Port #6 Staniel Cay Yacht Club (cont) – The Thunderball Grotto Cave

Thunderball Grotto was one of the anticipated highlights of the trip, and it did not disappoint.

History
Thunderball Grotto, is a limestone cave situated on the western coast of Staniel Cay, and was the setting of the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. It was from this film the name Thunderball was given to the Grotto. The island was also used as a filming location for a scene in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again.

Here is a clip from the movie – note it is long & somewhat boring (10min).
Maybe come back to this link at the end of the blog if you are bored..
Thunderball Clip = Click Link

Located just west of Staniel Cay, this fantastic underwater cave system is great for snorkeling, diving, and wading. It is teeming with exotic marine life and a kaleidoscope of brilliantly colored coral reefs and fish, like yellow-tail snappers, Angel fish, Sergeant Majors and the like.

The Thunderball Grotto Cave was only 1 mile away from our marina.
It was somewhat interesting to find it because the Navionics charts did not really have a good exact location.
The location was an approximate location.
There are several small islands near the marina.
But after a little dinghy riding and looking for other anchored boats, we found it !


I don’t have much to say before the really cool videos except –
* I expected it to be pretty cool, it was even better than I expected.
* What an adrenalin rush.
* Thousands of Fish
* Little Caverns In & Out of the Cave all over.
* A fairly heavy current to get into the cave, & we were supposed to be at slack tide.

Let the Video Shows begin – Thunderball Grotto Cave
These videos & the actual event are so exciting for me.
There were thousands of fish.
There were MANY ways into & out of the Cave.
Some entrances had you swim under water for about 10-15ft to enter the cave.
I didn’t take video of some of the entrances that I went in, because I didn’t want to take the phone under water, even though it was in a waterproof protection bag.
note 1 = some folks have said that the Videos look only like photos on the blog – click on each screen, they are videos, not photos
note 2 = I purposely limited the videos to about 30 sec each, to enable easier loading on the blog

I hope that you enjoyed the videos, it was a very cool experience.

Todays Trivia
Question (s) = How many feet is a Fathom & where did the word Fathom originate from ?
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Question (s) = How many feet is a Fathom & where did the word Fathom originate from ?

Answer = A Fathom is 6 feet long.
The fathom originated as the distance from the middle fingertip of one hand to the middle fingertip of the other hand of a large man holding his arms fully extended. The name comes from the Old English faedm or faethm, meaning outstretched arms.