George Town sits at the southern tip of Great Exuma, and if you're doing a north-to-south Exumas passage, it's where you end up after a week of remote anchorages and no cell signal. The contrast is immediate and welcome: a real town with a grocery store, a hardware store, a few good restaurants, and one of the finest natural anchorages in the Caribbean spread out in front of you. Elizabeth Harbour can comfortably hold hundreds of boats. In regatta season, it holds more.
Destination Guide
George Town & Great Exuma
The Anchorage
Elizabeth Harbour
Elizabeth Harbour is a wide, well-protected anchorage formed by Great Exuma to the west and Stocking Island to the east. It offers good holding in sand, reasonable protection from the dominant northeast trades, and enough room that even in peak season you won't feel crowded. The water is clear enough to see the bottom in 15 feet, and the dinghy dock at George Town is a short ride from almost anywhere in the anchorage.
Stocking Island across the harbour has a long Atlantic-facing beach and is home to the legendary Chat 'N' Chill beach bar — a permanent driftwood structure with volleyball, lobster on the grill, and a rotating cast of liveaboards, cruisers, and visitors that has been at the center of George Town social life for decades. Go on Sunday for the pig roast.
The Town
What George Town Actually Offers
Provisioning: Exuma Market is the best grocery store between Nassau and the Dominican Republic for cruisers. Well-stocked, reasonable prices, and they'll hold orders called in by VHF from the anchorage. If you're starting a charter from George Town rather than Nassau, this is where you load up.
Exuma Docking Services (EDS): Good fuel dock, propane, and one of the friendliest service operations in the Bahamas. The staff actually know what they're doing.
Dining: Two Turtles Inn is a reliable local spot with good grouper. Coconut Cove Hotel has a pleasant waterfront bar. Smoke & Gold does solid BBQ. For something more polished, try Cheers Restaurant.
The Family Islands Regatta: Held in April, this is the single best event in the Out Islands — traditional wooden work boats racing under sail, Junkanoo drumming, and a cruisers' party atmosphere that takes over the entire anchorage for a week. If your charter dates align, plan around it.
Stocking Island: The Other Side
A five-minute dinghy ride across the harbour from George Town, Stocking Island is a different world — no roads, no cars, just a long spine of an island with the harbour on one side and some of the most beautiful Atlantic beach in the Bahamas on the other. The beach on the ocean side catches Atlantic swells and has a relaxed, end-of-the-earth quality that makes it impossible to stay for less than an afternoon.
The Mystery Cave snorkel just off the north end of Stocking Island is worth doing — a network of underwater limestone formations and blue holes that most visiting boats walk right past without knowing it's there. Ask your captain to take you.
"George Town is what happens when a cruising community builds a culture over decades. The Chat 'N' Chill isn't a restaurant — it's a way of life."
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