The Bahamas offers some of the most iconic turquoise water in the world — and its position in the northwest Caribbean gives it relatively good natural protection from the Atlantic sargassum belt that affects Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
The Bahamas archipelago stretches north of Cuba and east of Florida, sitting in the northwest Caribbean and Atlantic. Nassau's beaches face north and west, away from the direct sargassum drift path.
The Bahamas generally sees less sargassum than the eastern Caribbean and Mexico's coast. The shallow Bahamian banks and northwest orientation help. That said, during heavy sargassum years some does reach Bahamian shores — conditions vary by island and beach.
Nassau served as the Caribbean's infamous 'Pirate Republic' in the early 1700s — Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Anne Bonny all used its shallow harbor as a base before the British cleaned it out in 1718. Christopher Columbus made first landfall in the Americas somewhere in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, though historians still debate which island he actually reached. The archipelago's hundreds of islands and cays made it a natural labyrinth for pirates, smugglers, and rum runners during Prohibition — Bahamian waters have witnessed more maritime intrigue than perhaps any other stretch of the Caribbean.
"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters — these see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in the deep." — Psalm 107:23-24Live seaweed levels, surf, water quality and hotel deals — updated daily. Free.
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