Captain Bill's Blue Hole

Andros sits on a limestone platform riddled with blue holes, vertical flooded caves that number in the hundreds inland and offshore, and Captain Bill's is the one that has been made easy to reach: a track runs into the pine forest from the main road, and at the end there is a wooden platform, steps and a rope swing over water that goes from clear green at the surface to black within a few metres. It is part of the Blue Holes National Park, established in 2002 to protect the system. Divers have explored well over a hundred metres down in some of the Andros holes, and new passages are still being mapped.

What you actually see

• The blue hole - clear at the surface and black within metres.
• The platform and swing - the developed access point on the rim.
• The pine forest - the track in through Caribbean pine.
• Blue Holes National Park - the protected system across the island.

When to go

December to May is the dry season and the track more reliable. Mornings are cooler and the light better on the water. Mosquitoes and sandflies in the forest are severe outside the driest months.

Honest expectations

The track in is rough and can be impassable after rain; ask locally about conditions. Swimming here is fine at the surface but the hole is extremely deep and the water goes cold and dark fast, so this is not a place to test yourself. Cave diving in the Andros blue holes is for trained cave divers with the right kit, and people have died in them. Sandflies are brutal.

Nearby

Andros Town is half an hour east; the barrier reef is offshore.