The Caves of Rock Spring

Rock Spring district, in a hydrological and speleological sense, is a very large catchment located in the southeast corner of the Cockpit Country. It collects rains from about 25 sq km of terrain, and feeds it to the northwest, where it eventually disappears in the junction of the yellow and white limestone that is exposed at Rock Spring. Between these two points is a section of alluvium that is used extensively for farming, and through the length of the valley flows the Mouth River.

The map shown below, (Fig RS-1), is based on a Digital Elevation Model for Jamaica, and clearly shows the catchment areas for both the caves of Rock Spring, (northwest), and Quashies/Bristol, (northeast). The primary direction of flow is indicated, but water is also collected from the hills on either side. For the Quashies/Bristol system, it will be seen that the central area where the caves are located is lower than, and surrounded by, hills on all sides. For the caves of Rock Spring, it is not as obvious on the DEM map that the waters collected must find their way underground to exit the catchment, but this is also the case. A map that shows the geology of the district, (Fig RS-2), in particular the area of exposed yellow limestone, will help to make things more clear, and this will be found below the DEM.

Fig. RS-1

Fig. RS-2

On the map above, the area that has been left transparent to show the topo map beneath is primarily yellow limestone at the surface. The inlier, and the white limestone, have been coloured yellow and grey, respectively. The pocket of alluvial soils is pink. The flow down the catchment is indicated. It can be seen that when the local run-off, including that of the Mouth River, gets to the lowest point, in the northwest, it runs smack into the white limestone. This is at a point where cockpit karst begins, and the terrain to the northwest is solid hills and valleys. The average height of the land slowly decreases in a continuing line into the Cockpit Country, but the hills that are met by the river at Mouth Maze rise up high enough to block the flow, and force it to follow the junction of the yellow and white limestone through bedding planes underground. In places downstream, it pops out again, (at least the upper part of it does, because there is believed to be an entirely subsurface flow under this, via Mouth Sink), to flow on the surface through cockpit bottoms where erosion has opened pockets back down to the junction, but before too long the cockpits no longer extend down to the yellow limestone, and the entire flow remains underground until it reaches the northern edge of the Cockpit Country.

At Rock Spring, a complex network of river caves has formed because of the concurrence of a large catchment, and the junction of the yellow and white limestone at the downstream end. Separate from the river caves are several other sites that are high and dry, (e.g. Carambie), but the majority of the sites in the district are very wet labyrinths that have multiple entrances.

The rest of these introductory notes will address the river caves, specifically, how to find them, and what to expect. When one is first confronted with the many entrances, and many passages, involved in the system, it can be very confusing determining what is what. We will attempt to bring clarity to the situation by presenting below a guide to finding, and conducting research in, the caves of Rock Spring, but we do so with a warning - there are parts of the system in which it is very easy to get lost, and very easy to drown. Please do not use the information presented below to get yourself killed, and if you do, don't blame us.

We will refer to the map, RS-5, that accompanies these notes often in the course of the following discussion. The positions are GPS derived, and were obtained by the JCO during the PiP Project. The accuracy, (listed in the notes for the particular caves), is such that they will enable all of the entrances to be easily found.

First, it must be noted that some of the upstream entrances, (sinks), have been degraded by siltation, and access is not guaranteed. Because of this, listed entrances can appear to be nothing more than muddy sinks. This is the case for Farmyard Cave, which is the first site at the upstream end of the system. In the past, entrances to a stream-passage could be followed upstream to a sump, and downstream to a rocky section where the water continued underground to Printed Circuit. The entrances to Farmyard Cave are currently mud-choked. They are an entry point for water that runs off of well-cultivated land in a catchment above. One cannot now enter the cave, other than to slide on your belly through mud for about 20 metres, (the drainage is now greater on the surface, to sink at Flux U, and water backs-up above the entrances to Farmyard in the rainy-season).

The main flow into the Rock Spring system is the sink of the Mouth River, but it is not restricted to this. Additional input occurs to the east at Printed Circuit, Pool Cave, and Swanga Cave, as well as at cockpits located to the west of the Mouth River sink. Of these secondary sources, Printed Circuit is the greatest. The last of the downstream surface activity, and caving access, is found at Too Far Glade, the third of three cockpits past Mouth Maze, where the system hits the surface for the final time. In between these two ends is a whole heap of passages, and we'll try to explain things as best we can. An area plan of the passages, produced by the work of the KHE, (Fig. RS-3), will be found further down, and we suggest that this be referred to while reading the following description of the overall system.

Mouth River, and the cave it sinks into, Mouth Maze, are the core of the system. There are two entrances for the river, the year-round Sink, and the rainy-season flood entrance which is the Main Entrance to Mouth Maze. The Sink sumps after a short distance, and access to the system is from the Main Entrance, (shown on the RS-5 map as Mouth Maze - Sink). Inside the cave, a network of rectilinear, joint developed passages ultimately feeds the bulk of the flow to the north-northwest to rise at Good Hope Glade, (shown on the RS-5 map as Mouth Maze - Good Hope Sump). This cockpit floods during rainy times, but a seasonal streambed will be found during dry times. On the other side of the cockpit, at the end of the seasonal streambed that rises at Good Hope Glade, the water sinks again into Good Hope One Cave. This sink was a choked mud-pit in April/May 2005, perhaps due to the effects of Hurricane Ivan, the autumn before. On the other side of a saddle, in the next cockpit, the river rises again. This is the north entrance/rising of Good Hope One Cave. From here, another seasonal streambed meanders across the cockpit to sink on the north side at Good Hope Two Cave. Again, by passing through a saddle, one will find the river rising once more at the north entrance/rising of Good Hope Two Cave. Another seasonal streambed meanders across the glade, until it sinks at Far Enough Cave. This sink, the entrance to Far Enough, was mud-choked during our visit in May, 2005. One last cave is found in this downstream end of the system, and this is Too Far Stream Cave. It is not part of the direct river-course, but rather seems to be a tributary that apparently links with the river underground, to the northwest of Far Enough. The immediate source of Too Far is a rising spring, (very pleasant to look at), on the south side of the cockpit in which it is found, (this cockpit is quite spectacular and will be described in the notes for Too Far). From Far Enough and Too Far onward, there are no more surface break-outs known, but one must suspect that there is potential un-tapped by the KHE due to the distance into the bush, and the amount of hiking involved.

To the west of the Mouth River, at Rock Spring, there are the two Harties caves, entered via a collapse in a saddle in a hill above the present day water-course. Harties Cave-2 in the past probably acted as part of the original water-course, or as an overflow during flooding - the development was certainly stream-based, and fossil meanders can be seen not far into the cave. Harties Cave-1 is somewhat higher, with the passages on the same level as the upper part of Cave-2, but is also stream-developed. Because these two caves were originally one, until the collapse split them, one can suspect that like Cave-2, there are also passages on a lower level in Cave-1, not currently accessible.

Immediately to the east of the Mouth River is found the best known cave in the district, usually referred to as the eponymous Rock Spring Cave, but more correctly called Printed Circuit in order to clarify which of the many caves in Rock Spring is being talked about. Like Mouth Maze, it is a labyrinth of stream-passages, but at Printed Circuit the system is more consistent in its hydrological activity. Water over a metre deep flows year-round through the main collector, fed by an array of sinks on the upstream side, and possibly also subterranean flow from sinks further to the south. The outflow joins the waters of the Mouth River to carry on to Good Hope Glade.

Further yet to the east of the Mouth River are two smaller stream-passage caves, Pool and Swanga, that parallel the Mouth system. They both sink, rise, and sink again with the suspected next rising at Greater Swanga, a site not listed in JU. We must take a minute now to address the confusion in the name for Swanga Cave. The people of the district know Swanga as Banga Cave. We are positive that we had the right site for the target, Swanga, that is listed in JU, because of scaling from the area plan found below, and the map of the interior of the cave matching what we found. The confusion arises because there is indeed a site called Swanga by the local people. It is an enormous shallow shelter cave, with a rising at the bottom, that is found north of Pool and Swanga-Banga, in a cockpit. It is in the direction of flow for both Swanga-Banga, and Pool, and we suspect it to be associated with them. We surmise that the KHE, when asking of existing names for the caves, heard Swanga and Banga, did not quite catch the "Banga" because it was said in Patois, became confused, and assigned the name Swanga to the wrong cave. In this report we will refer to the two sites as Greater Swanga, the giant shelter cave, and Swanga-Banga, the listed stream-passage cave. Curiously, Greater Swanga was not listed by the KHE, perhaps because there is no actual cave that can be entered, just an impenetrable rising.

It would be suspected that the waters of Pool and Swanga-Banga, after rising again in the Greater Swanga cockpit, eventually somewhere join the general flow that has passed through Mouth Maze, but this is undetermined. We did not have time to pursue this, because of priority on finding the listed caves, and a corresponding lack of time to work on new sites.

One more stream cave, Iron Maiden, is found even further east. This cave seems to be not directly connected to the system - the water that sinks here heads off to the northeast to rise in a cockpit south of the JU position for Burnt Hill Caves.

Before we conclude these introductory notes, we should discuss an observation made during the expedition regarding the rising of the Mouth River system, believed to be at Fontabelle. I will quote below an excerpt from our entry for Fontabelle Rising:

"In 1965-66, the Karst Hydrology Expedition used lycopodium spore tracing to determine that the source of the rising was at Mouth River, in Rock Spring. From March 29 to April 3, 2005, our team had been carrying out work in the caves of Rock Spring, including Mouth Maze. In fact, we had visited about ten of the caves in the district during this period, and were very familiar with the internal hydrological conditions. We were on the tail-end of an extended drought, with bush-fires common in the district, and the caves of Rock Spring were as dry as they usually ever get. This had been fortunate for us, because there was no flood-risk to deal with.

On the morning of April 3, when we departed Rock Spring, it was still dry. In the afternoon, while we were exploring the undescended pit at Barbecue Bottom Hole-2, north of Rock Spring, some light showers fell in the area but there was no sign of storms in the direction of Rock Spring. When we arrived at Coxheath that evening, we were told that Bottom Pond, associated with Fontabelle rising, and the rising itself, had both been high for a couple of days, and the road to Friendship was flooded at Bottom Pond. This is a regular occurrence in rainy-season.

We found it quite surprising that Fontabelle was high, because we knew for a fact that there had been no rain in Rock Spring for over a month, other than the showers that day which were after the time when Fontabelle reached its high-point. We are left with a question: where did the water come from? It certainly wasn't Rock Spring.

The team with the KHE who conducted the initial tracing were experts in their field, and one must accept their determination at face value, but we cannot help think that there must then be a second source, perhaps to the west of Rock Spring. Near Heading, there are sources such as Wilson's Run Cave that might be considered, but this is speculation.

The morning of April 4, in Windsor, we observed that the Martha Brae River, below Windsor Cave, was still low, and clear. There was no activity at the Flood Rising resurgence. We can therefore readily accept that the source of the Windsor resurgence could be Rock Spring, because the dry conditions at the SE end would have been reflected in the low waters at Windsor. Whatever the other source might be for Fontabelle, it is not associated with the Windsor Cave resurgence."

There is no doubt in our minds that there is something not quite right in the currently believed flow from Rock Spring to Fontabelle. We, of course, have no problem accepting that the Windsor resurgence has its source at Rock Spring, because we have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise, but that connection is not established. By looking at the DEM, it seems the input for Windsor could be from Booth, (see Fig, RS-4, following the Rock Spring area plan). There is essentially a long valley that extends from east of Bamboo Bottom, (i.e. Bad Hole), most of the way to Booth. This is conjecture on our part, but clearly, the hydrology of the Cockpit Country is not entirely understood, and could use more work.

Fig. RS-3

Fig. RS-4

The map that accompanies this section, (Fig. RS-5), indicates the positions for the known caves in the Rock Spring district that were visited by the JCO as a part of the Parks in Peril Project. The positions are GPS referenced, and have an accuracy as given in the notes below, and the database that accompanies this report.

The tracks shown as dashed black lines on RS-5 indicate the best routes that we found to Good Hope One, Good Hope Two, Far Enough, and Too Far. The eastern of these is the best way in and out of the Far Enough and Too Far glades. The track will be easily located if you bring a copy of the map, look carefully, and use a compass en route.

A complete list of the known caves and sinkholes of Rock Spring follows. Those indicated in bold were included in the PiP Project, and detailed notes will be found for them in this chapter. The others in the list, targets excluded from the PiP Project, have also been included in the chapter, but with information limited, in most cases, to what is known via Jamaica Underground, and notes consisting mostly of a brief explanation of the reason for their exclusion, and our best advice for finding them. Positions for the excluded caves are given only in JAD69 Metric Grid coordinates, as received from JU, because the accuracy is undetermined and positions derived from transformations to other datums could prove to be misleading.

Caves marked with ** are JCO discoveries/explorations and are not found in Jamaica Underground or databases derived solely from it.

Information for the caves included in the project is in the following format: first, a table that presents a number, but not all, of the main parameters of the assessment; second, a field report on how the assessment was conducted. All of the data collected will be found in the digital database that accompanies this report, Appendix A.

The Caves of Rock Spring:

Burnt Hill Caves

Cane Patch Sink

Carambie Cave

Comb Cave

Crayfish Cave

Far Enough Cave

Farmyard Cave

Good Hope Cave

Good Hope One Cave

Good Hope Two Cave

Greater Swanga Shelter**

Harties Cave-1

Harties Cave-2

Iron Maiden Cave

Mouth Maze

Mouth River Sink

Pool Cave

Printed Circuit Cave

Swanga Cave, [aka Banga Cave]

Too Far Stream Cave

Burnt Hill Caves
District: Burnt Hill	Parish: Trelawny
JAD69: 190200 E, 185000 N
Altitude: 400m JAD69	Accuracy: +/- >100m horizontal; >30m vertical
Type: Dry passage	Accessibility: Walk-in
Depth: 0	Length: 26m
Explorers: GSD - 1951	Survey: N/A
JU Ref: Text - pg 108; Map - none
Comments: This was on the list of caves that we hoped to do, but was a low priority for two reasons: It will be difficult to find, because it is in a district with few residents, and is listed to be over a kilometre into the bush. The cave is reported to be small, and to consist of only 25 metres of 3m wide passage. Time did not allow us to search for the cave, and it has been put on the JCO to-do list.

Cane Patch Sink April 2, 2005 - 8:30-12:00 EST
District: Rock Spring	Parish: Trelawny
WGS84 L/L: Undetermined
JAD69: 189000 E, 183300 N	JAD2001: Undetermined
Altitude: 520m JAD69	Accuracy: +/- 100m
Type: Impenetrable sink	Accessibility: Impenetrable
Depth: N/A	Length: N/A
Explorers: JCC - 1971	Survey: None
JU Ref: Text - pg 111; Map - none
Entrance size: N/A	Entrance aspect: N/A
Vegetation in general locale: Farm	Vegetation at entrance: Farm
Rock type: Yellow - White limestone junction	Bedding: Moderate	Jointing: Moderate
Speleothems: N/A	Palaeo resources: N/A
Archaeo resources: None
Hydrology: Wet	Siltation: Heavy
Sink: Pooled	Rising: N/A
Stream passage with surface activity: Flooded	Stream passage without surface activity: N/A
Dark zone: 0%.	Climate: N/A
Bats: 0	Bat guano: N/A
Guano mining: N/A	Guano condition: N/A
Eleutherodactylus cundalli: None	Neoditomyia farri: None
Amblypygids: None	Periplaneta americana: None
Cave crickets: None	Sesarma: None
Other species: None
Visitation: None	Speleothem damage: None
Graffiti: None	Garbage: None
Ownership: Private	Protection: None
Vulnerability: Low.

Cane Patch Sink

April 2, 2005

Team: Conolley, Slack.

Notes: IC Conolley

18 18 14.8, 77 34 21.8; Datum: OGB-C [Position does not plot in right locale]

Stagnant water present. Possibly a choked sink

18 17 54.8, 77 34 44.4; Datum: OGB-C

Another opening.

Deep pool found downstream of above position travelling West

[Many sinks in the district were mud-choked during our visit as a result of siltation during Hurricane Ivan. In the listed position, Conolley and Slack found two sites, neither of which permitted entry. This site may be currently lost. Stewart]

Carambie Cave March 31, 2005 - 11:00-14:00 EST
District: Rock Spring	Parish: Trelawny
WGS84 L/L: 18 18 23.7; 77 33 46.9 (Main)
JAD69: 190365 E, 183735 N	JAD2001: 690476 E, 684024 N
Altitude: 515m WGS84	Accuracy: +/- 10m horizontal; +/- 15m vertical
Type: Labyrinth	Accessibility: Walk-in
Depth: 15m	Length: 335m
Explorers: GSD - 1951	Survey: GSD - 1951
JU Ref: Text - pg 112; Map - pg 113
Entrance size: "Light": 3m W x 6m H	Entrance aspect: "Light": 115 deg true
Vegetation in general locale: Farm	Vegetation at entrance: Farm
Rock type: Yellow - White limestone junction	Bedding: Moderate	Jointing: Moderate
Speleothems: Stals, flowstone, helictites	Palaeo resources: Undetermined
Archaeo resources: None
Hydrology: Dry	Siltation: N/A
Sink: N/A	Rising: N/A
Stream passage with surface activity: N/A	Stream passage without surface activity: N/A
Dark zone: 50%.	Climate: Warm, semi-humid.
Bats: <500	Bat guano: Little
Guano mining: Historical	Guano condition: Dry/compact
Eleutherodactylus cundalli: Some	Neoditomyia farri: Some
Amblypygids: Undetermined	Periplaneta americana: None seen
Cave crickets: Some	Sesarma: None
Other species: Spider, xx
Visitation: Occasional - local.	Speleothem damage: Some
Graffiti: Some	Garbage: Some - bottle-torches, etc
Ownership: Private	Protection: None
Vulnerability: Medium. There is a small bat-roost in the dark-zone, and several troglobites.

Carambie Cave

March 31, 2005

Team: Stewart, Conolley, Roggy, Slack.

Notes: RS Stewart

Main Entrance: WGS84 - 18 18' 23.7" N, 77 33' 46.9" W; Alt: 515; Accuracy: +/- 10m; Aspect: 115 deg true
Dark Cave Entrance: WGS84 - 18 18' 22.6" N, 77 33' 46.7" W; Alt: 515; Accuracy: +/- 10m; Aspect: 85 deg true
Back Entrance: WGS84 - 18 18' 24.7" N, 77 33' 50.6" W; Alt: 525; Accuracy: +/- 15m; Aspect: 265 deg true

Carambie Cave is in the Rock Spring district of south Trelawny, and was visited by the JCO as a part of the Parks in Peril Project. It is one of the few caves in the district that is not a river cave, and is instead high and relatively dry. The cave is easily found, with two entrances on a hillside that faces the Spring Garden to Burnt Hill road.

This morning, we started the day with the full team of four assembled, and drove in Ivor's car from Miss Buckle's, where we were renting rooms, to the general area where the cave was indicated to be in Jamaica Underground. Because the cave is locally well-known, it was soon found, visible from the road, and we were parked and ready to go. Although the most obvious entrance is only about 30m from the roadside, it is also about 20m above the road, and the hill that one must ascend to reach it is rather difficult, since there is nothing to grab onto other than a barbed-wire fence. The slope is of dirt, bare of vegetation on the straight track that leads up, and a slip would result in a rapid slide down that would deposit one back on the road after a final drop of about 2m, (to then possibly be crushed by a passing car). Needless to say, we were all careful on this dodgy little approach.

There are three entrances to the cave; two facing the road, and one around back on the far side of the hill. The most obvious roadside entrance, to the north, is about 5m high and 3m wide, facing east, and leads into a large chamber known as the "Light Cave", that is entirely in the twilight zone. At the back of this is a small opening into a larger chamber, this opening situated about 6m above the floor of the second chamber. Although it could be climbed down if one were desperate to do so, vertical gear is advisable. About 50m south of the first entrance, a second entrance is found, smaller than the first, and this leads into the so-called "Dark Cave". Access from this entrance to the rest of the cave is possible without the use of vertical gear, although a bit of a scramble is necessary to reach the chamber that is seen from the back of the "Light Cave".

We had taken a quick look in the first part of the cave, inside the first entrance, before finding the second entrance and going in by this route. I soon found the scramble into the rest of the cave, then went around to the far side of the large chamber seen from the opening to the Light Cave, and located the back entrance. This third entrance faces 265 deg, and requires a bit of a scramble, found not far into the cave. A GPS position was taken, and then I rejoined the others. Ivor deemed the site to have been attractive to Taino in past ages, and so while he and the others looked for any evidence of this, I looked for critters.

Much of this cave, estimated at 50%, is twilight zone. In the central chamber a small bat-roost is found, with numbers estimated at under 500, and the main species fruit-bats. There are no substantial guano deposits, but some extraction has taken place by local people anyway. The material extracted appears to have been old, compact deposits, along with the underlying mud. Used bottle torches are present, and fertilizer bags. Surprisingly, I didn't see any Periplaneta americana, (roaches). Observed invertebrate predators were one species of spider, and Neoditomyia farri, (predaceous fly larvae). Fungal gnats were present. The numbers of Cave Crickets, U. cavicola, were rather low, but this might have been a seasonal variation since we in the late stages of a drought. Historically, two Coleoptera, (beetles), Leiodinae and Catopinae, from this cave were studied by Dr Stewart Peck.

The bat-roost has seen enough disturbance that only a fraction of the roosting space is being used, although it's expected due to the large percentage of twilight zone that it would be preferred by fruit-bats, and they seem to come and go periodically. The spider xx that was collected should prove to be the most interesting critter observed, and identification is underway.

The cave is formed in the yellow-white limestone junction. Stals, flowstone, and small helictites are found, with the latter located in small nooks at the sides of the chambers where humidity is higher. It should be noted that although much of the cave is dry, there is a section that was quite damp, especially for the dry-season that we were in, with most of the water entering through percolation from above.

No evidence of Taino usage was seen, and having done what we needed to do, we left the cave, made our way carefully down the hill to the car, and moved on to our next target.

We're listing this cave with a medium vulnerability because of the bat-roost found here, and the trog Araneae and Coleoptera. There has been a history of guano extraction, now infrequent because the main deposits are gone. There is no immediate threat, but it should be recognized that the site is of interest.

Carambie Cave

March 31, 2005

Notes: DK Roggy

The light cave entrance can be seen from the roadside, at the top of a steep hill and lying under a small escarpment. The hillside had been set alight recently and thus the ground was bare. We found the footing to be difficult as we made our way up the dry, clumpy soil up the 30 to 40 degree slope. From the light cave chamber one goes straight back and comes to a wall with an opening into a larger chamber, what I would call the dark cave.. Through the opening is a steep and slippery slope. Since Jamaica Underground told us that the dark cave entrance would be an easier way to go through, we went back out, traversed along the edge of the escarpment and came to the dark cave entrance.

From the dark cave entrance we went into the large dark chamber that we could see from the light cave. The light of the morning sun showed through the light cave entrance, then through the hole at the end of the light cave chamber and into this one. Where the light struck within the dark cave I found historical graffiti. As far back as 1821 people had written their names and the year, apparently with coal, and in a rather elegant fashion. This led me to wonder whether we might find Taino petroglyphs or pictographs in the same area, as it seemed an obvious place to do so. With the assistance of Ivor and Elizabeth we looked around, but found no such evidence of Taino occupation.

Comb Cave
District: Mouth River Area	Parish: Trelawny
JAD69: 187000 E, 184000 N
Altitude: 400m JAD69	Accuracy: +/- >1km horizontal; >30m vertical
Type: Undetermined	Accessibility: Undetermined
Depth: Undetermined	Length: Undetermined
Explorers: McGrath - GSD	Survey: N/A
JU Ref: Text - pg 127; Map - none
Comments: This site is lost at this time. JU gives us, "Site is marked on McGrath field map, but not since located".

Crayfish Cave April 2, 2005 - 9:00-9:30 EST
District: Rock Spring	Parish: Trelawny
WGS84 L/L: 18 18 31.5; 77 34 10.4
JAD69: 189675 E, 183977 N	JAD2001: 689786 E, 684266 N
Altitude: 490m WGS84	Accuracy: +/- 10m horizontal; +/- 15m vertical
Type: Sumped sink	Accessibility: Dive
Depth: 0	Length: 6m
Explorers: KHE - 1965	Survey: KHE - 1965
JU Ref: Text - pg 135; Map - pg 136
Entrance size: 2m W x 1m H	Entrance aspect: 140 deg true
Vegetation in general locale: Farm, scrub	Vegetation at entrance: Scrub
Rock type: Yellow - White limestone junction	Bedding: Moderate	Jointing: Undetermined
Speleothems: Undetermined	Palaeo resources: Undetermined
Archaeo resources: None
Hydrology: Wet	Siltation: Moderate
Sink: Active	Rising: Undetermined
Stream passage with surface activity: Flooded	Stream passage without surface activity: N/A
Dark zone: >90%.	Climate: Cool, humid.
Bats: None	Bat guano: N/A
Guano mining: N/A	Guano condition: N/A
Eleutherodactylus cundalli: Some	Neoditomyia farri: None
Amblypygids: None	Periplaneta americana: None
Cave crickets: None	Sesarma: Undetermined
Other species: No trogs. This is a short passage that is flooded in much of it. We could not get into to it to look, but it is likely that stygobites are present, crabs, Sesarma spp, as they are found in most of the other stream passages in the district, and the name Crayfish suggests that shrimp were observed here by the KHE.
Visitation: None	Speleothem damage: None
Graffiti: None	Garbage: Undetermined
Ownership: Private	Protection: None
Vulnerability: Medium. The sink is found at the end of a stream that rises at Pool Cave, and has an aboveground course of 100 metres. Siltation is a problem because of farming in the district..

Crayfish Cave

April 2, 2005

Team: Stewart, Roggy

Notes: RS Stewart

This site was found by Stewart and Roggy just before we located Pool Cave. We had been traversing cross-ways to the streambed that we knew to exist between the two, to use this to locate both targets, and we happened to first hit it at the downstream end, the sink of Crayfish Cave.

A currently muddy pit, (pulse event from Hurricane Ivan appears to have silted in a number of the sinks in the district), takes water from the end of a short stream that rises at the north entrance of Pool Cave. Although the KHE managed to get in here a few metres, and then dive a short sump to reach several more metres of passage with air-space, we were not able to penetrate this sink at all when we found it due to mud, (although it allowed water to flow through it in several holes). The land immediately around the sink is overgrown scrub pasture, and has poor cover. We found Pool Cave to be fairly silt-free, for reasons described in those notes, so it does not seem to be the main source of the mud. Most of what is entering Crayfish Cave comes from the land on either side of the streambed downstream of the Pool Cave rising.

The name of this cave is interesting, because "Crayfish" is Jamaican for river-shrimps. Apparently either the KHE found them here, or the people of the district had seen them in the pool at the entrance sink. We looked for shrimps during our time in the river caves of Rock Spring, but didn't see any. Part of the problem was that other than Mouth Maze, we were usually in stream-passages that had no dry floor - we were constantly wading/swimming and stirring up sediment, so there was no chance of seeing them. We had no choice in this, because there were so many caves to cover in the relatively short time that funding allowed - we could not spend hours standing around in any one cave. This was recognized in our planning for the proposal, and we had thusly limited our activities to gathering as much information as quickly as we could, with a foucs on indicators such as bats, guano, roaches, N. farri, siltation, etc, and positions that would enable researchers to easily find sites that might be of interest to them, as suggested by the indicators.

From Crayfish Cave, we followed the streambed upstream to find it rising from an entrance to a passage that resembled what we should expect for Pool Cave. After wading through this passage to the south, and finding it to match the KHE map, along with the entrance at the south end where we came out, we were sure that we had both Crayfish and Pool Caves. In the course of it, GPS georeferencing was done for the three entrances, and it will be a lot easier for others to find these sites in the future than it was for Dietrich and I, (much tramping around in the bush with a machete).

Far Enough Cave May 13, 2005 - 12:00-13:00 EST
District: Rock Spring	Parish: Trelawny
WGS84 L/L: 18 18 58.0; 77 34 23.2	UTM:
JAD69:	JAD2001:
Altitude: 450m WGS84	Accuracy: +/- 20m horizontal; +/- 20m vertical
Type: Stream passage	Accessibility: Vertical gear
Depth: 8	Length: 380m
Explorers: KHE - 1965	Survey: KHE - 1965
JU Ref: Text - pg 171; Map - pg 171
Entrance size: 2m W	Entrance aspect: 225 deg true
Vegetation in general locale: Bush, meadow	Vegetation at entrance: Flood meadow
Rock type: Yellow - White limestone junction	Bedding: Moderate	Jointing: Moderate
Speleothems: Undetermined	Palaeo resources: Undetermined
Archaeo resources: None
Hydrology: Wet