Why you're wrong about the 'boring' Bahamas

Just to be clear: I am not saying that the magician David Copperfield does smuggle drugs through his private island in the Bahamas, merely that here on little Musha Cay he has everything he needs in order to do so. Private airstrip (no pesky customs officers); ￡38,000-a-night rental property (handy for laundering the money); and, should his vaunted ability to make things disappear not work on federal agents in the searingly bright Caribbean daylight, a secret cave big enough to conceal a good-sized boat – and that just happens to have been used for drug smuggling in the past.

To be fair to the illusionist, this was long before he purchased the island, at a time when it seemed as if pretty much every hidden cove or uncharted islet had a history with cocaine runners. The 1980s was like a Class-A remake of Whisky Galore!, it seems, communities awash with cash as local fishermen and farmers were paid handsomely by their Colombian “business partners” for the local knowledge of tides and hides that would see US-bound shipments moved or stowed safely. A few islands up the archipelago from Musha, I snorkel around the becoralled and fish-nibbled – but still-perfectly-plane-shaped – wreck of one of Pablo Escobar’s light aircraft, which ditched here moments after take-off because it was laden with simply too many drugs; and even the respectable Government employee I get chatting to in the bar later admits that he came across ￡30,000 worth of dope among the mangroves, aged 14, and found a good (or at least lucrative) home for it.

My boat bobbing gently in Copperfield’s sea cave, gnawed from the rocky rind of his island by a millennium of waves, it’s apparent that the Bahamas have rough edges in more ways than one – which is a relief. Last month Virgin Atlantic started flying there from London for the first time, and British Airways has increased its service to six times weekly, but I worried that I’d find nothing but a sanitised, Americanised tax-havenised Dubai-in-the-Caribbean (pronounced c’RIB’y’n).

And things didn’t start promisingly. Nassau, the country’s capital is a small place, and you can see the soaring towers of its Atlantis mega-resort (that’s the one with a waterslide through a shark tank) and the mighty funnels of its queued-up cruise ships from much of the island. Seeking something more refined, I’d booked into the Rosewood – and knew I’d made the right choice within one sip of its “welcome cocktail”. In the hotel’s airy, elegantly muralled reception, gazing out across its jungle-lush but decorous gardens, I was handed not the sticky garish fruit punch I’ve politely grimaced my way through at so many other West Indies resorts, but a virginal-white “sky juice”, a Bahamian’s most beloved livener: coconut water, condensed milk and gin.

Over the next few days – and while the Americans who make up the vast majority of Nassau’s visitor numbers parked themselves in casinos and cabanas – I found exactly the rarefied side I’d feared I wouldn’t. At Flamingo Yoga, I downward-dogged on the Rosewood’s lawn while Indie and her leggy pink pals pottered around my mat (admittedly inducing more giggles than transcendence, but who says yoga has to be sober?); while at Paint & Sip, I did rather more sipping than painting (who says art has to be sober?).

I’d certainly found the capital’s classy side, but wondered if there was a “where the locals go” scene too. Wrenching myself from the resort, I strolled the public beach of Goodman’s Bay, sharing it with picnicking local families and joggers, and later taxi’d to Arawak Cay for its nightly Fish Fry. Arriving at 9pm-ish on a Sunday, I was told things were winding down for the week – but there were still maybe 30-odd shacks, stands, restaurants and bars turning out pretty much any permutation of fish or seafood, grilled, fried, frittered or seared. Those that had stopped serving food were dispensing icy beers and force-10 cocktails in no-fuss styrofoam, along with move-your-feet dancehall beats.

I chose a food stand, and the man behind it picked up a machete. I’ll confess I flinched, but it turns out to be the weapon of choice for removing conch from their exquisitely pink-inside shells and turning them into the Bahamian national dish, conch salad. A beautiful confusion of uncooked conch, onion, bell peppers, tomatoes, chillies and a lot of lime and orange juice, its closest culinary relative is probably squid ceviche – and it zings like edible mercury, as pick-me-up potent as that first cocktail of the night.

To get the true experience, of course, you need to leave Nassau for the Bahamas’ outer islands (or “Family Islands” as they’re known locally) – so next morning I’m back at the airport, where the domestic departures board has an enticingly piratical ring to it: I could take flights to Black Point, Mangrove Cay, North Eleuthera or even Deadman’s Cay. Instead, I board a bus with wings bound for Great Exuma, largest of the Exumas island chain – though frankly I’d go anywhere for the views from those little plastic porthole windows. Multiple astronauts have commented that, viewed from space, the most beautiful bit of Earth is the Bahamas (see for yourself by zooming out in satellite view on Google Maps: only one spot on the planet glows turquoise like that), and even from just 15,000ft up, the sea shines with an impossibly aqua-marine brilliance.

It’s even better once you get your feet in it. For reasons I could never quite grasp (but which possibly have something to do with phytoplankton), the water here is the colour of a bottle of Bombay Sapphire with a neon light behind it; and I spent many happy hours, wavelets lapping my tootsies.

In fact the only things striving with the sea for space on my mind’s memory card were the sunsets – smears of purples, pinks and peaches thumb-smudged together across miles-wide horizons – and the beaches themselves.

Now put all those things together and you get the Exumas’ sandbanks. Perfect swathes of honey-hued sand, perhaps half a mile wide at low tide, or just metres across at high water, they unfurl above the blue, blue H2O as enchanting as a mirage or magic spell – but reached, rather more prosaically, by a speedboat.

Among the Exumas’ attractions are sharks (at Compass Cay), sting rays (Stocking Island), turtles (Hoopers Bay), iguanas (Bitter Guana Cay) and swimming pigs (Big Major Cay), all of which you’ll be encouraged to swim with, feed and manhandle for photos. However, I’m not sure which, if any, of those activities David Attenborough would approve of, so I’m only going to own up to a light flirtation with the sting rays – which, if they think food’s in the offing, will flap expectantly at your feet like very flat dogs or an unusually affectionate pile of wet clothes.

The classic itinerary also includes Thunderball Grotto. Named after the Bond movie filmed there, it’s another sea cave but this time enclosed so you have to dive down and swim through a short rock tunnel to enter – stupidly fun, and quite impossible to do without imagining you’re 007 yourself.

If that all sounds dangerously Nassau-like, relax: back on land, you’re likely to go whole days without passing a single other tourist. The Exumas have a population of just 7,000 residents, spread out over 360-odd isles and cays – and if things somehow get a bit much on, say, Great Exuma, you can always take the bridge to Little Exuma.

There, after a lifetime trying to avoid ersatz “authentic local handicraft demonstrations”, I stumble right into an “authentic local handicraft demonstration”: we’re cruising through a three-house hamlet when my driver realises a stranger sitting outside one of them has nodded him a greeting. It would be unconscionable here not to return the courtesy, so he turns and drives back through to say hello, and we notice the lady is plaiting palm leaves (to be woven into hats, place mates, what-have-you). While I nibble sweet-sour tamarinds scrumped from her tree, Karen-May tells us she’s 79, that she’s been doing this since she was a girl, lets me have a go, and – just when I’m thinking things can’t get any more down-home perfect – tells me to call her Mother (“Mudder”, she pronounces it) as that’s what everyone else does.

Little Exuma is home to my favourite beach (Tropic of Cancer Beach: meltingly beautiful, entirely empty); favourite restaurant (Tropic Breeze: life-changing lightly battered “lobster poppers”); and Johnny Depp’s favourite bar (he and the Pirates of the Caribbean gang made open-walled Santanna’s “a second home” during filming nearby).

My best evening out, however, was back on Great Exuma, at karaoke night in a joint called Yolo. Bahamians are unanimously good singers, so I spared them my efforts; but when the crooning stopped, there was no way they were going to let me get away without dancing, so I was dragged up to partner a beautiful 20-something easily four times my size. Such is the unabashed intimacy of Bahamian rake ’n’ scrape dancing (the clue, arguably, is in the name), and such was the size disparity between us, that it was less like I was dancing with her, and more like I was being enveloped. I feared, frankly, that I would only be found days later, still secreted about her person.

And that – as long as I had missed my flight home – would have been just fine with me.

The details

BA (ba.com) and Virgin Atlantic (virginatlantic.com) both fly to Nassau from Heathrow. In Nassau, try Rosewood Baha Mar (rosewoodhotels.com), from ￡445 per night. The Bahamas is never cheap, but in the outer islands, there are quiet, economic, mom-and-pop-run hotels on amazing beaches.

In the Exumas, try Embrace, from ￡164 per night (embraceresort.com) or luxe it up at the Grand Isle Resort, from ￡280 per night (grandisleresort.com). For great tours or boat trips, try Reel ’Em In 242 (reelemin242.com). For more information visit bahamas.com, and more places to stay see our guide to the best hotels in the Bahamas.