Bermuda caves

Tags: Bermuda, caving

Date: November 9, 2017

Not only does Bermuda have an interesting history, it also has underground caves. Some of them are tourist caves where you can have guided tours. We visited one called Crystal Cave and it is absolutely filled with pristine white stalactites:

As you can see, walkways floating on the underground lake have been installed in the cave. One interesting feature of this cave is that the lake is saltwater because it is connected to the sea (which is never far away on Bermuda). This also means that there is tide inside the cave and when the tide is high, like it was when we visited Crystal Cave, you have to duck your head when walking on the floating walkway so as not to hit your head on the stalactites:

The water is crystal clear (maybe that is how the cave got its name ;-) so you can see stalagmites sitting on the bottom of the lake. They were formed at a time when the water level was lower:

The cave contained amazing numbers of so-called helictites - stalactites that have grown little hairy protrusions seemingly defying gravity:

After the visit to Crystal Cave, we went on a short hike around the Walsingham Nature Reserve that contains more caves. Here is a pond in the reserve:

One of the trails we followed:

Some of the caves there were not so easy to access. Here Bjarne is fighting his way through the vegetation:

The reward was a cave entrance with turquoise water:

So he had to go for a swim:

Picture form a second cave:

And a third: