The Bahama Islands are a low-lying limestone archipelago in the North Atlantic southeast of Florida and north of Cuba, covering 150,000 square miles of tropical sea with approximately 5,000 square miles of land. Of the 700 islands and many more rocks and small cays, some 25 are inhabited with communities. Many more have private homes and some whole islands are privately owned. Very deep off-sounding trenches and shallow banks make the area an interesting cruising ground. Several new publications are now available to assist with safe navigation.
Coral reefs provide excellent snorkelling and diving.
In the last decade, since a change of government in 1992, much development has occurred throughout The Bahamas, bringing better facilities to many islands and the advent of GPS has encouraged many more yachts to visit the area. Facilities are good in Nassau on New Providence, which has several marinas, chandlers and repair facilities. Fuel, marine supplies and provisions are easily available. Freeport on Grand Bahama also has good facilities and the Marsh Harbour area on Abaco and George Town on Great Exuma are growing as yachting destinations. A concerted effort by all countries in the region has reduced this activity considerably.