Jervis Bay holds the whitest sand beach in the Guinness World Records — Hyams Beach, measured at 98.9 percent pure silica. The bay itself spans 102 square kilometres of sheltered water where the Tasman Sea meets a succession of peninsulas and headlands that once formed hunting and fishing grounds for the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community, whose ancestors occupied this coast for at least twenty thousand years. The southern arm of the bay falls within Booderee National Park, a name meaning "bay of plenty" in the Dhurga language, and one of the few terrestrial national parks in Australia under Indigenous ownership and joint management with Parks Australia. The bay's luminous white beaches and gin-clear water draw comparison to tropical destinations, yet the sand is quartzite rather than coral — ground down over millennia from sandstone cliffs that fringe the coastline. Beneath the surface, the Jervis Bay Marine Park protects seagrass meadows and rocky reefs that support resident populations of bottlenose dolphins, fur seals, and in winter months, migrating humpback whales. The bay's sheltered anchorage made it a strategic consideration for the nation's first capital; in 1915, the Australian government acquired 6,900 hectares of coastal land to serve as a seaport for the landlocked Australian Capital Territory, a curious jurisdictional footnote that persists today. Access from Sydney follows the Princes Highway south through the Royal National Park and past the Illawarra escarpment, a three-hour drive that crosses dairy country, eucalypt ridges, and the basalt slopes of Kangaroo Valley. Most organised departures incorporate Kiama's coastal blowhole or a highland detour before reaching the bay by late morning. The marine park's boundaries extend across fifteen kilometres of coastline, encompassing Huskisson township — the bay's commercial hub — and a succession of coves named for early colonial administrators and shipwrecks. Booderee's beaches remain among the least developed, with vehicular access limited to a single sealed road and day-use fees directed toward conservation and cultural-site maintenance. The Cape St George Lighthouse, automated in 1987, still marks the southern headland, visible from ferries crossing between Huskisson and the Beecroft Peninsula's restricted defence lands.