From Cathedral Cave to Challenger Bank: A Bermuda Layover Done Right
Some ports of call give you a taste. Bermuda gave us a full day of contrasts and a sunrise fishing trip that turned into the most wahoo-heavy haul we've had in three tries. Here's how it went.
Day One: From Dockyard to the Cave
We docked at the Royal Naval Dockyard on a one-day pass, and instead of staying close to the ship, we caught the ferry across to St. George's. There's something about arriving by water that sets the tone for a day, watching the island unfold from the deck instead of through a bus window.
From St. George's we grabbed a cab out to Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa, home to Bermuda's Cathedral Cave, and one of the more unusual spa experiences either of us has had. We'd booked an 80 minute couples massage set inside the cave itself, tables tucked against limestone walls hung with stalactites, the still, blue-green water of the cave pool glowing a few feet away. It's quiet in a way that's hard to describe. No hum of air conditioning, no traffic noise, just water dripping somewhere in the dark and faint spa music drifting through the cave.
After the massage, we didn't waste the opportunity. Right next door is the swimming section of the cave, and we went in. The water sits at a steady 55 degrees, cold enough to make you gasp on the first step off the platform, but the setting makes up for it fast. Swimming under limestone formations that have been forming for thousands of years, lit just enough to see the detail in the rock overhead, is not something you get to do very often.
From the cave, we made our way down to Grotto Bay's beach for a proper swim in the open water, warm and calm compared to the cave, with that particular pale turquoise color Bermuda's coastline is known for. Between the sand, the loungers, and the palm trees framing the resort's pink buildings, it felt like the kind of afternoon you plan a whole vacation around, except we'd stumbled into it on a single day pass.
We cabbed back to St. George's with enough time before the ferry to grab a beer and watch the harbor traffic, boats coming and going, the town's pastel buildings catching the late afternoon light. Once we were back at the ship, we didn't call it a night. We headed out to Bonefish Grill, which happened to have live music going, and ended up staying for a while longer than planned, letting the evening stretch out over dinner and a band working through a set on the patio.
Day Two: 6:30 AM with Captain Russell and the Sea Wolfe
This was our third trip out with Captain Russell aboard the Sea Wolfe, and by now there's a rhythm to it, meeting the boat at 6:30 in the morning, watching the sky go from dark to gold as the boat pushes out toward Challenger Bank. First mate Ziggy, a guy in his early twenties with cornrows, had a playlist running that jumped from 1980s classic rock to pop to country, Hank Jr. included, which set an unexpectedly perfect soundtrack for the day ahead.
We started the day trolling for Bermuda's more common offshore game, but as the day went on we switched to live mackerel trolling later in the afternoon, and that's when things really turned on.
My wife had the day of her life. She landed a 60 pound wahoo, a 30 pound yellowfin, and a second wahoo at 35 pounds, reeling each one in against a sky that kept shifting between bright sun and rolling storm clouds. I wasn't far behind, bringing in a 40 pound wahoo of my own along with two more in the 30 to 35 pound range. Wahoo fight hard and fast, all sudden runs and headshakes, and by the third or fourth fish your arms know it.
At one point, in the middle of all that hauling and reeling, a rainbow arced across the horizon behind a bank of dark clouds, one of those moments you don't plan for but are grateful the camera was close by. The Atlantic out past Challenger Bank has a way of putting on a show between the fish.
By the time we turned back toward Bermuda, time was tight, everyone on the boat had somewhere to be. Captain Russell made the call to drop us right at the cruise ship pier instead of taking us all the way back to Dockyard, which meant we walked off the Sea Wolfe and back onto the ship with barely a gap between the two worlds, salt still drying on our shirts.
Why We Keep Coming Back
This was our third trip fishing with Captain Russell, and each time the results are a little different but the experience never disappoints. Sea Wolfe Sportfishing goes back to 1955, when Russell's father, Russell Young Sr., first started the business. Russell himself has been running it since 1987, thirty-two years and counting, and that kind of history shows in how the whole operation runs. He and his wife Jen have recently branched out with a new venture too: Jen runs MasterView, a gated waterfront retreat overlooking Bermuda's Great Sound, with floor-to-ceiling glass, a cliffside patio, a hot tub, and a private dock, just minutes from the Sea Wolfe at Pier 41 Marina in Dockyard. Russell now offers a Stay & Fish package pairing a stay at MasterView with a day out on the boat. If you're thinking about more than a single afternoon in Bermuda, that combination is worth looking into.
Our biggest haul actually came two years earlier, in 2024, when the deck ended up loaded with yellowfin, wahoo, and jacks by the end of the day. This trip didn't beat that count, but it was wahoo-heavy in a way none of our previous trips had been, five between the two of us, all fighting hard and fast. There's something to be said for finding a captain and a boat you trust, especially somewhere as far offshore as Challenger Bank, where the water turns that deep, endless blue and land disappears behind you.
Between the quiet, cold hush of Cathedral Cave and the noise and adrenaline of hauling wahoo onto the deck of the Sea Wolfe, Bermuda gave us two completely different kinds of memorable, all inside about 30 hours. It's the kind of island that rewards splitting your time between stillness and motion, between the underground and the open water.
If you find yourself in Bermuda with even a single day to spend, my advice is simple: get to Grotto Bay for the cave, and if fishing is your thing, ask around for Captain Russell and the Sea Wolfe. Some places you visit once. This one, we keep going back to.
I've added links to the Sea Wolfe and MasterView under the Resources section on the home page, if you'd like to look into either for your own trip. Those are just a couple of favorites pulled from the hundreds of excursions we've done over the years, not the whole list, but they're the ones we keep coming back to ourselves.
And don't be surprised if, somewhere down the line in a later Uncharted Horizons book, this all sounds a little familiar. The places and excursions are real, only the story and the characters are fiction.
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