Bahamas
Staniel Cay is the kind of place that feels like it was designed by someone who wanted to create the platonic ideal of a Bahamian island — a tiny cay in the Exuma chain where the water is so clear it seems to have been replaced by liquid glass, where the only traffic jam involves swimming pigs, and where the population of 120 permanent residents knows every boat, every dog, and every nurse shark by name. The cay sits near the midpoint of the Exuma island chain, a 160-kilometre string of 365 cays stretching southeast from Nassau, and its position at the edge of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park — the Caribbean's oldest marine protected area — means that the surrounding waters are among the most pristine in the entire Atlantic basin.
Thunderball Grotto is Staniel Cay's most famous attraction — a partially submerged sea cave, accessible at low tide through a narrow opening, that served as a filming location for the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball (and later Never Say Never Again). Inside, shafts of sunlight penetrate openings in the rock ceiling and illuminate an underwater world of startling beauty: schools of sergeant majors and yellowtail snappers swirl through the light beams, while the cave walls are encrusted with sponges and soft corals that glow in the ambient blue light. Swimming into the grotto through the low-tide entrance, watching the light play over the fish and the rock, is one of the most magical snorkelling experiences in the Caribbean.
The swimming pigs of nearby Big Major Cay have become the most viral tourism phenomenon in the modern Bahamas — feral pigs that wade and swim in the crystalline shallows, approaching visiting boats with an eagerness that suggests decades of positive reinforcement by delighted tourists bearing snacks. The origin of the pigs is debated (theories range from a shipwreck to an abandoned farming venture), but their appeal is universal, and the images of piglets paddling through turquoise water against a backdrop of white sand have circled the globe on social media millions of times over. Nearby, Compass Cay offers the chance to swim with nurse sharks — docile, bottom-dwelling sharks that have been habituated to human presence and allow visitors to touch and photograph them in waist-deep water.
Life on Staniel Cay revolves around the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, established in 1956 and still the social epicentre of this corner of the Exumas. The yacht club's dock restaurant serves fresh grouper, lobster, and conch alongside cold Kalik beer, and its guest cottages provide the only accommodation on the cay. The annual New Year's Junkanoo celebration fills the tiny settlement with the costume parades, goatskin drums, and cowbell rhythms that represent the Bahamas' most vibrant cultural tradition. The general store — the only shop on the island — stocks essentials with a selectivity that reminds visitors how far they are from the supermarket civilisation of the mainland.
Staniel Cay has a small airstrip and a dock that can accommodate tenders from cruise ships anchoring in the deeper waters of the Exuma Sound. The best time to visit is from November through April, when the weather is warm but not oppressive and the hurricane season is a distant memory. The water temperature hovers around 24-26°C during winter months, making snorkelling and swimming comfortable year-round. The cay's tiny size and limited accommodation mean that day visitors — whether from cruise tenders or chartered boats — have the run of the place for a few magical hours before returning to the outside world, carrying memories of swimming with pigs and snorkelling through James Bond's grotto.