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Jamaican Caving Notes |
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Belmont and Drip Cave June 2, 2006 Team: RS Stewart, J Pauel, A Richards Notes: Jan Pauel 
I was quite excited the Friday morning as we prepared for the drive to Drip/Belmont cave. Aside from a brief stroll into Windsor about 5 years ago, this would be my first real journey into a Jamaican cave.It would be just three of us; Stefan Stewart of the JCO, Andrea Richards from the Archaeological Society and I. We drove from The Last Resort in Windsor to Stewart Town, where we turned off the main road and continued down a dirt road for about 15 minutes. We stopped on the roadside and took a GPS reading, before turning off the dirt road onto a dirt track which we followed quite a ways into farmland till we stopped, just after 11a.m., at the end of the track near the base of a hill. We were in the middle of many acres of sugar cane and yam fields, and nearby there were three or four farmers and a young boy tending to a donkey. We unloaded the gear and set off towards the nearby hill. It was starting to get overcast, and would turn out to be the last of the Sunshine until the last day of the expedition 9 days later. Stefan got us to the base of the hill and pointed up the side to what looked to me like thick bush, saying that this was the trail up. He had a machete, and skillfully hacked a path through with Andrea and I in tow. After a couple minutes, we were at the entrance of the cave. It was a vertical drop entry, only possible by rope. I’d been looking forward to this part and watched carefully as Stefan demonstrated the climbing gear and correct rope knots. “Just don’t let go of the brake line,” he stressed, and it seemed pretty easy. I was to go first, so I got into position and shuffled close to the edge then turned around to start the descent, but instead I just froze up. Got the nervous jitters big-time! I started thinking about the substantial level of risk in what we were doing, and that I never really considered danger as a part of it. But here I was, so I backed up slowly, and then carefully began to climb down. I don’t think it was more than about 15 - 20 ft, I can’t remember for sure, but it was a complete rush of a thrill ride. I came down smoothly with a huge grin, and got unhooked quickly to wait for Andrea who was next. Here I was in a real cave for the first time by myself having just done my first rope work. I could look up to the upper level and see the suns rays beaming brightly through the entrance, so I grabbed some photos while I waited, and looked around a little bit. We were looking for a ‘Jamaican’ species of roach. And while I had no idea what this roach looked like, I was quite excited to be looking for it. After the others were down, we set off on what was not an easy walk. There was a fair amount of guano and the slope was quite steep in spots. Lots of rocks, and they were slippery. The cave sights were new and awesome to me. Especially notable were the stalactites in one section, which didn’t form straight coming down. They instead zigzagged from one side to the other, due to, what was later explained to me, was the breeze/wind that changed direction through the cave. I noticed that there were many broken pieces strewn all over the floor, undoubtedly from careless previous human visitors to the cave. We then started to move slowly while we carefully looked for signs of life around the rocks and on the walls and floor. There were a just a few bats, which surprised me, due to what seemed like a lot of guano. It was several inches deep in places. Stefan pointed out a spider, and we saw a few more of those. About three quarters of the way through as it began to slope up, I found an old shovel and a torch bottle left by guano miners, I picked them up and kept them for proper disposal elsewhere. It was fascinating to be on hands and knees turning over loose rocks and looking closely at the guano laden floor for signs of tiny life forms. It was not unpleasant at all, if you’re used to crawling around in animal excrement like me!! 
After quite a walk with some very slippery sections, we exited via the second entrance. It did not have the sharp vertical ascent, but instead a steep, challenging slope, leading up towards the opening. At the entrance, we sat down and rested. Stefan looked for a banana that he had in his pocket at the start, but was lost in the dark. That prompted chuckles from Andrea and me.It took us a few hours to go through, and it was exciting to come out back to daylight again. Only a few spiders and gnats, we did not find our roach. We had to trek down the hillside, which was now quite slippery due to a steady light rain. Near the bottom was a massive amount of cut yam sticks, stacked into a huge heap. We very carefully climbed over those and then started through the yam field back to the car; it was around 2:30 - 3p.m. Rain now began to fall quite heavily. Stefan went back around to the entrance to retrieve the entry rope. I tried to, but couldn’t find the trail again! So drenched, we waited by the cars under a small shed the farmers were taking shelter in. Stefan appeared about 15 minutes later, and had a talk with the farmers about how to avoid introducing into the cave, roaches, and other insects that could be harmful to the cave environment. They were quite receptive to the information, and asked a few questions about what we were doing in the cave. We then loaded up and set out back for Ewarton via Stewart town, giving two of the farmers a lift. It was a nice introduction to the world of caves, and I was anxiously looking forward to more. |
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