Jamaican Caving Notes

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 Loftin 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) Princeton Tec “Matrix” 1 watt, 1 LED waterproof lamps for this and other video projects. Those little head mounted spotlights worked like a charm, mounted on Mike’s head while videoing, and in my hand when and where necessary to provide side lighting. Additional help from others who had incandescent lamps lent a good blend of color to the video. I also took still shots occasionally with Mike’s digital camera (in a sturdy waterproof housing), and got some in situ shots of the crabs that Stef was hunting for the biological inventory project.

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 Windsor Castle Cave, nearby. We documented the garbage in the mouth of the cave (including a whole car and piles of disposable diapers). We got video of Stef talking about the cave, the fact that it takes water, and that the water travels underground and eventually emerges in what Jamaicans refer to as “springs.” We then drove a short distance away and came across a stone structure that started at grade and went down to an underground stream. This is a place where people catch water for drinking purposes and have done so for some time. According to a man who approached us, the structure had been constructed around 1920. We captured video of the structure, and again Stef talking about the interconnectedness of the hydrology here in Jamaica, where so much of the island is limestone. This video of Windsor Castle Cave and the structure where people catch groundwater is great for the water quality video that I’ve been planning and corresponding with Stef about since June or so of last year.

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.