Snorkeling at Cambridge Cay

5.11.13 We left Staniel Cay yesterday afternoon after provisioning and headed back into the Exuam Land and Sea Park. We anchored off of Bell Island, a private island right inside the park. We did not reach our anchorage until the early evening, so we just spent a relaxing evening on the boat. The following morning, we were up early to catch the slack tides. We headed out to the site of the plane wreck that Brad and Shane had discovered earlier in the week. We tied up to the dinghy mooring there and spent a good half hour checking out the wreck. Once we had loaded out camera with pictures, we untied ourselves from the mooring and did a drift dive with the dinghy over beautiful corals lots of brightly colored fish. We saw a mammoth grouper and were escorted by several large barracuda during our snorkel. Once we reached the other side of the coral heads, we hopped back in the dinghy and moved up to another snorkel site. This one was just as beautiful with a school of amberjack, some lobsters, a lionfish, and many small colorful fish. We headed back to the boat for lunch and to wait for the next tide shift so that we could snorkel Rocky Dundas caves. We heard some friends of ours on the radio and we decided we would all get together at a local marina for sundowners. At low tide, we headed over to the caves and tied up to a mooring and snorkeled in to the cave. It was cavernous inside with stalactites growing all along the walls and a hole in the ceiling lighting the whole cave. At low tide, we were able to stand up on the bottom so we could snap some pictures. We noticed some dinghies pull up outside the cave and since there wasn't much room getting in and out, we opted to head out before they started coming in. We snorkeled some of the beautiful corals around the mouth of the cave until suddenly, off to my right, I saw a shark disappearing into the gloom. Brad was ahead of me a ways and I told myself not to panic and since he was leaving the area, to continue snorkeling. But I couldn't get my mind off of him, so I waved Brad back over and waited until we were safely in the dinghy before telling him what I had seen. Although I wasn't as concerned as I thought I would be when I saw my first shark, we were both hesitant to get back in the water, so we headed over for sundowners. We had an enjoyable evening with our friends from "Mattina" and "Voyager" and will head up to Warderick Wells tomorrow to tuck in for an upcoming blow.