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Jamaican Caving Notes |
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Aug 19, 2003 COOL GARDEN CAVE 1 Position: WGS84 - 18 19' 38.4" N, 77 49' 04.2" Field notes: R. S. STEWART Cavers: R. S. Stewart, I. C. Conolley, M. Taylor Cool Garden 1 was the first of the three Cool Garden Caves we visited this day. The caves are in Flamstead, near Maroon Town, and it is an area well known to us. The locating of the road that gives fastest access to the caves didn't present great problems, although frequent stops were necessary to match reality to the 1:50k topos. Along the narrow lane that serves as the road, there was one shop and 5 - 6 houses. The obvious place to park and make inquiries was the shop, this being standard procedure, and accordingly, that's what we did. The shop is owned and run by a dread named, "Daniel", and we soon had enough information to find our way through the yards and fields that lay between the road and the metric grid positions of the caves. Daniel expressed interest in coming along for a small amount of money (300 J$) and I knew this would speed up the procedure in the finding of the first couple of entrances. He was thusly engaged, and the shop was taken over, in his absence, by a female associate of Daniel's. We had unfortunately attracted about a half a dozen of the local young men who had zoned in on us within minutes of parking. As in the entire Maroon Town district, even in an area like Flamstead where the population density would be expected to be less, there always seems to be a lot of people around, at all hours of the day, without any discernible occupational activities that might be interrupted by their rushing of us for cigarettes, money, and alcohol. I had arrived in Jamaica the night before, had gotten about six hours of sleep, and imbibed a few Red Stripes at Miss Lilly's enroute to Windsor from the Montego Bay airport, and so really wasn't as sharp as I might have been. I neglected to take account of the cultural considerations in my concentration on finding the caves, and as a result didn't put a lid on the "uninvited friend" situation. We got gear out of the car, and I believe locked all four doors and the hatch although I am not 100% on it, and in the course of things wound up leaving the digital camera, cell phone, and an mp3 player in the car. Daniel lead us to the closest entrance he knew of. This appears to be Cool Garden 1, judging by the layout of the cave, and the match to the map in JU, but the proximity of the four Cool Garden Caves, with seven entrances total, and the vagueness of the JU coords, means that it's not absolutely identified until we do a quick tape and compass survey. The uninvited friends who accompanied us to the cave, and then tried to get flashlights from us, helped to keep things chaotic enough that I was happy to at least get a good GPS position, and bearing, for the entrance. Nevertheless, we did go as far into the cave as practical at this time of the year. A large passage gave way, after about 50 metres, to a low breakdown chamber on the left, and a mud crawl that carried on straight ahead. The crawl was thoroughly vile, being about 80 cm high with flowing water about 20 cm deep, and mud, where the water could be avoided, on the sides of the passage. The width was about 2 m, but the lowness of the crawl made it totally disagreeable. We stopped at that point, there being Ivor, Martel, myself, and one guest who was either using one of Martel's lights or seeing by our lights... I'm not sure which or who it even was. The others, once we had headed far enough into the cave to have it truly dark, had retreated to the entrance. This cave, if it truly is Cool Garden 1, according to the map in JU consists beyond where we stopped of only a long continuation of the mud crawl, until an upstream sump is reached. It is believed that biological activity will be restricted to the area near the entrance, because of regular flooding. No sesarmas were observed perhaps because of the lowness and muddiness of the stream passage. It appears that turbidity is always high in these waters, and that there is a lot of siltation taking place. The surrounding area is mostly farms, with little forest cover, and there appears to be an upstream, partial filling-in of the cave occuring, because of agricultural run-off. The flow through the cave is seasonally strong enough to keep the passage open, but siltation is heavy. We returned to the entrance, to find our escort somewhat diminished, and then moved on to the next cave that Daniel knew of, one that was subsequently determined to be Cool Garden 4. |
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