June 16, 2004
ELIZABETH'S CAVE
Position: WGS84 - 18 14' 47.0" N, 77 48' 26.3" W, +/- 10m
Field notes: E. SLACK
Cavers: R. S. Stewart, D. K. Roggy, E. Slack
Time in: 17:15 EST, Time out: 17:30 EST
THREAT VULNERABILITY: Low
The position of the waypoint is located on the north side of the road, on the left side if headed towards St. Elizabeth. A few old graves are to the left of the waypoint. (Editors note: WGS84 position listed above has been calculated from the waypoint). To reach the cave, pass though the large breakdown rocks. You will have to aim a bit left and scramble up and over the boulders to reach the other side. To the right, roughly east, at about ten metres, is a large overhang where bats had been sighted. It was the sighting of these bats that had alerted me to the existence of a cave nearby on Jun 15. Head for the overhang, over more breakdown rock. Standing with the overhang to your left, you will spot a small hole almost next to the overhang at about foot level. The hole is the lower accessible entrance; there is another entrance higher on the cliff.
The entrance is at the head of a short passage, that is passable, but it involves manouevring up and down between boulders. The passage leads to a chamber with dirt, shells, and boulders as a floor, and limestone walls as ceiling. There are three holes on the floor at the edge of the chamber. They seem to lead on to another chamber below. The lower chamber was not entered as it is only accessible with ropes, (even though it's all of two metres below), and we didn't have one with us. There did not seem to be any passages leading off either chamber. The upper chamber held no bat guano.
This cave is not listed in JU.
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