In Bimini, You Find a Tiny Caribbean Island Home to World-Class Fishing, Diving and an Historic Adventure Hotel 

These waters are special. You feel it when you take a flats boat out into the mangroves, when you hear the sound of the breeze, when you journey out for wahoo. There’s an otherworldly quality to Bimini, the tiny island 50 miles east of Miami that’s always been a magnet for adventurers. 

This isn’t The Bahamas you think you know. It’s raw and rugged, a place for the intrepid, a place that calls explorers. And it’s always been this way, from Ponce de Leon to Ernest Hemingway to Martin Luther King (who found his own oasis here more than half a century ago). 

“It’s what makes Bimini so unique,” says Robbie Smith, the dockmaster who has spent nearly four decades at the legendary Bimini Big Game Club, the island’s historic, unforgettable hotel right on the edge of the water that first opened its doors back in 1947. “Bimini has a lot of offer.”

This is the adventure capital on an island where adventure is in the air, whether you want to go deep-sea fishing (it’s some of the best in the hemisphere), dive shipwrecks or just get a sense of the magical surrounding waters (or taste what just might be the best conch in world).

You can go swim with dolphins. Or hammerhead sharks (Bimini is home to the world’s only shark lab). You can find some of the most beautiful coral in The Bahamas. Depending on the season, the fishing is breathtaking. Wahoo, marlin, mahi mahi, billfish. 

Smith says you can go less than half a mile off the coast of Bimini and hit the drop off, where the water gets to a depth of bewten 180 and 400 feet. Or you can head all the way down to Cat Cay 12 miles away.

“You get a lot of big ones down there,” he said. “The fishing is really, really good off of Bimini.”

Because the environment, the water, the mangroves, the sands, is what makes Bimini, well, Bimini, Smith says. 

And the Big Game Club is the island’s town square, a pilgrimage stop for everyone looking for a taste of the real Bimini, a hotel with a family feel and a real sense of the island. 

There are 51 rooms in all, a mix of standard rooms and some terrific, colorful cottages. There’s the all-day eatery called Bimini Seafood Company (the conch is outstanding, including the “chunky conch chowder”) joined by a relatively new addition: Hemingway’s, a “poolside rum club” with an impressive stock of rums from around the Caribbean. 

Then there’s the Outfitter shop, the island’s best liquor store and a treasure trove of books, clothing and everything you need on your trip. 

As with the best places to stay, it keeps tinkering, keeps getting better. It’s now the home of Bimini Pizza, the island’s most popular new slice shop. And did we mention the 75-slip marina?

But the story here really is the adventure, anchored by the world-renowned Neal Watson’s Bimini Scuba Center, which has six dive boats (and a glass-bottom boat) perfect for exploring Bimini’s peculiar brand of blue (there’s also a robust menu of snorkeling options, too if you don’t want to use a tank). 

You won’t lack for options on this island, one of the Caribbean’s most unique destinations, where the undersea world meets small-island charm. 

“This is Bimini,” Smith says of the Big Game Club. “It’s island life, it gives you that island flavor.”  

They say, apocryphally, of course, that Ponce de Leon came here searching for the Fountain of Youth. 

And if you come here, you certainly understand why. 

For more, visit the Bimini Big Game Club. Rates start at $309 right now.