Sailing With Serenity: Cambridge Cay

After Warderick Cay, we moved south to Cambridge Cay at the south end of The Exuma Land and Sea Park. The mooring field at Cambridge Cay is a little harder to access, so many of the cruisers give it a pass. Too bad, the snorkeling there is world class. We also had the advantage of meeting Roger and Connie the Cambridge Cay Hosts prior to arriving. On our own, we took our dinghy north to O’Briens Cay the first day and dove on The Sea Aquarium and Airplane Reef. The Sea Aquarium is aptly named because it contains a large quantity and variety of reef fish and coral formations. It was like swimming in a stew of fish that were not intimidated by their visitors. If you held still too long they would bonk into your face mask as if they were checking on you. The nearby Airplane Reef is just that, a Cessna 207 lying upside down with coral growth and fish swimming in and out of it. Evidently, the aircraft went down in the 80’s on an ill fated drug hauling flight and ended up in about 25’ of water. The park service has placed small mooring buoys at both sites for tying up your dinghy.

On day two at Cambridge Cay, our hosts, Roger and Connie, took us in their high speed dinghy south to Rocky Dundas, Rachel’s Bubble Bath, and Tom’s Elkhorn Reef. The Rocky Dundas has a dinghy mooring marking the entrance to two unique caves that legend has it were sacred sites for the Lucayans.

Pollie made it in:

The caves feature both stalactite and stalagmite formations.

Unfortunately, Rachel’s Bubble Bath was a little of a fizzle. Actually located on the northern end of Compass Cay (outside of the Exuma Park), Rachel’s is approached from the west, to a point where the cay narrows to only about 10’ wide. Waves hitting the eastern side crash over the rocks into a pool that drains back to the ocean side creating a bubble bath. During our visit the ocean was too tame to produce the desired effect.

We then moved on to Tom’s Elkhorn Reef. The pictures speak for themselves: