Bahamas Maritime Museum: Exploring the Islands’ Seafaring Past

Bahamas Maritime Museum

Exploring the Islands’ Seafaring Past

Freeport may be best known for its beaches and resorts, but it’s also home to The Bahamas Maritime Museum, which offers a deeper look at Bahamian history, exploring how the ocean has shaped life in the islands, from early indigenous travel to European colonization and modern shipwreck exploration.

Set inside Port Lucaya Marketplace, the museum is compact but detailed, combining artifacts, models, and multimedia exhibits that bring the islands’ maritime heritage into focus.

A Story That Begins Long Before Colonization

The museum opens with the story of the Lucayans, the original inhabitants of the Bahamas. These early seafarers used dugout canoes to navigate between islands long before Europeans arrived. Exhibits highlight what’s known of their way of life—including fishing tools, navigation techniques, and the impact of early contact with Spanish explorers.

Shipwrecks, Exploration, and Colonial Trade

One of the central themes of the Bahamas Maritime Museum is the history of shipwrecks. The waters around the Bahamas have been both a highway and a hazard for centuries, with countless ships lost to shallow reefs and unpredictable storms.

Exhibits explore some of the most significant wrecks found in Bahamian waters, including a section dedicated to the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas, a Spanish galleon that sank in 1656. Artifacts recovered from the wreck—like coins, weaponry, and personal belongings—offer a tangible connection to the people aboard.

The museum also explains how these shipwrecks are located and studied, with displays on underwater archaeology and the tools used by modern exploration teams.

Piracy, Smuggling, and Maritime Power

No maritime history of the Bahamas would be complete without mentioning the Golden Age of Piracy. Between the late 1600s and early 1700s, Nassau was a well-known pirate stronghold. The museum doesn’t romanticize this period but instead presents it as a complex time when lawlessness, survival, and trade collided in the Caribbean.

There are also exhibits on later maritime activity, including salt export, sponging, and smuggling, which were all part of the islands’ economic fabric at different points in history.

Location

Hours

Open Monday – Saturday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, closed on Sundays

Entrance Fee

$12 for adults (tourists), $6 for children(tourists). Children under 5 are free.

Are you ready to start discovering Bahamas?

This is the tour I did during my time in the Bahamas and personally recommend—leaving the link below so you can check it out for yourself.

Are you ready to start discovering Bahamas?

This is the tour I did during my time in the Bahamas and personally recommend—leaving the link below so you can check it out for yourself.

Tour bahamas

More things to see in Bahamas

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