Wading barefoot through an expanse of knee-deep water, three paces behind a broad-shouldered Bahamian guide, I see a ripple. Something in the water that doesn’t look quite right. It’s not the edge of a sandbar. Not a mangrove, rock, or conch. Not a small wave or fast current. A sparkle. A tailfin poking up out of the water 40 feet away: a bonefish.

“Shhh,” says my guide, signaling for me to stop. We crouch down. “Can you reach him?” he whispers. “Maybe,” I murmur, wiping perspiration from my temple. “Give it a shot,” he says.

Reeling in the mess of fluorescent yellow fly line that’s been dragging behind me, I cast. As the line unfurls, the fly at the end falls into the water — short. The fish moves closer but somehow doesn’t notice us. I pull up 20 feet of line from the water and send it out again, landing the fly squarely in front of the fish. But instead of seizing the bait, it darts off in a frenzy.

I scan the horizon for signs of other activity before trudging forward. I know that other bones are likely close. Out here, plopped down in what’s billed as the bonefishing capital of the world, it’s practically guaranteed. And if I don’t hook one today, I can always try again tomorrow.

Such is life on the Out Islands of the Bahamas. No bustle. No cruise ships. No cluster of mega-resorts. Excitement is typically of the outdoors variety — and it’s quite often spaced between long, quiet moments spent on brilliantly white beaches.

 

When most people think of the Bahamas, they think Nassau, Grand Bahama, or Paradise Island. Ornamental. Animated. Thick with people. But to overlook the nearly 700 other Bahamian islands would be self-defeating — especially if your goal is to discover quick, out-of-country escapes that combine breathtaking scenery with plenty of elbow room.

“Drowsy” is how one guidebook describes the Out Islands, alluding to the night-and-day difference between them and their more well-known neighbors. But that’s not to say that visiting the Out Islands means roughing it. While such excursions can be rustic (as in camping on one of the hundreds of uninhabited islands), high-life accommodations also abound — and they’re the kind you’ll want to keep to yourself.

The islands of the Bahamas stretch across 100,000 square miles and comprise nearly 5,400 square miles of land. The Abacos is where you find a preserve for horses descended from stock brought over by Christopher Columbus. The Berry Islands is where Chub Cay’s new 57-villa resort attracts globetrotters arriving by boat and small plane. Bimini is where Hemingway is thought to have found the inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea and Islands in the Stream. San Salvador is home to one of the last hand-operated lighthouses in the world: The keeper winds the device that projects the light and manually refuels the 400,000-candlepower kerosene lamp every two and a quarter hours. Great Inagua is a sanctuary to more than 80,000 West Indian flamingos, while lobsters are the draw at Spanish Wells. Gregory Town, on the island of Eleuthera, is popular with surfers. And then there’s Andros, the biggest island in the Bahamas and the fifth largest in the Caribbean — but which has a population of under 8,000.

“If you want friends, you have to be friendly — and on Andros everyone is friendly,” says the cab driver who picks me up at the airport. Across the street is a wood-sided shack of a restaurant with lime-green trim called Maggies, which advertises cracked conch, boiled fish, and “pease and rice.” As we pass other cars and pedestrians along the road, my driver waves whether he knows them or not.

I quickly gather that Andros Island is big and soupy, calling to mind a Georgia swamp, the Florida Everglades, or a Louisiana bayou. We streak past pole-straight pine trees sprouting up from soil speckled with bits of limestone and flint, through open expanses beside sprawling wetlands filled with the tangled roots of red mangroves. “That’s the type of mangrove that grows the fastest,” says my driver. As we turn a corner, I spot sea grapes dangling from a roadside. Edible? Yes. Islanders use them to make preserves. Considering the moist, tropical climate, I inquire further: Do orchids grow here? Oh, yes. In the northern part of the island, some 50 species thrive in a forest of mahogany and pine called “the Big Yard.”

It’s a far cry from the resort-rich island of Nassau. But the Out Island’s version of luxury is just around the bend — or, to be more precise, across a short stretch of water.

 

I’m standing beneath a thatched roof, gazing across the glass-clear water to Kamalame Cay, a 96-acre private island where free-standing cottages and villas are spread out along a sandy shoreline backed by thick buffers of pink flowers, great drooping palm trees, and verdant brush. When my water taxi reaches the island’s dock, I see fly-fishing guides shooting the breeze, waiting for their clients to arrive. A smiling woman in a pink rugby shirt, sunglasses, and khaki shorts greets me and helps me load my bags onto a golf cart. We roll slowly past wooden signs showing the way to the tennis courts, spa, pool, and marina before reaching my digs, a white stone structure with a small deck overlooking the empty white beach.

Stepping inside, I see a jar of freshly baked cookies (these are delivered daily) atop a teak desk, which rests on a tile floor graced with an oriental rug. As the sheer curtains dance in the breeze, I reach into the fridge and grab a Kalik, the local brew.

With the porter now gone, I feel completely and refreshingly alone — and that’s when it occurs to me that it’s what you can’t see or hear that gives this place its far-flung charm. Drowsy indeed, I think — and nearly perfect.

After a morning spent angling for bonefish in the wild flats just outside my door, I find myself back on Andros for lunch at the Small Hope Bay Lodge, a diving resort that’s been in business since the ’60s. Guests snorkel just footsteps from my table, and from the dock behind me boats head out to more than 60 dive sites that let you explore coral gardens, shallow reefs, shipwrecks, underwater caves, and more.

Sated on jerk chicken, I amble toward Red Bay, an area where craftsmen sell their wares out of their homes. As I walk past a community center, a table in front of a small house catches my eye. It’s filled with handmade baskets of all shapes and sizes, made from what are known locally as silver-topped palm leaves. There are shallow baskets for bread, deeper baskets that are ideal for fruit, and larger covered baskets with elegantly woven patterns.

I buy a few and ask where I might find Henry Wallace, one of the most well-known sculptors in the Bahamas. (His works have been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution, George Mason University, and the University of Florida.) “Down the road,” I’m told — and that’s where I discover a quiet, gray-bearded Rastafarian. On his table are hand-carved mahogany sculptures: a watermelon-sized turtle and a terra-cotta-colored bonefish the size of a dinner plate. This reminder is enough to stir my desire to return to the water and test my fishing skills once again.

In the realm of saltwater fly-fishing, bonefish have arguably become one of the most widely sought-after fish — the trout of the flats, if you will. And the Bahamas have come to be known as a top destination for those seeking the challenge of landing them, thanks to an abundance of fish and scores of shallow places where they can be caught. But just as important as the favorable natural conditions is the expertise of the fishing guides who grew up pulling bonefish from these shallow waters.

Going for bonefish means either wading (as noiselessly as possible) through the flats, or standing at the bow of a skiff as your guide navigates with a long pole. In both cases, you don’t cast blindly; you hunt them — quietly. Bonefish are easily spooked. Drop a water bottle on the deck of a boat and they’re gone in an instant. Slosh around too much while wading and your chance of spotting them plummets to zero. To make things even more challenging, actually seeing them can be difficult, even when they’re within casting distance. Thankfully, the guides here have a way of locating things in the water that are nearly invisible to visitors.

When a guide spots some bonefish, you’ll hear a location (“Two o’clock!”), a distance (“20 feet!”), and an order (“Cast!”). Land the fly just right, entice your prey with some tugs on the line, and wham! — a strike. You set the hook and hold on as the fish takes off, the reel buzzing like a mosquito hovering around your ear. Landing one requires patience, some arm strength, and the awareness that you might lose it if you don’t keep your line tight. Bonefishing guides in the Bahamas know this and will talk you through the entire experience, giving such keen instructions that it’s as if they, too, have a fish on the end of a line.

As we return to shore after a morning of wading in the flats — where we’d spied a school of bonefish headed right for us on what our guide called “the perfect tide” — I spot a shirtless young boy floating close to the shore on a coffee table–sized Styrofoam raft. He holds a long pole in his hands, which he deftly uses to propel himself around the conch-covered peninsula close to the launch ramp. Perhaps he’s imagining himself in a few years, with a boat of his own, spending his days taking clients out to the flats and teaching them to fish. As I watch his graceful movements, it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. More difficult to envision is what this place will look like by the time he’s grown. By then, these Out Islands could be the in place to go.

HOW TO GET THERE
US Airways flies directly to Nassau from Charlotte, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and offers service to Andros and other Out Islands destinations through Bahamasair. Bahamas Ferries also provides ferry service between Nassau and several Out Islands including Andros.
242.323.2166
bahamasferries.com

WHERE TO STAY
Kamalame Cay
If you’re seeking a private getaway in an idyllic natural setting but desire the royal treatment, this is the resort for you.
800.790.7971
kamalame.com

Tiamo
The 11 shaded bungalows at this all-inclusive eco-resort feature wraparound porches and open-air designs that eliminate the need for air conditioning.
242.471.8087
tiamoresorts.com

Small Hope Bay Lodge
One of the oldest diving resorts in the Bahamas is also one of the friendliest.
800.223.6961
smallhope.com

Andros Island Bonefishing Club
Accommodations here might be down to earth, but the number of bonefish in the nearby flats (100 yards away) is out of this world.
242.368.5167
androsbonefishing.com

Christopher Percy Collier is an avid outdoorsman. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two daughters
Map by Steven Stankiewicz