Nipper’s Beach Bar & Grill

James Bond filmed Thunderball Grotto scenes right next door, and the swimming pigs of Big Major Cay are a short boat ride away. Staniel Cay sits at the actual social center of one of the world’s most spectacular boating destinations.

Sculptor Randolph Johnston sailed into Little Harbour in the 1950s and never left, and his son Pete still runs the resulting art gallery, bronze foundry, and beach bar combo, cold beer surrounded by actual bronze sculptures.

The Exumas do the honest island beach bar formula better than anywhere in the Caribbean, and Tropic Breeze runs it with a trade breeze that never seems to stop.

The sunset side of Great Guana Cay. Frozen Guana Grabbers, conch salad chopped on the dock, a pool, hammocks, and rooms upstairs if you overdo it.

Named for the turtles you might spot from the deck, the cocktail invented here seventy years ago, and the vibe itself, the Tranquil Turtle sits above the sand at Bluff House Beach Resort & Marina, the oldest surviving hotel in the Bahamian Out Islands. The open, over-the-water wooden deck is the seat to angle for – multiple shades of Sea of Abaco blue, a light breeze, and a decent shot at spotting the bar’s namesake reptiles. Kalik on tap when the brewery’s back up and running, a solid rum lineup, and the eponymous house rum punch, made with pineapple, orange, grenadine, and three rums. Out-island pace applies: nobody’s rushing you here.