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CLIFF JUMPING & CAVE EXPLORING AT ADMIRALTY HOUSE PARK

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A YouTube traveler swims into a 19th-century naval secret and jumps off it.

Travel vlogger Mac Candee, who runs the channel World Nomac, spent part of his August 2019 trip through Bermuda documenting a spot most tourists on the island never find: Admiralty House Park, a cliff-lined former Royal Navy property on the North Shore near Spanish Point. His video, “CLIFF JUMPING & CAVE EXPLORING AT ADMIRALTY HOUSE PARK,” follows him through the park’s ruined estate grounds, down into hand-carved tunnels, and off a limestone arch into Clarence Cove. It’s part history walk, part deep-water-soloing session.

• Mac Candee (World Nomac) films himself cliff jumping and cave exploring at Admiralty House Park in Pembroke Parish, roughly two miles from Hamilton, Bermuda.
• The park’s main jumping station, known locally as the ‘Canon,’ drops about 20 feet from a natural ocean-carved arch into deep water above a sea cave.
• Beneath the estate’s ruins sits a network of tunnels and an artificial cave chamber carved out of solid rock in the mid-19th century under Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald.

A Naval Estate Turned Swimming Hole

Admiralty House Park wraps around Clarence Cove and gets its name from exactly what it sounds like — an admiral’s house. The British Royal Navy acquired the property in the early 19th century as a residence and headquarters for admirals stationed in Bermuda, and it later did double duty as a naval hospital before becoming a World War II signal station used to intercept enemy communications. What’s left today is a set of overgrown ruins sitting above rugged coastal cliffs, with a secluded beach tucked into the cove below.

That layered history is part of what makes the park a draw beyond the jumping itself. Candee’s video treats the ruins almost like a checkpoint on the way down to the water, panning across crumbling stonework before dropping into the tunnels that lead to the cliffs.

The ‘Canon’ Jump

The park’s signature spot is a natural arch formation that locals call the ‘Canon,’ where jumpers leap roughly 20 feet down into the sea. It’s become one of the go-to locations on the island for cliff diving and deep-water soloing, drawing both Bermudians and travelers willing to find their way to Spanish Point. Candee’s footage captures the jump itself along with the payoff afterward — swimming straight into a sea cave carved by generations of wave action against the limestone.

The jump off the ‘Canon’ arch drops about 20 feet into the sea — then jumpers swim into a cave and climb back up through century-old tunnels to do it again.

What separates the ‘Canon’ from a typical cliff jump is the loop it creates. After the leap and the swim into the cave, jumpers climb back to the bluffs using historical stone stairways and tunnels, letting them repeat the whole circuit at high tide without ever leaving the water’s edge for long. Travelers chasing similar swimming-hole discoveries elsewhere have documented their own versions of the search, like the crystal-clear swimming spot uncovered in Florida, though Bermuda’s version comes with a lot more carved rock underfoot.

Dundonald’s Tunnels

The tunnels themselves date back to Admiral Thomas Cochrane, the 10th Earl of Dundonald, who commissioned the subterranean passages in the mid-19th century to give the estate direct access down to the cove. He didn’t stop at a simple staircase — Dundonald also had a stone chamber excavated out of solid rock, lit by an opening cut straight through the limestone above, and used it to host gatherings for guests at the estate. More than a century and a half later, those same tunnels are what let modern cliff jumpers move between the bluffs and the water instead of scrambling over the rock face itself.

For a traveler mapping out adventure stops on an island best known for pink-sand beaches, Admiralty House Park sits closer to the kind of do-it-yourself exploring covered in guides like this roundup of budget-friendly travel destinations — no entrance fee, no tour desk, just a public park with a Royal Navy backstory built into the rock.

Candee’s video wraps once he’s back up top, dripping and grinning, having done the jump-swim-climb loop enough times to make the point: you don’t need a boat charter or a permit to find one of Bermuda’s better adrenaline stops, just a working knowledge of where the tunnels let out.