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Jamaican Caving Notes |
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May 09, 2003 ROTA CAVE: Field notes: R. S. STEWART Cavers: R. S. Stewart, M. Taylor Once again, Malibu and I set a course for Maroon Town to visit Rota Cave and Rota Sink. En route, I had to make a swing through Falmouth, and by the time we arrived at about 11 AM, showers had already begun. It is interesting to note that almost every time we've been to Maroon Town there is rain, even when there is nary a drop in Springvale and points to the NE. The springs that gush forth from the eponymous Vale are entirely dependent on this frequent rain in Maroon Town. The river cave called Rota Cave, that we were about to revisit, is part of this underground system, and one of the main feeders for the Springvale risings, so it can be inferred that this frequent rain has been taking place for many thousands of years. The many people in north Trelawny who rely upon the risings, from the pumping station at Springvale South, and from the Martha Brae River which is fed from these risings, know little of the sources and routes of these waters. If they could visit the large cow pasture in Maldon that regularly adds cow feces to the Tangle River, just before it sinks at Peterkin Cave, they would understand why there is a sign at Deeside advising people to not drink the water. We parked at Maldon and quickly arrived at Rota Cave west entrance. Even before reaching it, we could see that the cave would be more hydrologically active; the seasonal streambed, Bottom Ground River, that runs into Rota W, had a flow of about 25 cm depth and this was disappearing, with a noise of siphoning and low rumbling, into a small sink just before the cave entrance. With a brief delay for a picture of Malibu coming down the first scramble, into the water, we began our journey to the main river passage. In March we had traveled this section with dry feet, but this time, from the bottom of the entrance scramble on, we were walking through water 30 - 80 cm deep with the now much louder roar of the river in the distance ahead of us. Remembering the flood into this system the previous June, I began to look carefully for signs of past high-water marks. Disconcertingly, I found rafted bamboo debris up the wall some 2 - 3 metres, and although this was below the roof of the passage, it was hard to imagine swimming back upstream against the current that must have been occurring when the waters were that high. It would be expected that the last event was the previous Oct - Nov, but we were into the spring rainy season and things can change quickly. We carried on but I began to rethink the plan for Rota Sink. Rota Cave is large and high, and will not flood so quickly, but the Sink is quite different. At the main river passage, we could see that the waters were about 50 cm higher than in March, but still manageable. I intended to try to get upriver somewhat before turning back and then following the river to the east entrance. Upstream from the T-junction where one arrives at the main river passage, the water was quite deep and stretched off into the distance with no sign of dry land ahead. On the south side of the main passage, upstream, a small passage conducts the stream that sinks near the west entrance into the main passage. This is in fact where the tributary Bottom Ground River joins the Tangle River. We decided to explore this small passage; we had not been in it before and it is shown in JU as leading to the west entrance although it has only been completed by the "diminutive Drew" of the GSD, (this gleaned from JU if a proper reading has been made of the notes given). A swim through the river brought us to a small waterfall where the Bottom Ground River entered via the small passage. We had only one life-preserver, so I went first with the end of the 30 m rope tied to me, then attached the jacket so that Malibu could haul it back to him and use it to cross. Now joined up again, we moved upstream, in a passage some 2 m wide and 2 high, through a series of small waterfalls and rapids that splashed between beautiful clean formations. As we progressed, it became steadily smaller until we came to a point where to continue further would have required crawls through a small passage that was now half-flooded. I had known that we had no hope of completing the route, the stream that had disappeared in a small pool in front of the west entrance was the very one we were travelling up, but had lead us up it, as much as for the purposes of future exploration, as just because it had looked so beautifully inviting. (When we are next in the cave during the dry season, we'll try to complete this route.) Turning back, we returned to the main river passage and swam across again to get to the T-junction at the start of the lower river passage. Downstream from the T-junction, we were able to avoid swimming by keeping on boulders along the south wall. Oddly, two flags that had been left in place the previous March, to be collected on this return, were very deterioriated, appearing to have been partially eaten by a small insect or similar thing. The flags were standard 2.5 cm plastic survey ribbon and were full of tiny holes to the point where some 30 - 40% of the material was gone. This is a first for me, seeing this. We seldom leave flags behind, and none that I can recall in systems partly invaded by American roaches, so maybe it was these vermin that were responsible. I left one of my orange flags in place to monitor in the future and retrieved the others. The flag appears to be above the high-water level. Because of the increased flow of the river compared to March, and the resultant turbidity, it was difficult to look for crayfish and crabs etc, and none were seen, but a quick glance at the bat chambers near the eastern end of the cave showed the numbers to still be plentiful. We did not enter their chambers, and looked only briefly from the river passage end, to avoid causing disturbance. Roaches continue to plague this cave but in numbers much less than found in others. Our successful journey through this cave at this time, the first week of the rainy season, helps to define the period of safe visitation; the first week of March had been fine, and the third week of June 2002, the phreatic zone had been some 2 metres higher than on this day, flooding the passage to "rimstone pools", and making the entire cave too dangerous to enter. We made our way out the east entrance and having decided to pass on Rota Sink because of flood risk, we returned to the car. We still had some time left, so we decided to hunt down Jarmon Bottom Cave. A drive back towards Maroon Town found us an older gentleman near the road who claimed to know the best route to this cave and because we had had everyone and their uncle's dog trying take us to this cave, we assumed that he knew what he was doing. We headed off on a track from the church parking lot and after some 15 minutes of my watching our track on the GPS as we hiked along, I noticed that we were heading straight towards Rota East entrance again. I began to have serious doubts about our guide's knowledge and let Malibu know. After a short time, we did indeed arrive on the hillside above the east entrance to Rota Cave. I attempted to explain to our "guide" that this was in fact Rota Cave but he was insistent that this was Jarmon Bottom. In disgust, after our scrambling down to the entrance so that I could show Malibu that, yes, this is where we just were a while ago, we hiked back out to the car. A word of advice to cavers visiting Maroon Town: assume that everyone will call every cave Jarmon Bottom and conduct yourselves accordingly. |
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