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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Rock Sound area caves and ocean holes

Saturday Allen, Tom, and I took the Whaler to the public dock in Rock Sound, armed with hiking shoes, lights, cameras, water bottles, and a few places we wanted to find.

First, we headed south of town a little more than half a mile from the dinghy dock. Directly across from the AME church, is an Ocean Hole. I guess that here they are calling it an ocean hole if it is inland, and a blue hole if it is offshore. The hole was not something we'd have swum in, though we did watch some turtles and fish in it.

The reason we were there however was to find what someone in Active Captain had described as the biggest cave system he'd seen in the Bahamas. While it wasn't what I'd call a cave system, we found something twice as good! There were caverns that were a part of a sink area.

 They lay sort of in a circular form, and there were enough holes in the top that there was adequate light to look around. We also had our flashlights to look in the dark crevasses. Tree roots had dropped straight down many of the openings. The photos really don't show the size of the complex, and the flash on the camera makes it appear we're just outside somewhere. There were bats in some places, and mosquitoes in other places. We had split up looking for "the cave", and we were yelling Marco Polo to keep up with each other. The guys entered the cavern from one side, and I from another, and we were working towards each other without knowing it. When my "Marco" was met with muffled rock, I worked my way to the entrance, and we promptly teamed up again. I let the guys excitedly take me through what they had found, and then I took them to the area I'd been in. I was convinced they had to connect, and sure enough, we went in my side, and came out theirs. It was great fun.

Then we walked back into town, and went to the city park, which is on a big ocean blue hole. It has to be one of the greatest locations for a park I've ever seen. All around the water was landscaped, and there were stairs and a ladder down to the water. There were a few signs, including one that said the hole was over 600' deep. Hope you're making a list of these must see places in Rock Sound.

We stopped for some ice cold lime-ade that was so refreshing! Then we walked to the other end of town to the grocery store. We needed a loaf of bread, and Tom needed a few more items. I walked back and got the boat and came to pick them up.

On the way, I got new directions (I'd asked where we bought the drinks, but the directions weren't good) to the Assembly of God church, and went by to make sure I could find it the next morning.

In the afternoon, with it hot, we took the dogs to the beach for awhile, then took the Whaler blue hole hunting. We found several that we snorkeled, a few that I quickly looked at with a tank, and killed a few more lionfish. I think I got 11 Sat.

We went back to the bluehole we'd snorkled on Friday, and went around the ledge with SCUBA. It was pretty interesting, and COLD!

After supper, we went to bed exhausted. You really can pack too much into a day!

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