THE ABACOS -- On a Friday afternoon, the ferry from Marsh Harbour to Hope Town is packed with families from the Carolinas, North and South. Some have come to this one-time British Loyalist stronghold for generations.

Back in Marsh Harbour, on the Abaco's main island of Great Abaco, sailors are trying to hook a small brass ring on a nail -- the local bar game -- at the Conch Inn. The anglers are over at Abaco Beach Club showing off the day's catch, while a happy crew of beer swillers are sipping away at the gloriously ramshackle Pete's Pub. Just down the road from Pete's lies the eco-friendly resort, Different of Abaco, and the millionaire's haven, The Abaco Club at Winding Bay. Off the road toward Treasure Cay, a group wild Spanish Barb horses roam free at a woodsy refuge.

Another ferry whisks visitors to the reefs and laid-back charms of Great Guana Cay. Sailors and yachties are moored up at the Green Turtle Club on Green Turtle Cay. And on Man O' War Cay, the Albury Sail Shop run for decades by the Albury family -- the ferries are run by a different branch of Alburys -- is just about ready to close for the day.

The Abacos offer a half-dozen destinations in one, and that is part of the appeal for the 87,000 annual visitors, who can stay on one island and sail lazily to others on ferries that run seven days a week.

''Each island has its own character, and it's different every time you visit,'' says Kathryn Posten of Orlando. In contrast, she says, ``[Big] resorts have beautiful scenery, but beyond that, they're much the same.''

Another appeal: A notable shortage of too much -- too much glitter, too much noise, too much business, too much big-scale development.

Leave that to Nassau, the Bahamas' busy capital on the island of New Providence, and nearby Paradise Island. The Abacos are the kind of islands Jimmy Buffet sings about: tiki bar havens where you hoist a brew with friendly locals while you catch Stone McKuen's band's seductive ditty, Do Me, or listen to the Barefoot Man's CD extolling the virtues of Great Guana Cay. Miles-long curves of floury sand are marked by a single set of sunbathers or a few frolicking children. Here there's no attitude, fewer hassles. Your most pressing worry: Not missing the last ferry to wherever you're staying. The ferries don't run at night.

That's not to say that these islands are unsophisticated -- restaurant fare is surprisingly good, and there's a six-plex movie theater in Marsh Harbour -- or that the Abacos are without problems. Hurricane Floyd smacked the Abacos in 1999; Frances hit Marsh Harbour in 2004 (though little evidence remains.)

As in most places in this world, change is afoot. The airport is being expanded, a new resort is underway at Treasure Beach and several mixed-use projects are being discussed. The government seeks a balance between preservation and tourism, say tourism officials, but just what that balance should be is a matter of debate. Upscale development has its critics, and the 585-acre luxury housing development Bakers Bay on Great Guana Cay has caused outrage among locals, who are concerned that runoff from the golf course will harm Great Guana's reef.

But for the most part, these are the islands you dream about while you're trapped in your office.

Says Tracy Oetgen, a longtime Hope Town visitor from Savannah, ``People who come to the Abacos aren't looking for Atlantis.''

Despite some commercialism and a few larger hotels, Great Abaco retains wild spaces that seem almost endless, where you can kayak, snorkel, track the rare Abaco Parrot, hike to blue holes and see the wild Barb horses, thought to be descendants of animals brought by the Spanish. Even the private Abaco Club, a tony second-home community and destination club created by flamboyant shipping magnate Peter de Savary, melds into the landscape, with a Scottish-style links course and carefully designed villas.

Over at Hope Town, on Elbow Cay, families stroll the concrete lanes just wide enough for a golf cart (cars generally aren't allowed), brave the 101-step steel staircase to the top of the lighthouse, laze on the wide beach or catch a fish sandwich waterside at Harbour's Edge or Cap'n Jacks.

On Green Turtle Cay, sailors cozy up to the club bar, decked like a Christmas tree with garlands of sailing pennants. On Great Guana Cay, Donna's Cart Rentals does a brisk business with day trippers and overnight visitors.

At some point, nearly every visitor to Great Guana ends up at Nipper's. Tom Fallucco, a software salesman from Atlanta, was there working, hooked up to wireless as he gazed across the long beach.

''I love the seclusion of it,'' he said. ``The sand is phenomenal. Yesterday I caught a snapper; we're having it for dinner. Even if you haven't been here in months, everyone says hello. Yet Florida is just a 45-minute flight away.''

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