Ocean Cay is an artificial island which was built by dredging in the late 1960s by Dillingham Construction of Hawaii [1] and was used to mine white oolitic aragonite sand for diverse industrial purposes.

[3] Ocean Cay is an island that was man-made and created originally for mining aragonite sand.

The total size of the island is 42 hectares and the original owners also had dredged the area to allow for deep vessels to dock for the exportation of the sand.

[4] When Dillingham Construction abandoned the island, the cay fell into a state of decay.

A 3-part documentary film series entitled Building Paradise Island by director James Redgate documented the cleanup of the island, the conservation leading to marine reserve status, and the building of a new resort from the ground up.