Fernandez Bay

Fernandez Bay is a wide, calm, horseshoe-shaped bay on the western (Bight of Acklins) side of Cat Island near the settlement of New Bight. The water is pale turquoise over a sandy bottom, and the beach is shaded by casuarina pines and sea grape trees. It is calm and good for swimming, with the shallow protected water extending a long way out.

The bay has a small family-run resort dating from the 1970s, with villas and beach bungalows that see a steady stream of divers, fishermen, and people who simply want to disappear for a week. Non-guests are welcome on the beach. The dive sites off Cat Island are rated among the best in the Bahamas, with walls, reefs, and blue holes accessible from this end of the island.

things to do sight swimming
A story
Fernandez Bay has a small resort that has been run by the same Bahamian family since the 1970s — one of the few on Cat Island. The bay was named for a 16th-century Spanish navigator; some historians have argued (inconclusively) that this is where Columbus made his first landfall in the Bahamas in 1492, which would make it the site where the Old World first encountered the New. The San Salvador argument now holds more scholarly consensus, but the debate has never been fully closed.