Lucayan National Park

Where it sits. Lucayan National Park lies on the south coast of Grand Bahama, about 40 kilometres east of Freeport along the Grand Bahama Highway, in the East Grand Bahama district. It was established in 1982 and is small on land — around 40 acres of dry ground — but covers close to 2,000 acres in total once its creeks, mangroves and marine section are counted. The park's celebrated feature is underground: one of the longest surveyed underwater cave systems in the world, with more than ten kilometres of charted tunnel running beneath the pine forest and out towards the sea.

What is here. The park packs an unusual number of Bahamian habitats into a short walk. On the north side of the highway, two entrances give access to the cave system: Ben's Cave, reached by a stair into a collapsed sinkhole where the freshwater lens floats above salt water in a visible haloline, and the Burial Mound Cave, where Lucayan remains were recovered — the clearest surviving trace of the Indigenous people for whom the park is named. The caves are a scientific site of the first order: the crustacean class Remipedia was discovered here in 1979, in water no diver had entered before. On the south side, a boardwalk crosses a mangrove creek and a low dune ridge to reach Gold Rock Beach. Between the two lie stands of Caribbean pine, palmetto and a bird list that has earned the park Important Bird Area status, with thick-billed vireo, Bahama swallow and olive-capped warbler among the species regularly recorded.

Gold Rock Beach. At high water this is an ordinary, pretty beach; at low tide it becomes something else entirely, as the sea withdraws several hundred metres and leaves a vast plain of hard rippled sand, shallow warm pools and a solitary limestone outcrop — the gold rock itself — standing offshore. It is one of the most photographed shorelines in the Bahamas for exactly that reason, and the tide table is the single most useful thing to check before driving out.

On screen. The stretch of coast immediately east of the park is where the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels did their heavy marine work. The former United States Air Force missile-tracking station near High Rock, used for decades in connection with launches from Cape Canaveral, was converted into Gold Rock Creek Enterprises — later the Bahamas Film Studios — with one of the largest open-water filming enclosures in the world. Gore Verbinski's crew moved to Grand Bahama on 18 September 2005 to shoot ship exteriors for Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, including the working Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman. It was a difficult period: the tank had not actually been finished when the unit arrived, and Hurricane Wilma damaged access roads and pumps in October, though no ship was lost. Gold Rock Beach itself appears in the finished films as open Caribbean shoreline.

Recent history. Grand Bahama's east end took the full force of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, when the storm stalled over the island for the better part of two days and drove seawater far inland. The park's boardwalks, signage and pine forest were badly damaged, and salt intrusion killed large areas of standing pine that remain visible as grey skeletons. Rebuilding has been incremental, and access arrangements have changed more than once since, so checking current opening details before driving out is sensible.

What a visit involves. The park is compact enough for two to three hours: half an hour underground and at the sinkholes, twenty minutes on the boardwalk through mangrove and dune, and as long as the tide allows on the beach. Entry is by a modest fee collected at the gate. Cave diving is permitted only by permit to certified cave divers and is not a casual activity — the systems are long, dark and unforgiving. Above ground the walking is flat, with steps into the caves and a raised boardwalk that is passable for most visitors but not fully step-free.

Getting there and timing. There is no scheduled bus; visitors drive a hire car from Freeport in about 40 minutes on the Grand Bahama Highway, or join a half-day tour, often combined with a stop at Banana Bay or a fish fry at Smith's Point. Grand Bahama International Airport at Freeport is the arrival point, with short hops from Nassau and Florida. November to April brings the driest and coolest weather; summer is hot, humid and prone to afternoon storms, and the hurricane season runs June to November. Take water, insect repellent for the mangrove section, and a torch for the caves — the lighting inside is minimal by design.