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Jamaican Caving Notes |
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| Aug 21, 2002 DUPPY CAVE, TRELAWNY, JAMAICA, W.I. FIELD NOTES: I. C. CONOLLEY Cavers: I. C. Conolley, R. S. Stewart, M. Taylor A couple miles out of Deeside, Duppy Cave had been visited by Stef and Malibu before. It was to be my first trip in. Not a massive cave but of reasonable size, the need for us to bend in sections but no need for rope climbing. We travelled a good distance in before we began to hear the ‘duppy’ sounds and there were a lot of them. It seems that coming as we did in the rainy season and right after the flood rains that occurred in May made the duppy more angry and vociferous. We stopped when the passage narrowed and we came across a stream. The water level was lowering ever so gradually but nonetheless discernibly. We sat for a while washing off mud and listening. Ever held a bottle to your lips and blow across the mouth? Yes? Well, that’s one of the sounds we heard. Some others hard to describe; some gurgling, like a body of water trying to get through a small opening and as the last of it goes through there is that sucking, gurgling sound. A sound like wind blowing through a small opening, as opposed to across it. And all these sounds intermittent. You would hear one, then the other, then another, then the one, then nothing, then it starts again, then silence. Yes, it could be eerie. As you sit there listening you don’t have to wonder why they gave it that name. Then we find our way out. Nothing difficult with finding your way in and out of this cave. Pretty much a straight path. I suppose you just watch out for the water levels. Dry time low; rainy season high and if it’s raining extreme caution, or don’t even bother to go in and this applies to mostly all the caves in the cockpit as they are the underground aquifers and this is one flow you don’t want to go with. |
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