Exuma's friendly way

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GEORGE TOWN, Great Exuma, Bahamas -- It takes about a week to become a local here on Exuma.

Our first night, we head to the manager's cocktail reception at the pink limestone Club Peace & Plenty, which has housed island guests for half a century.

The following week, when we make our way to the waterfront, poolside Reef Bar expertly manned by Doc, we hear someone call out: "Hey, there's Kathy and Fletcher." We grin in reply.

We quickly discover that this small island has a rhythm that revolves around the resorts and restaurants.

There's Friday night at P&P, as it's called. Also on Fridays, many head to Eddie Edgewater's for ribs, followed by late night at the Two Turtles Inn bar.

Saturdays is karaoke at Palm Bay Beach Resort -- unless it's summer. Then Saturday nights are reserved for Junkanoo Festival at Fish Fry, an event site that's a roadside collection of shacks serving up fresh conch salad, conch fritters, ice-cold Kalik (Bahamian beer), plenty of music and local culture.

Sundays, boaters and tourists alike line up for the pig roast at Stocking Island's Chat 'n' Chill just across from Exuma's main harbor. With its open-air bar, outdoor grill, volleyball beach and waterside conch-salad shack, the place feels destined to become a Jimmy Buffett song. More Kaliks await, along with the ribs, chicken, peas and rice and more. (Try the cinnamon-spiced carrots.)

Chat 'n' Chill is the brainchild of Kenneth "K.B." Bowe, who recognized a trend: baby boomers ready to chuck the 9-to-5 for the boating life to see and discover the world.

As many as 600 boats winter here. Nearly all their inhabitants would discourage us from telling the rest of the world about Great Exuma and neighboring Little Exuma, a largely unknown Eden in a Caribbean becoming ever more developed.

"Exuma is the most beautiful place on this Earth, and the people need to come and see it," Granville Ferguson tells us when we return our rental car. "The beaches are so beautiful; the people are nice." With a full-time population of 3,500 in about 20 villages, Great Exuma remains gloriously undiscovered about 300 miles southeast of the Florida coast. The island is 47 miles long and about 4-1/2 miles across at its widest point.