RSS Feed for the JCO Jamaican Caving News http://www.jamaicancaves.org/ http://www.jamaicancaves.org/rss-news.jpg http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jamaica-weather.htm 115 100 (Nov 19/07) - The JCO has recently completed a brief, but productive expedition. From Nov 10 to 15, Haiduk, Hutchings, Kennedy, Pauel, Petrova, Stewart, and Zane assisted two international video crews (Mafoota River Cave - Caribbean Dreams, and St Clair Cave - Anthony Bourdain), carried out a first exploration of Huntley Sinkhole in Manchester (apx 90m deep), revisited Logan Hole 2, and managed some good prep work for our future exploration of the Acheron River, at St Clair Cave (we refound the route to the Inferno Plus during our prep work, flagged the hell out of it, returned to Riverhead Cave where we observed how quickly the bad air varies, learnt of another possible source for the Acheron, and figured out a way to explore it between Worthy Park dumps (which will require their assistance)). http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm (Nov 5/07) - The JCO be in the field from Nov 10 to 15. Amongst other things, we'll assist the crews of two different televison shows at two different caves. The first will be on Nov 10 with Caribbean Dreams, at either Belly-full Cave or Mafoota River Cave, both in St James, depending on the weather. The second will be with the crew of the Anthony Bourdain show (Travel Channel) on the 13th at either St Clair Cave or Worthy Park 3, near Ewarton, depending on the weather. We'd like to make it clear that our assistance is being supplied pro bono, with our main proviso on involvement being mentions of the need for cave preservation in Jamaica. We don't particularly care if any of us appear on camera or not - the priority is to get the message out. In addition to guiding the media people, we'll explore some recently reported, unlisted, deep shafts in Manchester, and knock off some more of the targets for the St Ann assessment project. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm (Oct 23/07) Brian Zane was in the field last Sunday (Oct 21/07), taking photos of Quashies River Cave for a future Natural History Museum (UK) publication (they contacted us for high-res photos of the site, and Brian volunteered to grab some new, spiffy ones). One of them will be found in the JCO News, in a low-res version. On Sunday, Sep 23, Jan Pauel and Andreas Haiduk were in St Ann exploring a deep sinkhole for the Highway 2000 crew (Bouygues). A report by Andreas on the visit can be found at Schwallenburgh Sinkhole, St Ann. Regarding future efforts: The JCO will assist the crew of a Travel/Discovery channel show during the next session of fieldwork, which will take place from Nov 9-16. Also, plans are afoot to tackle the Acheron, St Clair Cave, in Feb/08. The crew for St Clair will be particularly solid, in line with the very challenging effort required to push the Inferno Plus (bad air and flood risk). http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm (Sep 3, 2007) - Hurricane Felix will pass to the south of the island on September 3, the new Jamaican election day, delayed from Aug 27 because of Hurricane Dean. There may be a change in government as a result of the election, and this may be for the best. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jamaica-weather.htm (Aug 17, 2007) - Hurricane Dean is inbound and expected to remain at hurricane levels when it reaches the area of Jamaica this Sunday. With any luck, it will pass to the south of the island, but things could well be nasty nonetheless. Residents of JA are advised to check drains, pound more nails into the roof, stock up on basic supplies, and generally batten down the hatches. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jamaica-weather.htm Aug 15, 2007: The JCO has recently completed a very successful expedition. From Jul 28 to Aug 12, A Haiduk, D Harrisingh, B Hutchings, P Kennedy, J Pauel, EA Slack, A Snauffer, RS Stewart, and B Zane, explored and assessed a number of caves in St Ann, Manchester, and the Cockpit Country. Amongst the more notable of our visits were: a first descent of an unlisted 100-metre deep shaft near Bensonton; a first descent of an unlisted 65-metre hole in the same district; a first descent of the 60-metre deep Logan Hole 2, in May Day; and the completion of the Cave River System, done by finding and assessing Clapham Cave. Other sites visited were Coffee River Cave, where we travelled beyond the fourth rockfall, Quashies, where we made further progress on establishing an all-season route, Brambribo Cave in Douglas Castle, Ken Connell Cave in Bensonton, and several others that are part of our current St Ann NEPA permit project. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Jul 20, 2007: The next major session of JCO fieldwork will take place from Jul 28 to Aug 12. Much of the work will be under permit from the Nat Enviro and Planning Agency of Jamaica (NEPA), but we'll also be meeting with UC Rusal (Russian aluminium mining company) in hopes of changing their behaviour with regards to cave preservation in Jamaica, and knocking off a few challenging sites just for the hell of it (we're cavers number one, researchers number two). Amongst the more interesting sites will be Logan Hole 2, a deep, unexplored cave near May Day, Manchester parish. On the press side of things, the Jamaica Observer will be with us for a day or two, to do an in-depth article on the JCO. We'll try to avoid embarrassing casualties while the reporter is with us - bad form, and all of that. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Jun 16, 2007: The JCO seems to have made a breakthrough on our cave preservation efforts in southern Manchester, Jamaica (and perhaps island-wide). At long last, Alpart has agreed to a date for a meeting on cave preservation in their mining lands, including Smokey Hole, the deepest cave in Jamaica. We're hopeful that this is the first, most important step. That said, if we make no progress whatsoever in the meeting, we still have plan B on the back-burner (although we really don't want to carry it out). More info on this can be found via the link to the JCO News. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Jun 12, 2007: Alpart informed us via email on Jun 4 that they have no immediate plans to mine at Smokey Hole. We're hopeful that it's a first, small step. We were also informed that the Jamaica Bauxite Institute (JBI) has been invited to join the discussion. On the media front, Jan Pauel of the JCO will be interviewed on Jamaican radio this Sun, Jun 17, regarding the issue. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 30, 2007: An email was sent to Alpart today asking for a definite answer to our request for an immediate moratorium on mining within 250m of Smokey Hole Cave. It must be stressed that time is of the essence if this valuable site is to be saved, and it is not unreasonable to expect Alpart to simply promise to limit their activities in the area in the coming months. Also, an article appeared in Sunday's Jamaica Observer regarding the imminent threat to Jamaica's deepest cave, Smokey Hole, by bauxite mining. The article is generally accurate, but errs on our feelings toward the National Planning and Environmental Agency (NEPA), with whom we have no problem. An item on that will be found on the JCO news page, jamaicancaves.org/news.htm. The direct link to the article is appended to this item. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20070526T160000-0500_123512_OBS_CAVERS_ASSOCIATION_SAYS_NEPA__ALPART_HAVE_NO_REGARD_FOR_JAMAICA_S_NATURAL_RESOURCES.asp May 23, 2007: No progress has been made on Smokey Hole Cave and bauxite mining. At this time, the deepest cave in Jamaica continues to be under serious threat of destruction. Alpart has refused to meet with us until after they have met with the regulatory agencies. Please read more on this in the JCO News, and please help in our campaign to save this valuable speleo site. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 22, 2007: The JCO has recently completed a session of very productive fieldwork (May 2 to 18). The participating cavers were McCarville, Pauel, Snauffer, Stewart, and Zane. Valuable assistance was supplied by many others, to whom we are greatly indebted. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Mar 1, 2007: The JCO has recently completed a very challenging session of fieldwork. From Feb 7 to 21, a team consisting of Andreas Haiduk, David Lee, Rob McCarthy, Jan Pauel, Greg Shiffer, Drew Snauffer, Stefan Stewart, Guy Van Rentergem, and Brian Zane, combined in various combinations to visit a total of eight caves, with the majority of them being the sort of thing that would make most people's hair stand on end. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Nov 16, 2006: There is an imminent threat to the caves of the Cockpit Country in Jamaica, this because of bauxite mining. A coalition of environmental groups has been formed to try to prevent this, of which the JCO is part. More information can be found via the link from this item. Please read up, and try to pitch-in in whatever way you can. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/cockpit-country-bauxite-mining.htm Nov 1, 2006: The JCO has recently completed an extended period of fieldwork (Oct 7 - 29). News and photos have begun to appear on the JCO Caving News, linked to from this item. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Sept 29, 2006: There seems to be some confusion regarding our upcoming activities at Golding River Cave. We'd like to make things clearer for those who have not taken the time to research the material available on this website that addresses it, most of which can be easily found using Google. [Please follow the link in this item to get the rest.] http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Aug 31, 2006: Ivor Conolley, Elizabeth Slack, and Jan Pauel, of the JCO, were in the field from Aug 28 to 30 assisting Kimberly John, and Minke Newman, of The Nature Conservancy, in an ongoing water quality project being carried out in the Cockpit Country. Early reports indicate that all has gone well. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Aug 26, 2006: Tropical Storm Ernesto is inbound from the east and as of 4 PM EST on Aug 25 is expected to pass directly over Jamaica on Sunday morning and afternoon. This will bring heavy rains and a chance of flooding in low-lying areas, with total rainfall of up to 15cm (6 in). The next few days will not be a good time for visiting Ja river caves. More info on Ernesto can be found on the JCO Weather page, linked to from this item. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jamaica-weather.htm Aug 21, 2006 - The JCO crew were in the field on Aug 19 and 20, attending to two important tasks. First, on Saturday, Ivor Conolley, Martel Taylor, Elizabeth Slack, Jan Pauel, Rona Sterling, Pem-Pem, Cetu, the Silvera family, and Marcella Phillips, fully established and flagged a new hiking trail in the Cockpit Country, out of Windsor, this in aid of our fund-raising efforts. On Sunday, a visit to Mountain River Cave, in St Catherine, took place, also for funding purposes. Ivor, Jan, Eliz, et al, assisted Janet and Steve Andrews in a visit to this important archaeological site. We'd like to thank Janet for having helped with JCO funding, and we're glad things went well. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Aug 11, 2006 - We've just added a new page to the site, JCO Publications (found via the link below), with two items available at present: the DVD of the March 2006 Expedition, and a 287 page work, "The Caves of the Cockpit Country", based on a JCO project done under contract to The Nature Conservancy in 2005. Along with this, we have finally figured out how to use our Paypal account, and can now accept payments by credit card. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/publications.htm Aug 5, 2006 - The Donations and Funding page has just undergone a major change, including having the title altered to "JCO Funding and Tours". We would like to assure everyone that our aim continues to be true, and the focus of the JCO has not shifted from assessment and research - we're just in need of financial assistance. The new funding page can be found via the link in this item. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/donations-funding.htm July 14, 2006 - A visit will be made to Sherwood Content, Trelawny, this weekend (July 15/16) to have a look at an interesting feature recently found by Guy Van Rentergem during a perusal of satellite photos. We have tentatively dubbed it "Mystery Hole", as we really have no idea what is there, other than the deep, well-defined, oval, partially-forested, depression seen on the sat photos. There is a possibility that it is merely an old collapsed chamber cave, with no extensions, but there is also the chance that it contains a deep sinkhole in the bottom, or a scramble into an ancient, fossil stream passage. As there is nothing more enticing than a mystery for a caver, JCO members Conolley and Pauel have an organised a visit to look into things. Others of the crew will be along, but the complete personnel is not definite at this time. In other news, we'll be putting some new fund-raising pages online in the next few days. We'll post info in the RSS feed as soon as this happens. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm June 31, 2006 - An outing to Barbecue Bottom took place last Friday, June 23, in assistance to Andrea Donaldson (NEPA). Elizabeth Slack was the JCO member on the scene, and although the intended target, Barbecue Bottom Hole-2, was not reached, observations were made at a nearby site that indicate an extant, interesting batroost. Notes for the last session, May 30 to June 11, continue to be posted on the main page for the June 2006 Expedition (linked from this item) and include, as of Jun 30, Deeside, Booth Camp Spring, Coffee River Cave, Black River Head, Nanny Cave, Belmont/Drip, St Clair Cave, Riverhead Cave, and Worthy Park Cave-1 (plus we did a proof-reading on the earlier notes, and ran them through a spell-checker, which took care of two "successfulls" and one "preferrably"). Five video clips from the session, in .wmv, .mov, and .avi are also posted on the main June 2006 page (linked from the top, right-click and save-as). http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_2006_jun.htm June 25, 2006 - Notes for Worthy Park Cave-1 and Belmont/Drip Cave have now joined the St Clair and Riverhead reports. These can be found via the main notes page for the Jun 2006 session, linked from this item. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_2006_jun.htm June 21, 2006 - A complete set of notes is now online for the June 4 JCO visit to Riverhead Cave. The notes for all three cavers, Stewart, Pauel, and Haiduk, can be found via the main notes page for the Jun 2006 session, linked from this item. Having the complete set helps greatly in successfully describing our observations, and travails, and we encourage people to read all three. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_2006_jun.htm June 18, 2006 - A complete set of notes is now online for the June 3 JCO visit to St Clair Cave. The notes for all three cavers, Stewart, Pauel, and Haiduk, can be found via the main notes page for the Jun 2006 session, linked from this item. Having the complete set helps greatly in successfully describing our observations, and travails, and we encourage people to read all three. Please note that that is the first set on the page; the others will soon begin to appear. Scroll down about half-way, and you'll find the St Clair entries. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_2006_jun.htm June 14, 2006 - The JCO has recently finished a two week expedition, May 30 to June 11, that fulfilled most of the objectives and made good progress on the others. More information will be found on the JCO News page, linked from this item. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 22, 2006 - Planning continues for the next JCO expedition which will take place from May 30 to Jun 11. A return to St Clair Cave for gas sampling at the Acheron River now seems certain. We'd like to thank Andrea Richards, of the ASJ, for her rounding-up of new recruits for the next session. We'd also like to thank Anthony Yovandich, who'll be flying in from the US to join us, for his contributions toward the rental car, this allowing us to again have an SUV for the expedition (makes all the difference). We have a very good team shaping up for St Clair on Jun 3-4, with Jan Pauel and Andreas Haiduk now definite. Ivor Conolley will manage to fit in a couple of days with us, despite his work that needs to be done at UWI. Elizabeth Slack will be with us for much of the session, and for this we are very grateful. Alfred Maragh will be with us for a day, and is checking into gear we need for splitting rocks at Golding River Cave. Unfortunately, we won't have Guy, Adam, Barb, or Knut with us, because they will all be off-island, but we'll try to get some good recon work done on future targets where their presence will be absolutely necessary (e.g. Acheron River). Adam Hyde and Barbara Gottgen have a particularly good reason for not caving with us this session, that being that they're getting married. The JCO expects future additions to the next generation of Ja cavers from this very cool union, so we'll do our best to get by without them this time and not complain :-) http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 16, 2006 - Notes for Jackson Young's Cave, visited Sept 27/05, went online today. It is still our intention to get things completely caught up with before the start of the next session. As part of that, we've recently updated the "Who we are" page. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jackson-youngs-050927.htm May 13, 2006 - The next JCO expedition will take place from May 30 to Jun 11. Arrangements are coming along well - we'll have many of the usual crew involved, we have good targets on the agenda, and we expect to have notable accomplishments to announce when it's all done. Specific targets can now be found on the JCO Caving News page, linked from this item. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 12, 2006 - Arrangements were made today to have Bob Morris, of National Geographic Traveler, join us for a day next session. An article in the magazine will probably result from this (unless we get him killed in the process, which we'll try to not do ;-). We'll pass along the details when it appears in print. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 11, 2006 - Arrangements are being finalized for assistance we're supplying to Kimberly John, of The Nature Conservancy - Jamaica, during the next expedition. Two days, Mar 30-31, will be spent in carrying out sampling in aid of freshwater monitoring in the Cockpit Country of Jamaica. The sites include Deeside, Printed Circuit, Coffee River, and Still Waters. We'll supply more info on the News page soon. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm May 10, 2006 - At long last, the notes for the Sep-Oct 2005 expedition are going online. The first, Shorty's Cave, a new Taino site we explored on Sept 30, 2005, can be found via the Sep-Oct, 2005 main page (linked from this item). We intend to get them all done by the time the next session starts (and I know this is the kind of thing we always say, and never do, but this time we're serious ;-) http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_sep_2005.htm May 9, 2006 - This is the first item in the new RSS feed for the Jamaican Caving News. It has been split off from our existing Weather feed, which was also serving to supply caving news, and accordingly we will leave those older items in the list posted here. From this point on, however, the two feeds will contain separate items. This first post is with regard to the next expedition, which will take place from May 29 to June 12, 2006. A little more info can be found on the News page, linked below, and much more will soon follow. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Apr 13, 2006 - As of Apr 13/06, compilation of the survey data for Smokey Hole Cave that was obtained during our explorations of Mar 25/26, 2006, has determined the cave to be 194 metres (650 ft) deep (replacing our intitial field-estimate of 157 metres). This establishes Smokey Hole Cave as the deepest currently known site on the island, followed by Morgans Pond Hole at 186m, and Thatchfield Great Cave at 177m. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Apr 4, 2006 - The JCO has recently completed a very successful expedition (Mar 20 to Apr 3). The participating cavers were Guy Van Rentergem, Hilde De Splenter, Stefan Stewart, Elizabeth Slack, Ivor Conolley, Adam Hyde, Dr. David Lee, Barbara Gottgen, Wayne Francis, Roger Hendricks, Knut Borstad, Andrew Ross, Vincent Cunningham, and Kristen Masel. More information can be found on the News page. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Feb 7, 2006 - The plan was to get the rest of the TNC notes online Sun or Mon, but thanks to a blizzard in central Ontario, where the JCO webmaster is currently stranded, things have been delayed (no electricity most of the time, over 75cm of snow in two days, etc). Friday is the new plan. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes.htm Feb 4, 2006 18:00 EST - Notes for 15 more of the caves studied as part of last year's Parks in Peril Project are now online (via the link below). Unlike our friend Errol, these are the real deal. There are five more caves to be included for the May 2005 expedition, and then we can move on to Sept/Oct 2005. The plan is to have everything complete before the March 2006 expedition. The Chair of the JCO must say in his defense, though, that he's had to write two proposals lately, assist others in details on their project targets, and answer many emails about mapping, crime, you-name-it. There are still a couple of other important things to get to, and accordingly some emails may not get answered over the next few weeks. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_may_2005.htm Jan 5, 2006 - The final draft of the report on the caves component of the Parks in Peril Project has been made available via ftp to The Nature Conservancy - Jamaica. The first draft met with the approval of TNC, and because it is now even better, we expect to receive our final pay very soon. Amongst other things, it will be spent on a new GPS mapping receiver for JCO field-use, and several new walkie-talkies for communication on vertical drops in sinkholes. A final print version will be produced in the next month or two, and this will be made available for purchase on our website. More details will soon appear in the JCO Caving News. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/news.htm Dec 8/05 - We're pleased to announce that Alfred Maragh, and his Garmin eTrex Vista, will soon be field-testing our vector maps on the backroads of Jamaica. We'll supply info on the results as soon as we have them. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jamaica-gps-maps.htm The notes for Contra Sheep Pen Hole are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/contra_sheep_pen_050509.htm The notes for Sheep Pen Cave are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/sheep_pen_050509.htm The notes for Montieth Cave are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/montieth_050514.htm The notes for Barbecue Bottom Hole-1 are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/barbecue_bottom_hole_1_050403.htm The notes for Spring Cave (Pantrepant East Cave) are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/spring_cave_050515.htm The notes for Pantrepant (West) Cave are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/pantrepant_050515.htm The notes for Campbells Cave are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/campbells_050521.htm The notes for Kinloss Shelter Cave are now online, found via the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/kinloss_cave_050521.htm An account of Stefan and Dietrich's very difficult visit to Home Away from Home Cave (near Windsor), on May 16, 2005, done as part of the Parks in Peril Project, went online today. It can be found via the May 2005 notes page, or by clicking the link below. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/home_away_050516.htm The 25th named tropical storm of the current hurricane season has formed in the mid-Atlantic. There will be no impact on Ja. An updated weather chart that shows Delta can be found on the JCO forecast page. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/jamaica-weather.htm The main notes for Windsor Cave at www.jamaicancaves.org/windsor.htm, as well as the PiP Report version, www.jamaicancaves.org/windsor_050404.htm, have been corrected for grammar, etc (I hope), and had a frame-grab from the video added. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/windsor.htm The last of the notes from March 2005 are now online. We've also tweaked some code for the earlier Mar notes that might have been causing pages to not render properly in monitors over 800x600. http://www.jamaicancaves.org/fieldnotes_mar_2005.htm