Dietrich
K Roggy
Trip
Reports
JANUARY 2005
We went to Roehampton and met up with
Vincent, guide and caretaker of the Roehampton School Cave (RSC). This was the start of our video
project. Mike rolled camera while I did
some chatting with Vincent about the cave, and we went in.
Mike did a pretty good job of capturing the
experience of moving through the fairly restrictive cave. Mike positioned himself at junctions where
space permitted and got video of us coming toward and past him. The confines of the cave worked out well for
the amount of light our 2 man video crew had to work with. Mike and I both had bought relatively
inexpensive (<50$US)
Maybe I was too preoccupied with trying to
direct the videoing, and providing lighting, etc to be able to focus on
navigation, but I started down a tunnel going the wrong way when we were on our
way out. The complexity of this cave,
compared to the map on the website bears mentioning here. There are lots of side passages and so
on. After traveling in one way, stuff
looks different going back the opposite way, and I feel like we walked past
junctions on the way in that I didn’t see until we were on our way out. I don’t like the idea of being lost in a
cave, and thus I go into caves with people like Stef and Ivor, who have a good
amount of experience in them.
After RSC we visited the mouth of
A good part of the day was spent, and we got
video for a start on a general JCO video, enough for a RSC video and enough for
a water quality video. Mike and I also
got valuable experience running the video project in the field. Several birds were knocked off with one
stroke, and thus the day was a success.
Windsor
Jan 6, 2005
Mike and I made our way with video equipment
from
This cave was a difficult one to video. The conditions had enough difficult walking,
with mud and so forth that made for worries about a fall spoiling our video
camera. We got some decent video of the
scientific team discussing bat guano, etc but other video was very difficult to
shoot in the large chambers of WGC. All
light from our headlamps died out within 20 feet, as far as our video camera
was concerned and thus it was hard to capture the spacious grandeur of the
cave. Still shots taken with flash were
doubtless better, and shots taken by a member of the scientific expedition,
with 2 slave flashes seemed to turn out very nice indeed.
Lesson learned: Big caves require big light!
Spot
Jan 11, 2005
Escort
to Spot Valley Cave 1 (SVC1) by the property owner’s employees took us up a
hillside, over some little used trails amidst eroded limestone. The cave mouth seemed to be roughly 5 ft
wide by 2 ft high, and surrounded by a decent amount of vegetation. It wouldn’t have been the easiest cave to
find, if not for a local having found or lost a goat in it, whatever the story
was.
The cave consisted of one large chamber, with
a couple little alcoves. We’d come
somewhat prepared to shed some light on the situation. We’d managed to get use of a NiteRider HID
(High Intensity Discharge) video light, meant for underwater video work. Described by the mfr as a videographers
dream come true, the light is 10w and balanced for 6000K (daylight is
5600-6000K). The light worked like a
dream, lighting up which ever side of the room the bulb was pointed at. Hopefully the light helped the combined team
of JCO and Dr. Allsworth-Jones locate the many petroglyphs on the cave wall
opposite the entrance. The dream didn’t
last long, unfortunately. The battery
was not well charged, since it only lasted 20-30 minutes, rather than the 4
hours or so that it should last on a full charge. Once the petroglyphs were located, most of the examination was
done within a small enough area that headlamps were sufficient, but not ideal.
Jan 11, 2005
Escort to Spot Valley Cave 2 (SVC2) by the
property owner and his employees took us not much more than 100m from where our
vehicles were parked. One opening
probably 12 ft wide by 2 ft high was divided into two by a large tree that was
growing on top of the opening and through it.
This tree likely contributed to the number of loose rocks and boulders
in the opening.
I went into the space on the right, which
opened up into a fair sized chamber. At
the end opposite the entrance was an entryway into another chamber that was
dominated by a light hole some 20 feet above.
At the end of that chamber was what appeared to be a small keyhole type
space between flow stone columns, through which daylight was visible. Upon closer inspection, there is a curtain
of flowstone columns that zig-zags into another chamber dominated by a large
light hole. I could have crawled
through the zid-zag, it wouldn’t have been difficult, but for whatever reason I
turned around and went back by the entrance to investigate that area more
thoroughly.
I sat on a boulder and looked under a
shelf-like protuberance close to the level of the floor. I saw what looked like a piece of dry
coconut? No, upon picking up the object
it was obviously a piece of pottery. I
left the piece where it was, until Mike could make it down to me, and with Ivor
present we captured the discovery of these sizeable pieces of a pot on video.
After this, I went into the opening on the
left, and further down, through a squeeze and into a low, wide chamber. Small pottery shards were scattered
alongside the many rocks present. I was
careful about every foot and hand placement, for fear of breaking some hidden
item. Elizabeth and Mike joined me in
this small space. The squeeze and size
of the chamber made the still camera a better choice to bring in.
In addition to the many crude pottery shards
scattered throughout the room, Mike found a clay pipe and glazed piece of
porcelain. The porcelain was the bottom
of a bowl, which unfortunately had no
markings on the bottom. The clay pipe
was definitely not Taino, and although I’m a bit of a collector of pipes, I
wouldn’t know which century this one hails from. It was of the same style as pipes I’d seen in a book, recovered
at
I assisted Guy in doing a relatively quick
survey of the cave, from this low, rock-strewn chamber and into the next.
Kempshot
Jan 12, 2005
We accompanied Dr. Jones to Kempshot, where
we met a person whose residence is very close to the cave. This person had us escorted to the cave by
her laborers. As we started following
them along a path down a hill I realized that they were leading us to Cundallii
cave, definitely the wrong cave. Dr.
Jones himself had been in the cave some time ago and found nothing. Having a clear recollection of the location
of the cave from the June 2004 expedition, I lead us back to the road and
through an adjoining field that allowed more easy access to the Kempshot
cave.
Mike followed behind me with the video camera
running, as I led the way to the cave.
We got inside and pointed out the petroglyphs while Mike captured them
on video. We saw a petroglyph that we’d
not noticed during the June 2004 expedition.
It was covered with ivy root type vegetation and Mike captured the
unveiling of the petroglyph on video.
Mike and I got video of the lower chamber,
which turned out splendidly, thanks to the 10W HID lamp that we’d brought. Ivor joined us in the lower chamber and
proclaimed it to have been picked clean, as far as artifacts go. We went back up to the front of the cave and
engaged in more documentation of petroglyphs.
Even with the light conditions as good as
they are at the front of this fairly well lit shelter cave, it was hard for
Mike to put the camera precisely on the spot that the petroglyphs were. This made the final product of the video
less than perfect. There are several
reasons for such difficulties on the part of a Videographer. Quite often headlamps aren’t pointed
precisely enough for someone looking through the lens of a camera with one eye
to figure out exactly what is of interest.
Things can also be confusing because there are often several people
talking and pointing at different things around the caves at the same
time. By nature, a lot of this rock art
is pretty abstract, and a bit tricky to pick out.
Lesson learned:
A plan for future video projects at caves of
archaeological significance is to bring a laser pointer, in order to clearly
outline points of interest. Such a tool
would also allow an expert like Dr. Jones to explain what he sees within a
piece of rock art, things such as enclosing lines within circles, etc.
JUNE 2004
Fontabelle
2 Cave, Trelawny
June
7, 2004
A
breakdown chamber cave in a saddle of the top of a hill covered in sharp,
eroded limestone. The entrance was at
least 5 meters wide and 2 meters high. in front of the entrance was a steep
slope of about 30 to 40 degrees, covered with loose soil, rocks and
leaves. Stef took a tumble straight
down it for about 5 meters before we really entered the part of this cave that
we were interested in. A pit off to the
right went down some where around 15 meters.
Stefan led the way, feeling and of course being more safe on rope than
standing on the slippery entrance.
Stefan entered the pit through a key hole type opening to the right of
the slippery entrance, accessible from level ground outside.
When
all of us were down in the cave we started exploring. We were in one large chambers that led to a second that had a lot
of guano. We found air flow in the
restricted passageway between the two chambers, but couldn't seem to find any
light holes or further extensions. The
remains of what seemed to be a goat were found in the second room. Ivor went on rope to explore a pit, with a
smooth, mildly angled entrance that went around a corner. While standing at the top amongst loose
material a large rock about a foot in diameter shifted and went down toward him
as we all yelled "rock!" Ivor
was already around the corner and the rock seemed to just curve around the
corner on the outside of the turn and continued. When Stef prepared to ascend a small loose rock came down and hit
him on the hand. It had been shifted
from above by someone standing near the entrance. Everyone was then told to stand back. When I ascended I knocked a small loose rock down from the
entrance to the pit. Mark was below but
well out of the way. A dangerous cave
as far as loose rock is concerned.
Belly
Full Cave, St. James
June
8, 2004
A
stream cave in a depression along the road.
We went in and found a passage that was pretty straightforward. In a couple of places the passage could be
followed either on one side or another of large boulder type structures, but it
was definately not as complex as Roehampton School cave. It wasn't as restricted either, which I was
grateful for. The passage was on
average 2m tall, and 1 to 3 m wide. We
had gone no more than 50 m when we came to a pool of water, perhaps a sump or a
duck. The passage went around a corner
and it seemed that the ceiling started getting low and it was not a good time
of year to explore further, it being the rainy season. We were making our way back out, taking time
to look for invertebrates when we heard the low rumble of thunder outside. Stefan said "We gotta move!" and
we got out in about 1.5 minutes. We
came out into dark skies and rain. When
we'd entered the sky was mostly clear.
Bonnet
Bush Cave, St. James
June
9, 2004
A
shelter cave along a path, well known by locals. A scramble 3m down into a sunken area reveals the opening,
partially covered with vegetation. The
entrance is perhaps 3m tall and 3m wide, with broad fluted flowstone columns on
either side. One descends down, curves
left and finds oneself in a chamber with fairly attractive flowstone walls. The chamber was 10m long by 4m wide by 4m
tall. The local youths spoke of wanting
to have concerts or shows in the chamber.
Miss
Henney Cave, St. James
9
June, 2004
Our
guide, Steve Druie took us onto some land owned by a Miss Henney. The cave had a large opening, probably 3m
high and 3m wide. The entrance went
down at an angle of perhaps 20 degrees and then the chamber, about 4m high and
3-4m wide curved back to the left. The
chamber was perhaps 30m lhong. There
was evidence of fruit bats.
Cundalli
Cave, St. James
June
10, 2004
A
shelter cave in a fairly dense woods.
Our local guides had no name for the cave, so Stefan called it cundalii
after the species name of a cave frog that was very prevalent.
Anancy
Hole, SE cockpit country, near Troy
June
11, 2004
A
sinkhole in the cockpit country. The
hole was near a clearing and had barbed wire around it, evidently it was once
near active agriculture. It took a
couple of hours for us to reach this place from the entrance to the Troy-Windsor
trail due to confusion over losing the trail.
The trail is easy to follow in the woods, but when you hit a clearing
you might find a wall of fern in your way, leaving no evidence of a trail. Although the trail had been bush whacked
some 2-3 months ago the ferns showed no sign of a trail. We spent some time off trail, trying to use
GPS to find another cave that had been located during the March session. Off the trail we found more evidence of
humanity; a large steel can, perhaps used to hold fuel and the stump of a large
tree, cut down probably decades ago.
The stump was about 2m across.
Stefan
went down into the sinkhole while Delroy burned smudge fires to keep the
mosquitos at bay and I took pics of Stefan descending into and ascending out of
the pit.
Pumphouse
Cave, St. James
June
14, 2004
A
stream cave, fairly narrow. Height 2m,
width varying, but around 1m. We
followed the cave for some 15-20 minutes before it ended in a sump. There was one branch off of the tunnel that
simply joined back after a few meters.
Chert seemed to be present.
Water was present in pools of the floor of the cave, along with
sand. We took a few samples of the
mineral that were lying loose in the sand on the floor of the cave. Some of them were oddly shaped, almost like
vertebrae, so one or two of them were taken in case they turned out to be
something.
Flamstead
Cave, St. James
June
14, 2004
A
stream cave, next to a NWC pumphouse.
The entrance was approx. 1.5m tall and 3m wide. Just within the entrance a stream runs
through, from left to right. To the
right the cave continues for 15m or so before spilling out by the
pumphouse. To the left the cave
continues for about 10m, ending in a sump.
The NWC employee who maintains the pumphouse said that some Germans went
into the sump perhaps 3 years ago and supposedly came out some mile or two
away. A variation on a common theme
surrounding caves, however the maintenance man, Eccleston Waites seemed to be a
reliable fellow, and because of his work at the pumphouse would have been in
good position to have acquired this information firsthand.
Nodewood
2 (and 1?), St. James
June
15, 2004
A
large grotto like cave with several entrances, so much so that most of the cave
is in twilight. A gardening center
walled off the main entrance and put a locked gate in it about 15 years
ago. They store flower cuttings in
it. Stefan noted some rudist fossils in
the soft limestone that was caked onto the hard limestone of the walls. Fruit bats were present. To the right of the main, gated entrance was
a low tunnel, about 1m high by 2m wide.
I went in to investigate, crawling through clay rich reddish brown mud
for a few meters, over a ramp of stone and ending in a choke. I wondered whether this was supposed to be
the other nodewood cave noted by McGrath (and not found by a 1970 JCC
expedition), or whether one of the many entrances of the larger cave were
mistaken for a different cave. The
garden center staff knew of no other cave.
Niagara
River Cave, St. James
June
15, 2004
A
large river cave. The approx. 2m high
by 3m wide south entrance puts you straight into the flow of the niagara river,
flowing to your right. The river was
chest deep in places as we followed it upstream. The river was actively flowing and we noted the "water rat
passage" coming in from the right.
Water was flowing out of it, but in contrast to the observations in
Jamaica Underground, it was not responsible for the majority of the volumetric
flow of water in the cave. We continued
left of the water rat passage into an area where stalactites came down into the
water like teeth. The headspace started
looking restricted, so we turned back.
We noted the presence of many crabs and N. farri on the ceiling. Some amount of twigs and leaves were
present, but no garbage.
The
following day we entered the north entrance, which the locals thought to be a
different cave. The north entrance was
a straight tunnel approx. 2m high by 1m wide, one third submerged and extending
back approx. 30-40m. The water in the
entrance tunnel was not noticeably flowing.
The tunnel jogged right and into the main cave at a dam of flotsam
including sticks and a long PVC pipe.
We continued basically straight along the trajectory of the entrance tunnel. We saw a low headspace area to our right
that may have been where we'd turned back before, or close to it. Somewhere ahead of us we saw water flowing
to our left, then right, then under an very low rock with almost no
headspace. These notes are written more
than a month ex post facto and details of what we encountered are fuzzy. It was not a good time of year to do any
extensive exploration anyway.
One
thing I clearly remember is Stefan telling the locals that if we find treasure
that we'd share it with them. I pulled
the 12 foot piece of PVC pipe out of the dammed up area of the tunnel before
proceeding back out the North entrance.
Several of the locals were looking in when I called to them and said
we'd found some treasure. As I neared,
dragging the long pipe behind me in the water I told them they could have what
we'd found. I pulled the pipe to me and
lifted it up a bit to thrust it forward toward them. They all scrambled away from the opening as if I were some mad
man like Steve Irwin, coming out with a croc I'd captured and hog-tied with my
bare hands.
Blue
Hole Glade caves
June
16, 2004
>From
near the NE entrance to Niagara River cave we headed up a hill passed through a
shoulder and down into the blue hole glade.
We came down the other side of the hill, went around a bit and
eventually found some caves on the opposite side of the very hill we came
down. We found one stream passage,
approx. 2m high by 1m wide, extending straight back, with a slight jog to the
right. It sort of matches the
description in Jamaica underground of "A series of sinks includes two
short loop caves...(each up to 80m long).
It went perhaps 80m and ended in a sump. Water was flowing into it from the tunnel we came down and the
water in the sump was slowly turning, indicating that there may be significant
flow downward and/or from other inlets driving the surface water in a circular
pattern. Flotsam including small twigs
accumulated in one part of the chamber where the surface flow stagnated. To the right of this tunnel, along the hill
was a small loop cave, not as much as 80m long that came out in a depression
10-20 meters further to the right.
After sitting out a rain event of perhaps an hour in a shelter cave nearby
we encountered an active resurgence several meters further along base of the
hill. Stefan described it as going on
and definately worth checking out... but not this time.
Shell
Chamber Cave?, St. James
17
June, 2004
In
point we looked and asked for a cave, described by the 1972 JCC expedition as a
"shaft leads to a cave... with a sinkhole about 20m from the entrance was
not explored." Some locals agreed
to help us find the cave, knowing only of a sink hole or shaft. The hole was a mere 3 minute walk from the
road. We descended about 20 feet to
garbage-covered bottom. It seemed to
perhaps have lead somewhere previously, but was choked up with silt, possibly
exacerbated by plastic-rich garbage being thrown in.
We
found no other sinkhole, and the locals knew of no other. Our guide said the hole we explored used to
have water in it. He remembers throwing
rocks in as a child and hearing water splash.
Bottom
Pasture Cave, St. James
17
June, 2004
The
entrance of this stream passage cave is at a hillside "at the head of the Dundee
or Post river", as described in Jamaica Underground. Outside the entrance a continuous stream of
water pours out onto a piece of galvanized gutter, emerging straight from the
hillside.
We
entered the approximately 2m tall opening and found a low passage under what
seemed to be a collection of large boulders, leading into a large, water filled
chamber. Up above the large boulders
was a space that I personally explored, while Stefan busied himself with the main
chamber below. The space above was perhaps
a meter high, and strewn with small pebbles.
Off to the left was a small passage with a foot or so of water in
it. It seemed still. I observed several small shrimps with bright
gold eyes in the water.
Bottom
Pasture Cave 2, St. James
17
June, 2004
This
stream cave is further off the main road from Bottom Pasture Cave, in a wooded
area. In front of the entrance is a
meandering creekbed, which was dry at the time. The creekbed seemed to be about a foot or two below grade, and it
appeared that water overflows it's banks from time to time. The entrance was a tall triangle of about 3m
height and 2m wide. It went straight in
about 15m and then abruptly changed to a broad chamber less than a meter
high. Stefan and Martel went in and
explored. Stefan found a fossil that he
described as being from the cretaceous age.
It appeared to be a piece of a plant stem or perhaps a marine
tube-sponge.
In
the woods behind the cave we found what appeared to be a small shaft, which
seemed to lie about where the low chamber was and may well lead into the
chamber of the cave.
Sand
Bottom Cave, St. James
18
June, 2004
A
shelter cave described in Jamaica Underground as having an entrance over 30m
high, about 45m above the glade floor.
That seems about right. The
bottom, true to the name had sand on it.
Another large shelter cave was just to the right of it, from the
perspective of one standing in the glade down below. A lot of swallows roost in the roof of the cave and were flying
around constantly. Elizabeth found a
small skull, to my mind a mongoose, and some small jaw bones with sharp teeth
that reminded me of rabbit's jaws.