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Bahamas Dive Trail: Bimini Hammerheads, Andros Reef & Dean's Blue Hole

A ten-night dive expedition through the three islands that make the Bahamas a bucket-list destination underwater — Bimini for winter great hammerheads and wrecks, Andros for the world's third-largest barrier reef and its blue holes, and Long Island for the legendary Dean's Blue Hole — linked by short inter-island flights via Nassau.

✈Plane⛴Boat
  • Trip dates 31 Jul – 10 Aug 2026
  • Length11 days · 10 nights
  • TransportPlane + Boat
  • Countries2 · Bahamas

Overview

This is a diver's Bahamas, built around three very different underwater signatures rather than the beach-resort circuit. You start with a night in Nassau to break the inbound flight, then fly out to Bimini, the westernmost islands, for the winter shark season — great hammerheads gathering off South Bimini, bull sharks and reef sharks, the shallow SS Sapona wreck and the enigmatic Bimini Road. From there you route through Nassau to Andros, the largest and least-developed island, where a barrier reef runs 190 miles down the east coast and drops straight into the six-thousand-foot Tongue of the Ocean, and where inland and ocean blue holes riddle the interior. You finish on Long Island at Dean's Blue Hole, the 663-foot sink that is the spiritual home of competitive freediving, with wall and wreck dives off Stella Maris to round out the week. The islands connect only by air through Nassau, so each move is a short flight, never a boat or a car between islands. The trip leads on where you sleep — a dive lodge or dive-friendly hotel on each island is the anchor booking, with the boat days built around it.

Andros, The Bahamas
Photo by Cam Green on Pexels

Highlights

A few frames from the route.

Bimini, The Bahamas
Photo by Alejandro Seguí on Pexels
Andros, The Bahamas
Photo by Cam Green on Pexels
Long Island, The Bahamas
Photo by Katie Cerami on Pexels
A Bahamian blue hole
Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels
Coral reef diving in the Bahamas
Photo by Matias Mango on Pexels

Photos provided by Pexels

The route

10 overnight bases, numbered in order. Tap a pin to jump to that day.

© OpenFreeMap · OSM contributors · straight-line route (not turn-by-turn)

11 days, day by day. Open any day for the morning-to-evening plan, where to eat, and where you sleep that night.

  1. Day 1 Fri 31 Jul Arrive Nassau & Paradise Island Base day

    Arrive Nassau

    Morning. Land at Lynden Pindling International (NAS); most transatlantic flights arrive afternoon, so plan on a settling day.

    Afternoon. Check gear, assemble your kit for the week, and pick up any last dive consumables in Nassau where the shops are.

    Evening. An early conch-and-Kalik dinner near the hotel; you have a short flight in the morning.

    Eat. Cracked conch and a cold Kalik to start the trip the Bahamian way.

    Where to stay. A dive-traveller-friendly hotel near the airport or on Cable Beach for one easy night — this is a staging stop, not a diving day, so keep it simple and close to Lynden Pindling for the morning Bimini flight.

    Optional / swaps. If you land early, a checkout dive or reef snorkel off New Providence loosens up travel-stiff shoulders.

    Practical. Bahamian dollar is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and USD is accepted everywhere; carry cash for taxis and small operators.

    🛏 Nassau & Paradise Island · 1 night · 2 guests

  2. Day 2 Sat 1 Aug Nassau & Paradise Island → Bimini ~279 km Fly

    Nassau → Bimini: into shark country

    Morning. Fly ~35 minutes west from Nassau to South Bimini (BIM); the water shifts to a pale, shallow turquoise on the approach.

    Afternoon. A checkout dive or a first afternoon boat to ease in — the shallow reefs and the sand flats off Bimini are gentle warm-ups before the sharks.

    Evening. Sunset over the Gulf Stream from the marina; brief with the dive team for tomorrow.

    Eat. Fresh-caught fish at the marina; Bimini is a big-game fishing town and the kitchens show it.

    Where to stay. Base at the Bimini Big Game Club or the Resorts World marina area on North Bimini — both put you steps from the dive dock and the operators who run the winter shark trips, and the lodge is the primary booking of the leg.

    Optional / swaps. A dusk snorkel over the sand flats for rays and small reef life if the boats are full.

    Practical. Winter shark diving is seasonal and weather-dependent — the Gulf Stream can blow out a day, so keep the schedule flexible.

    🛏 Bimini · 1 night · 2 guests

  3. Day 3 Sun 2 Aug Bimini Base day

    Bimini: great hammerheads

    Morning. The headline dive — great hammerheads gather off South Bimini in the winter months, and a baited, guided sand-bottom dive in shallow water puts you eye-to-eye with these huge, unmistakable sharks.

    Afternoon. A second dive on the reef or a return to the flats; hammerhead trips are long, so an easy afternoon suits.

    Evening. Log the dives over dinner; the hammerhead encounter is the one everyone talks about.

    Eat. Grilled snapper or lobster in season at a marina restaurant.

    Where to stay. Second Bimini night at the same base.

    Optional / swaps. A reef-shark and bull-shark dive as the alternative headline if hammerhead conditions aren't right.

    Practical. These are guided, operator-led shark dives — go with an established Bimini operator, follow the brief exactly, and keep your hands in.

    🛏 Bimini · 1 night · 2 guests

  4. Day 4 Mon 3 Aug Bimini Base day

    Bimini: the Sapona & the Bimini Road

    Morning. Dive or snorkel the SS Sapona, the concrete-hulled cargo ship grounded in the shallows south of Bimini since a 1926 hurricane — a photogenic, fish-filled wreck in just a few metres of water.

    Afternoon. The Bimini Road off the north island — a line of massive rectangular stone blocks on the seabed that fuels the "Lost Atlantis" legend; a shallow, easy dive whatever you make of the myth.

    Evening. Last Bimini dinner; pack and rinse gear for the early flight.

    Eat. Conch fritters and a Sands beer at the dock.

    Where to stay. Third and final Bimini night at the same base.

    Optional / swaps. A drift over the Bimini Wall for pelagics if the current is running.

    Practical. The Sapona sits shallow and exposed — it's a fine snorkel too, so non-divers in the group can join.

    🛏 Bimini · 1 night · 2 guests

  5. Day 5 Tue 4 Aug Bimini → Andros ~250 km Fly

    Bimini → Andros: the barrier reef

    Morning. Fly back through Nassau to Andros Town (ASD); the connection is the price of island-hopping the Out Islands, which don't link directly.

    Afternoon. A first dive on the Andros Barrier Reef — the third-largest barrier reef in the world runs down the east coast and drops within a few hundred metres into the Tongue of the Ocean.

    Evening. A quiet lodge dinner; Andros is the antidote to Nassau — big, wild and empty.

    Eat. Lodge-cooked local seafood; Andros land crab in season.

    Where to stay. Base at a dive lodge near Andros Town / Fresh Creek — the historic Small Hope Bay-style lodges put the barrier reef and the blue holes within a short boat run and bundle diving with the room, which is the anchor booking here.

    Optional / swaps. A mangrove-creek kayak or a bonefishing flats trip for a non-diving afternoon — Andros is the bonefishing capital too.

    Practical. Andros is vast and settlements are far apart; stay with your lodge's dive and meal plan rather than expecting to roam.

    🛏 Andros · 1 night · 2 guests

  6. Day 6 Wed 5 Aug Andros Base day

    Andros: the wall & the Tongue of the Ocean

    Morning. The wall — the barrier reef's outer edge falls away vertically into six thousand feet of blue, one of the most dramatic drop-offs in the diving world, thick with reef life along the lip.

    Afternoon. A second reef dive or an early ocean blue-hole dive for the advanced divers in the group.

    Evening. Log dives and stars; Andros has almost no light pollution.

    Eat. Fresh grouper and peas 'n' rice at the lodge.

    Where to stay. Second Andros night at the same lodge.

    Optional / swaps. A reef snorkel over the shallows for anyone sitting out the wall.

    Practical. The wall is a deep dive — plan gas and no-stop times conservatively and dive it early in the day.

    🛏 Andros · 1 night · 2 guests

  7. Day 7 Thu 6 Aug Andros Base day

    Andros: blue holes

    Morning. Andros has the highest concentration of blue holes in the world — a guided dive into an inland or ocean blue hole, the island's signature, is the day's centrepiece.

    Afternoon. A relaxed final reef dive or a surface-interval creek trip to see the freshwater cave openings from above.

    Evening. A farewell-to-Andros dinner; the island grows on divers fast.

    Eat. A last lodge seafood spread; guava duff for pudding.

    Where to stay. Third and final Andros night at the same lodge.

    Optional / swaps. A visit to a west-side flat or an inland forest-and-blue-hole walk if you'd rather stay dry.

    Practical. Blue-hole dives are specialist — only dive within your training and always with the local guide who knows the halocline and the currents.

    🛏 Andros · 1 night · 2 guests

  8. Day 8 Fri 7 Aug Andros → Long Island ~441 km Fly

    Andros → Long Island: Dean's Blue Hole

    Morning. Fly through Nassau to Long Island (Deadman's Cay, LGI); the southern Out Islands are the wildest of the trip.

    Afternoon. First sight of Dean's Blue Hole near Clarence Town — a 663-foot circular sink ringed by a beach and low cliffs, the deepest saltwater blue hole readily dived and the home of competitive freediving.

    Evening. Settle in at Clarence Town; the harbour and its twin-spired church are the quiet centre of southern Long Island.

    Eat. Fresh line-caught fish at a Clarence Town restaurant.

    Where to stay. Base near Clarence Town for Dean's Blue Hole, or at Stella Maris for the resort's own dive operation — either works, with the room the anchor and the diving built around it.

    Optional / swaps. A late swim or snorkel in the shallow rim of Dean's before the light goes.

    Practical. Dean's is safe to snorkel and free-dive from the beach, but scuba there is deep and dark — treat it with the respect a 200-metre hole deserves.

    🛏 Long Island · 1 night · 2 guests

  9. Day 9 Sat 8 Aug Long Island Base day

    Long Island: freedive Dean's & Stella Maris walls

    Morning. A guided freediving or snorkel session in Dean's Blue Hole — even a few metres down the walls fall away into astonishing black-blue clarity, and the shore entry makes it accessible.

    Afternoon. A boat dive off Stella Maris — Shark Reef and the wall dives on the island's north end, or a run toward Conception Island's protected reefs in settled weather.

    Evening. A cliff-top sundowner over the Atlantic; Long Island's east coast is all rock and surf.

    Eat. Rock lobster in season and a Goombay Smash at a beach bar.

    Where to stay. Second Long Island night at the same base.

    Optional / swaps. A land day at Cape Santa Maria's long white beach if the group needs a surface interval.

    Practical. The north-end and Conception dives depend on sea state — keep them flexible and let the operator call the site.

    🛏 Long Island · 1 night · 2 guests

  10. Day 10 Sun 9 Aug Long Island Base day

    Long Island: reefs, caves & the coast

    Morning. A final morning of diving — reef, wall or a shallow cavern — then a slow rinse-and-dry of gear for the flight home.

    Afternoon. Drive the island: the Columbus monument at the north tip, the blue-water viewpoints and the Atlantic cliffs, or a last swim at Cape Santa Maria.

    Evening. A farewell dinner; total up the week's dives over dessert.

    Eat. A last conch salad chopped to order.

    Where to stay. Third and final Long Island night at the same base.

    Optional / swaps. A relaxed snorkel over a shallow patch reef instead of a boat dive to stay well inside your no-fly window.

    Practical. Plan your last dive to respect the pre-flight surface interval — you connect through Nassau tomorrow, so no deep dives on the final morning.

    🛏 Long Island · 1 night · 2 guests

  11. Day 11 Mon 10 Aug Long Island Base day

    Depart Long Island

    Morning. Transfer to Deadman's Cay (LGI) and fly to Nassau to connect with the international flight home.

    Afternoon. Connect at Nassau; long-haul home.

    Evening. —

    Eat. A last patty or fritter before security.

    Where to stay. —

    Optional / swaps. A final beach walk if the flight is late.

    Practical. Build in a generous connection at Nassau — the Out Island flight and your international departure are separate tickets, so allow time and re-check bags.

Flights

Fly into and home from NAS. Each search opens pre-filled with your travel dates and party.

Outbound home → NAS Fri 31 Jul · 2 travellers Search flights → Return NAS → home Mon 10 Aug · 2 travellers Search flights →

Powered by the Travelpayouts flight search on /flights.

Book your attractions & tickets

Skip-the-line tickets for the highlights on this route . One is visited on the ground, with an official-site link.

Budget

A realistic planning budget for the whole trip — beds, food, fuel, the hire car and the extras. Change your party size, dates or comfort level and it updates to match.

€5,294≈ £4,525
  • Per person€2,647
  • Per day€481
  • SeasonPeak
  • TierMid

Estimate settings editable

Party2 travellers
CategoryHow it’s estimatedEstimate
Accommodationper-person/night (3–4★, min 2 sharing, £75 floor) × people × nights × season × tier€2,062
Meals & drinksper-country food/person/day × party × days × tier€1,070
Activities & admissionsper-country activities/person/day × party × days€814
Local transportper-country trains, buses & ferries/person/day × party × days€656
Cross-border & insurancefixed one-off€146
eSIM / ATMfixed one-off€65
Subtotal€4,813
Contingency (10%)€481
Grand total ≈ £4,525 · €2,647 pp · €481/day€5,294

How we estimate

  • Accommodation — per-person nightly by destination, minimum two sharing, × season × tier.
  • Standard (Mid) = 3–4★+ — estimates assume our audience’s baseline: 3–4★ or better, never below a ~£75/night room floor. Premium higher; Budget lower.
  • Meals — per person, per day, by country. Fuel — from the route distance. Season — from your dates.

These are planning estimates, not quotes. Premium properties and popular tourist hubs run above the country average, especially in peak season. Where live cost data isn’t available yet, some countries use representative figures.

Eat your way across

A taste of every country you travel through — the food culture worth going out of your way for, and the signature dishes to seek out.

Bahamas

Conch every possible way, washed down with an ice-cold Kalik at the Fish Fry.

In the Bahamas, the day revolves around conch — pronounced 'konk', and something close to a national obsession. Watch it cleaned straight from the shell at a roadside stand, then eaten a dozen ways: scorched conch scored raw and dressed with lime and bird pepper, cracked conch battered and fried gold, or diced ceviche-style into conch salad with tomato and sweet pepper. Across 700 low-lying islands the sea sets the menu — grouper, snapper and spiny lobster over any meat.

The spiritual home of it all is the Fish Fry at Arawak Cay in Nassau, a strip of open-air shacks where locals gather over fried fish, peas 'n' rice and cold Kalik, 'the beer of the Bahamas'. Order a sky juice — gin, coconut water and sweet milk, said to have been improvised here during Prohibition — and let a slow, salt-air lunch stretch out.

  • Cracked conch
  • Conch salad
  • Scorched conch
  • Rock lobster (crawfish)
  • Peas 'n' rice
  • Johnnycake
  • Guava duff (guava-filled pudding)

United States

A continent of regional kitchens — barbecue smoke, a diner griddle, and every immigrant table that ever landed here.

Join the line outside a Texas barbecue joint before it opens, because when the brisket sells out they close the doors. Inside it's meat by the pound on butcher paper — smoke-ringed brisket, glistening ribs, a link of hot sausage — no cutlery, no ceremony, just a roll of paper towels and a stack of white bread. This is American food at its most honest: one thing, cooked for hours, cooked right.

Cross the country and it changes with every state line. New Orleans simmers gumbo dark and holds the whole Gulf in a bowl; the South fries chicken and stews collard greens with smoked pork; New York folds a dollar slice and stacks pastrami to the ceiling; California piles a fish taco high with lime and slaw. It's a nation built by arrivals, each one carrying a recipe — and every city sure it does the burger, the slice, the barbecue best. Pick a side and dig in.

  • barbecue brisket & ribs
  • cheeseburger
  • New York pizza & pastrami
  • Southern fried chicken
  • gumbo (Louisiana Creole stew)
  • Tex-Mex tacos
  • apple pie

A little history

To understand what you see today, it helps to know the past — the civilisations and empires that shaped the culture, food and architecture of the places on this route.

Bahamas
  • The Arawak-speaking Lucayan Taíno settled the islands from around 500–800 AD, with conch already a staple
  • Columbus made his first American landfall here in 1492, and enslavement and disease soon wiped out the Lucayans
  • English settlers arrived from the 1640s, and Nassau grew into a pirate haven until 1718
  • a British colony reinforced by Loyalist planters, the Bahamas became independent in 1973 and now run on tourism and finance
United States
  • Indigenous nations shaped the land long before European colonies broke from Britain in 1776
  • a coast-to-coast expansion built the mythology of the frontier and the road trip
  • waves of immigration made the food and cities — New England clapboard to Southwest canyons — a patchwork of everywhere
  • a young, restless nation that exports its culture as fast as it makes it

Packing

What to bring for this trip — the easy-to-forget essentials.

Clothing

Rash guards and a 3mm (winter: 5mm) wetsuit for the season, swimwear, light layers, one warm top for windy boat rides.

Footwear

Reef shoes and boots for shore entries, sandals, trainers for the Long Island drive.

Activity gear

Your own mask, computer and regulator if you have them, a surface marker and torch for the blue holes, a dry bag, reef-safe sun cream, and a save-a-dive kit — spares are scarce out here.

Documents / money

Passport, certification card and log, dive insurance details, no-foreign-fee card and USD cash for the small operators.

Health

Reef-safe high-SPF sunscreen, motion-sickness tablets for the small-boat crossings, ear care, and know the location of the nearest recompression facility before you dive.

Drone rules (sub-250g)

Where you can and can’t fly a small drone along the way — the rules change sharply from one country to the next, so check before you launch.

  • Bahamas
    Effectively no fly-on-arrival — the Civil Aviation Authority requires every drone, tourists included, to be registered in advance (about $30, valid 30 days) before flying, capped at 400ft. ⚠ Foreign visitors must register with CAA-B before travelling; drones over 249g also need a home-country registration copy, no flying within 5,000m of any aerodrome, and commercial or media filming needs a separate permit. Rules checked: Jul 2026
  • United States
    A genuine sub-250g drone flown recreationally needs no FAA registration and no Remote ID, but every flyer — visitors included — must first pass the free online TRUST test and carry proof, and flying near airports needs prior FAA clearance through the LAANC system. ⚠ The National Park Service bans launching, landing or flying a drone across every national park — Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion and the rest — with fines up to $5,000; many state and city parks add their own bans, so check each site before you fly. Rules checked: Jul 2026

National parks, protected sites and religious/heritage venues often have their own rules and permits — always check the specific site before you fly.

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