Thunderball Grotto is so named because it’s where the said Bond movie was shot in 1965. From the sea it’s hard to tell that the cave exists, because it’s in one of three or four tiny islands across from Staniel Cay Yacht Club. The snorkelling party took the dinghy from Hakuna Matata to one of the dinghy moorings just offshore and then swam “into” the island. At low tide this is just a swim with headroom, at high tide you need to hold your breath to get into the cave.

On the other side of the swim through you get two unique vistas. You can look down at the wide variety friendly fish – many, many sergeant majors -- and investigate the underwater blue holes that exit to the sea and imagine where the movie makers put the bomb bay doors and where Sean Connery fought the baddies. And you can look up to the cave roof, which doubles as the surface of the island and lets in dramatic shafts of sunlight. It’s a pretty magical place in its own right, but the fact it has been a Bond movie location made it COOL.

Later that evening, in the absence of anything fresh, we went to an “all you can eat” pizza and pasta evening at Club Thunderball. While the eight of us stretched their resources to the limit and beyond, we did manage to hire the Thunderball movie from the barman and spent a pleasant evening watching Sean Connery strut his stuff.

Top pic: entrance to Thunderball Cave

Mid pic: blue hole in Thunderball Cave

Bot pic: cave roof in Thunderball Cave