Cathedral Caves

Brenda dwarfed by the Cathedral: Huge cavern and tree roots.

Several fellow cruisers whom we had met in Rock Sound mentioned another blue hole and a cave worth exploring. With typical directions ("walk down near the abandoned house, go past the old church, look for a trail") we set off.

We almost missed it. Turns out you have to go pretty far past the old church.

Trail head to the caves, with some useful information to guide our way.

Gumbo Limbo tree along the trail,
with carved names of hikers. We did not add our names,
preferring to take pictures instead.

It was breathtaking! Cathedral Caves is a series of large connected caverns, with holes in the cavern ceiling that allow tree roots from the forest above to cascade down the cave floor. Sunlight filtered through the holes above, bringing natural light to the vast spaces around us.

You can see the forest above through holes in the the cavern ceiling.

Natural lighting.

Brenda and I walked quietly, in awe of the views. Something fluttered by in the shadows. Being the intrepid cave explorer :) I crawled back into a smaller dark cave to try and figure out what was moving about down there. No light. Pointing my camera upwards, I used the flash to light up the space and saw a bat hanging directly above my head. Very cool!

If you look closely at the center, you can spot the bat's ears as he watched me from above.

The bat then flew over me, fluttering towards the big cavern and over Brenda's head. We saw several more bats flying about the caves as we continued. Perfect.

Cave explorers. 

A day to remember, since we rarely come across caves so large and accessible. And with bats!