Bahamian Catamaran Adventure – Sailing the Abacos Islands

This winter I chartered a cabin on a 62 Foot Lagoon Catamaran with Dream Yacht Charters. Our itinerary for the week was sailing through the Abacos Islands in the Bahamas. The islands are slightly Northeast of Miami. The main airport is Marsh Harbor (MHH).

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Our mode of transportation was a 2015 Lagoon 62 Foot Catamaran with 6 cabins and 2 crew rooms. Each cabin had it’s own ensuite bathroom with electric toilets which is a great luxury when sailing.

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Below is a map of our island hopping adventure.

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We started our trip from the Harbor View Marina on Saturday night at 6pm. We met our captain and the other guests, then had a group dinner on the back of the boat.

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We’d recommend arriving close to 6pm at the Marina. There’s a restaurant on the pier called Snappa’s to hang until you can board the boat if you do arrive early like we did.

Our actual first day of sailing was on Sunday. We sailed from Marsh Harbor to Fisher’s Bay on Great Guana Cay. There are two beach clubs to visit with food, drinks and views of the sea. We went to Nippers first which was very loud and busy as it was Sunday. It’s beach faces the Atlantic Ocean.

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Nippers Beach Bar
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The Atlantic Side

We also went to the beach in Fisher’s Bay and had drinks at Grabbers Bed, Bar and Grill. This spot was also lively but more chill than Nippers and a great place to watch the sunset as if faces West.

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Grabbers Bed, Bar and Beach

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We anchored in Fisher’s Bay that evening and had dinner on the boat. The next day we sailed to No Name Cay where they have a small beach inhabited by pigs. It’s not as big and crowded as the Pig Beach of Exumas so you may be the only visitors when you arrive if you’re lucky.

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The winds were very good so we were able to use the sails quite a bit on our trip. Our next stop was Nunjack Cay. It’s a great spot to go and swim with stingrays and nurse sharks. It’s pretty quiet and you may only see one or two other boats while you’re there. We snorkeled a bit and saw a turtle and then went for beach walk.

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The next day we went to Treasure Cay. The day started out overcast but eventually the sun came out. The beach was stunning with lots of great beach houses lining the coast. We walked to the end of the beach and back to Coco Beach Bar and had lunch.

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Coco Beach is a very good spot to bring a beach towel or rent a chaise and relax for the day. The food, service and music was great and they even had a volleyball net set up.

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The next day we went to Hopetown. It’s a great little harbor town with a few restaurants and lots of colorful vacation rentals. We arrived in the evening so had time to take the water taxi to the Westside of the harbor and find a spot for dinner. We at a winebar called Wine Down, Sip Sip which was very busy with locals and vacationers. We were lucky to get a table without a reservation. The menu was a mix of Bahamian, Caribbean and Italian and they had an extensive selection of wines.

Our final stop was Tahiti Beach for a beach BBQ. We had the island to ourselves and swam, ate, swam some more, went for a beach walk swam back to the boat.

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We ate a majority of our meals on the boat as it had a chef and a skipper. The few meals we had on land were great and the service super friendly. They take US dollars in the Bahamas which is convenient and the exchange rate is 1:1 with the Bahamian dollar.

Some of the highlights of the trip were Pig Beach, swimming with the Stingrays and Sharks, the many gorgeous sunsets, the Hopetown Lighthouse and the beach BBQ.

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2 thoughts on “Bahamian Catamaran Adventure – Sailing the Abacos Islands

  1. Looks like another great trip! The swimming pigs must have been a hoot! Would love to hear details on how you chose this charter company as we’ve been toying with doing something similar.

    -Mark

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    1. I’ve done cabin charter sailing trips before with G Adventures and Intrepid (Group Tour Companies) and they used Dream Yacht Charters so I was familiar with their monohulls. Going with Dream we cut out the middle man and sailed on a much bigger boat.

      Their website is easy to navigate and its good value for $$ since it’s all inclusive. I’d recommend starting with sailing BVI as there are lots of great stops and islands to visit like floating bars, Virgin Gorda and Peter Island. Also a fan of Greece and Croatia. We want to do Italy and Menorca and Mallorca eventually.

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