Location: Owl’s Hole and the reef off Freeport, Grand Bahama, The Bahamas
Owl’s Hole is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a hole in the ground on Grand Bahama with water at the bottom, and the whole point of going is to jump in. In May 2016 my wife and I went out there with our good friends for a day of doing exactly that.
This post is really two trips, two years apart. The first video is Owl’s Hole in May 2016. The second one is from August 2014, when we took a boat out to the reef off Freeport and jumped in there instead. Same island, same plan: find clear water and get in it.
Owl’s Hole is a cave that lost its roof
Grand Bahama sits on limestone, and that limestone is full of caves. Owl’s Hole used to be one of them, an underground cave, until water ate away enough of the rock that the roof caved in. What’s left is a big round hole with a sheer limestone rim, palms crowding the edge and dark water a long way down.
It goes deeper than the part you swim in, too. If you’re a certified cave diver, you can actually dive it. The rest of us stay in the open water and leave the cave to the pros.
Finding Owl’s Hole is half the battle
Here’s the catch. Owl’s Hole can be VERY hard to find if you’re not going with a local. We went with friends who knew the way, and that’s how I’d do it.
The vehicle matters too. With an SUV or a truck you can get closer. In a regular car you’ll need to park a little ways from the trail to the cave, and sorry, you’re going to have to hoof it for a while. Here’s where to leave the car.
The ladder, the jump and the rock pile
A long metal ladder runs down the wall to the water, and that’s how you climb back out. Everybody else waits up on the rim, and in the video I gave one of the guys standing up there a thought bubble: “What am I even doing here…”
This wasn’t my first time at Owl’s Hole. I filmed it on an earlier trip in 2013 (that’s Ep. 02 on my channel), and the most important thing I wrote back then is still the most important thing on this page: “you’ll see a pile of rock in the center that is about 10ft from the top of the water… don’t jump out to the middle where the rock is piled up.” So look down before you go, and don’t try to clear the middle.
Two years earlier: snorkeling the reef off Freeport
In August 2014 we went about three quarters of a mile off the island to the reef and jumped off the boat. The water was so clear. It was amazing! Not even the GoPro could pick up how far you could see, since it can’t zoom in on anything.
From the boat you can see straight to the bottom, and once the fins are on you can kick right down into the coral for a closer look.
While we were down there, we saw a little baby reef shark too, which was pretty neat. I tried getting video of it, but it was too far away. But at least I can technically scratch “Swimming with sharks” off my bucket list.
Sharks were kind of a theme that trip. The same week I posted the reef video, I also posted Ep. 05 from a spot locally known as Shark Junction, a shark dive you could book through UNEXSO in Port Lucaya at the time.
Owl’s Hole after Hurricane Dorian
Both of these videos are from before Hurricane Dorian. Dorian came ashore on the east end of Grand Bahama as a Category 5 on September 1, 2019, with winds around 180 mph, and then it barely moved. NOAA says the eyewall hovered over the island for more than 24 hours.
I spent two weeks on Grand Bahama doing disaster response after the storm, and you can read about that in my Hurricane Dorian post. The storm surge pushed salt water into the island’s fresh water, and the Bahamas National Trust says Gold Rock Beach lost a big chunk of its shoreline. So I can’t promise Owl’s Hole looks like this anymore. The trail, the ladder and even the water could be different now, so ask a local before you go.
CONCLUSION
Grand Bahama is about three hours by ferry from Fort Lauderdale, and it’s got a hole in the ground you can jump into and a reef where you can see the bottom from the boat. Go with a local, park where the map box says, stay away from the rock pile in the middle and find out what Dorian changed before you plan around it. Hit play on both videos above to see it the way it was, then read my Hurricane Dorian post for what came after.
