutted above the sea, and became smaller and smaller as the boat roared across the surface.For more content like this, follow me